Review: two from William H. Kemp - take one, it's big

The Renewable Energy Handbook: A guide to rural energy independence, off-grid and sustainable living, William H. Kemp, Aztext Press, 2005, $29.95 USD from Aztext Press

$mart Power: An urban guide to renewable energy and efficiency, William H. Kemp, Aztext Press, 2004, £14.76 from Amazon.co.uk

Kemp has produced a pair of informative and accessible books on what renewable energy means to the average consumer.  The Renewable Energy Handbook explains everything from how to pick an energy efficient appliance, to what a 'cord' of firewood is and what it should look like, to making your own biodiesel.  $mart Power explains everything from the 'urbine' (the urban wind turbine), to how fuel economy relates to vehicle emissions, to... making your own biodiesel?  And therein lies the weakness in an otherwise fine pair of books.  We're all for recycling here at HippyShopper, but Kemp takes it too far.

Both of the introductions have substantially recycled material (and we're not talking restatements of the same ideas, we're talking wholesale cut-and-paste from one book to the other).  That's not the only recycling - the worst is where a good chunk of Chapter 16 in the Renewable Energy Handbook is virtually identical to Chapter 5 in $mart Power, right down to the clip art.  While $mart Power is nominally aimed at "urban" people and the Handbook is aimed at "rural", there is no excuse for out and out copying from one book into another without any obvious indicator that "sections of this material were previously published in" blah blah blah, as is customary. 

I appreciate that Aztext Press is a small house and they probably wanted to save money on layout - but still, they should have had a disclaimer prominently featured in the book (on the copyright page is where it usually goes).  If I were a fan of Kemp's work and I bought both, I would be very disappointed.  Which is too bad, since there is legitimately a lot of interesting material that is well presented.  The moral of the story: just buy whichever one applies most to you.  Then again, if we are trying to be less consumerist, perhaps that's a good lesson. 

[GT]