I once wrote a column about how my husband and I referred to home repair books when we had to fix leaky toilets or caulk windows.

A neighbor, who was the type to do things like build 100 feet of fence in an afternoon, thought this was a hoot.

Hey, it worked for us, first-time homeowners with nary a shop class between us in our combined decades of education. We were babes in our wood-floored domain.

Twenty years later, I can find the water main without checking a fix-it guide. But now I need help navigating the crazy new world order.

High energy costs and possible shortages, the specter of environmental ruin due to global warming and health and food concerns have sent me back to the books. Here are some volumes I've found helpful -- a summer reading list for sustainability.

* "The Long Emergency," by James Howard Kunstler, opened my eyes to the concept of "peak oil." Many scientists and energy experts believe that we are near the point at which half the oil in the ground has been extracted. The second half will become progressively more difficult to obtain, until the energy needed to obtain the oil exceeds its value.

The concept of peak oil doesn't completely explain our current energy problems, but it is vital to any understanding of it. Kunstler may be overly pessimistic and the book is a bit of a rant. But his central message, that we're dreaming if we think we can easily replace oil's role in our lives, is right on target.

Kunstler's recent novel about a post-peak era, "A World Made by Hand," is also a good read -- both sad and scary, yet hopeful: Without our cars and TVs to isolate us, would we actually live more fulfilling lives?

* "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," Barbara Kingsolver's account of a year of eating locally, is wise, humorous and eminently readable. It also includes recipes. Eating locally helps preserve farmlands, cuts transportation costs and pollution and may be a necessity in the future as peak oil comes to pass. I devoted a whole column to this wonderful book last summer so I'll just say that it's out in paperback and is perfect for hammock-reading time. Warning: You may feel compelled to get up and plant something about a third of the way through.

* At the outset of "In Defense of Food," Michael Pollan declares his philosophy: "Eat food. Mostly plants. Not too much."

Much of what we see on supermarket shelves is so heavily processed it barely deserves the title of food; Pollan advises trying to stick to food your great-grandmother would recognize as such. Though he doesn't advocate vegetarianism, he does concur with Thomas Jefferson's observation that meat should be a "condiment for the vegetables."

Eating too much is an American pastime -- while the French stop eating when they are full, Americans only quit when their plates are empty. Pollan hilariously tells of one surveyor who actually rigged restaurant bowls to keep refilling themselves. Some people ate up to a full quart. And we wonder why obesity is rampant?

* "Living Like Ed" is Ed Begley Jr'.s text version of his HGTV show. Begley lives a sustainable lifestyle in a small, solar-refitted house and drives a Prius when he's not walking or taking mass transit. As a successful actor, he could afford to be a flagrant waster of natural resources. But there on page 30 is Ed in the white-socks-and-sneakers look I razz my husband about wearing, hanging clothes on a wooden drying rack. I love that.

I turn to this book to see what I should do next (stick my head into the attic to check on the insulation, I think) and for inspiration. If Ed and his slinky blonde wife, Rachelle (she's the comic relief to Ed's earnestness), can do it, then so can I.

* "The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map to True Riches," by Jeff Yeager, has landed a vaunted place next to my economic bibles, "Your Money or Your Life" and the Tightwad Gazette trilogy. Yeager -- between jokes -- advises readers to find financial security the old-fashioned way, by spending less than they make. This includes the suggestion to "pay off your mortgage ASAP." Though other experts incredibly keep advising people to keep home loans as "good debt," banks can't foreclose on homes they don't own.

Why spend your summer running aimlessly on the hamster wheel of anxiety when you could get educated instead? Remember, you read that here first.

Liz Soares of Augusta is a freelance writer and the author of "All for Maine: The Story of Gov. Percival P. Baxter." She welcomes e-mail at baxter24@aol.com.