Join Desmond Tutu, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, J.M. Coetzee, Noam Chomsky, Mary Robinson and more in reminding G8 leaders of their obligation to the poor. This Avaaz petition will be handed in tomorrow, so sign it today!

This Friday, the finance ministers from the world's eight richest countries will meet to plan the G8 summit. We will send them an urgent letter on global poverty, signed by key global figures: Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson--and, we hope, you.

Our message: keep your promise to provide 0.7% of national income in effective aid to relieve extreme poverty. Millions of lives are at stake. The more people sign the letter, the more powerful our demand becomes. Click here to sign:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/g8_poverty_letter/tf.php

The statistics of global poverty are shocking. Each day, 20,000 children die preventable deaths in poor countries. That's why the broken promises of rich countries are so infuriating.

The world's rich countries have pledged 0.7% of their national income to development aid. But these promises have not been kept. In fact, outrageously, the G8 countries gave less in 2006 than in 2005.

At the same time, the last few years have seen an unprecedented groundswell against global poverty--which has led to new promises and, in some countries, real change. These fights can be won. That's why we are working with our friends at the Global Call to Action Against Poverty to assemble citizens and celebrities behind a single call--for world leaders to keep their word on global poverty.

Here's an excerpt from the letter:

"Together you represent the world's economic powerhouses. We write to ask that you also strive to represent the millions of people whose lives are blighted by extreme poverty.

Aid is not a panacea. But Marshall Plan aid from the US kick-started the rebuilding of a Europe shattered by war and delivered real benefits to the US in terms of new markets for its goods. Aid to East Asia helped catalyse the economic miracles that have lifted millions of people out of poverty. Today many African governments are using aid to underwrite growth and provide essential schools, health services and water supplies for their people. The poorest countries in the world need you to honour these aid pledges if they are to meet the Millennium Development Goals and end poverty. Please seize that chance today."

The letter will be delivered Friday with big ads in the Financial Times and German press, just in time for the G8 finance ministers' meeting. Click here to join Desmond Tutu by signing on:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/g8_poverty_letter/tf.php

There's nothing like wandering around a vast hall full of excitement - books are in the air! Well, truthfully, a library or good bookshop is better, but it is the promise of things to come which I always enjoy at the London Book Fair. Not working at buying and selling them this year meant that I was free to roam at will. I do miss knowing ahead of time what is coming out later in the year - anticipation and delayed gratification do add to the relishing of a new title by a favourite author. So collecting catalogues and chatting with the reps I used to see in the shop was interesting.

However, LBF is changing, and some of the big publishers wall themselves in like Fort Knox, staffing the entrance with folks that eye you with suspicion ("You shall not pass!"). It is always refreshing to pass the smaller publishers, like the charming Snowbooks (whose Emma Barnes coincidentally keeps a delightful publisher blog), a much friendlier lot.

My favourite freebie from the fair is an advance copy from the kind folks at Faber of Barbara Kingsolver's ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE: Our Year of Seasonal Eating. It is not out until July, so there's no information on their website yet, but the blurb from the back of the book reads:

When Barbara Kingsolver and her family move from suburban Arizona to rural Appalachia they set themselves a task: to eat local produce, grow their own or go without, in an effort to live in a way that is better for them and the environment.

This is the story of their first year. They plant vegetables, rear turkeys and get to know their local farming community, overcoming substantial hurdles they face by trying to live a simple life in an "eat now/think later society". Along the way they discover just how compromised our food supply has become and how estranged we have become from the natural processes of the food chain.

Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, and stuffed full of delicious recipes and factual sidebars, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle makes a passionate case for living in a way that is enriching for communities and respectful of the planet.

I thoroughly enjoy this kind of book, increasingly important in today's world as we search out ways to make our lifestyles more sound and forgiving on the environment and those around us.

When I was a child, growing up on a mission station in rural KwaZulu, there wasn't much choice in the matter - we had no electricity, collected rainwater for drinking, pumped water from the river for household pipes, grew vegetables and kept chickens and geese. Town was far away and expensive, and we needed to be more or less self-sustaining. John Seymour's SELF-SUFFICIENCY was our bible and I remember having a (somewhat bizarre, I grant you) fascination with the pictures describing slaughtering animals - but then we did that ourselves too. It seemed like a perfectly normal way to live, but I realize now how incredibly hard my parents worked to keep us all going. But this re-engaging with land, growing your own vegetables, keeping your own animals is receiving a resurgence in interest in the west, which is no bad thing.

A few years ago Leo Hickman was challenged by The Guardian to live a more sustainable lifestyle in London for one year. He wrote about it in the paper and afterwards produced a wonderful book called A LIFE STRIPPED BARE: my year trying to live ethically, describing his experience. I highly recommend it (my own copy is loaned out at the moment so I can't give you a sample). It is funny and thought-provoking, and entirely non-judgemental. What comes across strongly is Hickman's desire to live a healthier lifestyle for his family's sake. He is not prescriptive, but stresses the importance of educating yourself in options available for the life you lead, and then making informed choices that feel comfortable to you, rather than simply accepting the structure of wider society as an insurmountable and overwhelming obstacle to change: engaged living, if you will. It was a funny and poignant book. A companion reference volume A GOOD LIFE: the guide to ethical living covers issues and suppliers in the UK, but read A LIFE STRIPPED BARE first, as it is the bit with soul.

Thanks to Musical Dave for pointing me in the direction of an ongoing urban sustainable living project in New York City. NO IMPACT MAN blogs daily about his family's experiment, with some wonderful, thoughtprovoking and hilarious results. The "comments" are often marvellous as people make suggestions for how to improve his life.

Something we are very interested in ourselves, although my meagre planting this week of the herb patch is such a tiny step. This weekend, it will be purple sprouting broccoli, lettuce and tomatoes going in. I'll let you know about the Kingsolver. In the meantime I'm thinking climbing beans and pumpkins...