Thought this seemed like a nice day trip to an amazing part of the state, so I'm posting it here for your perusal.

When the weather outside is frightful, indoor browsing is delightful in the inviting independent bookstores that are still alive and well in Connecticut's Fairfield County and Litchfield Hills.  

 Personal and comfortable shops like these are an endangered species in the wake of giant stores and on-line shopping, yet these very special spots continue to survive and thrive, providing the kind of experience book lovers crave. Browsers will find a warm welcome, staffs that know books and owners who are often around to chat and recommend.  Best sellers are on view, but so are treasures selected by knowledgeable owners, titles that might have escaped notice in a superstore.  While they are old-fashioned in many ways, these stores do keep up with the times and offer a full array of e-books.

 A bookstore tour makes for a wonderful afternoon, plus a stack of reading pleasure to take home. Along with books, visitors will be discovering charming towns with other unique shops.  Bring the kids along—they will make discoveries, too.

 Litchfield Hills
The Hickory Stick Book Shop in Washington Depot is exactly the kind of shop book lovers appreciate. A community fixture for over 60 years, the store has owners and staff with over 100 years (collectively) in the book business. They are ready to help answer questions, find a particular title or suggest something unexpected. Like many of these independent bookstores, the Hickory Stick promotes "indie next" choices culled from many independent booksellers, aimed at adults as well as children and reading groups.

 

In historic quarters on a street lined with intriguing shops, Kent's House of Books features quality literature and a vault filled with children's books. Befitting a town on the Appalachian Trail, they carry a good stock of maps; trail guides and books on the out-of-doors. Bank Street Book Nook in New Milford is another small gem; full of finds and with a train set to keep kids happy while parents shop.

 Fairfield County

 The Barnett Book Store has had many reincarnations since it opened for business in Stamford in 1939. The attractive present location in the Noroton Heights section of Darien stocks all manner of interesting books, fiction and non-fiction, and excellent children's books, as well.  Books on the Common in Ridgefield is another survivor. A fixture since 1984 in various locations, the store was reborn in 2009 in a 100-year old building right on the town's charming Main Street, maintaining the atmosphere and interesting stock that has kept customers loyal since the start.   Elm Street Books in New Canaan is another example of the kind of store avid readers crave, small, personal and packed with treasures. The store features many readings and autograph sessions with authors.

 One of the most unusual stores is Diane's Books in Greenwich. When Diane Garrett opened 1990, some said she was crazy, given the negative trends and competition.  But Garrett proved them wrong with her concept, a "family bookstore " where she knows her customers and serves them from childhood to adulthood. All ages enjoy the informal atmosphere of the store where stacks of books are piled on shelves, tables and the floor and notes and signatures from authors cover the walls.

  Old and rare

 Western Connecticut also has treasure troves for those who love the finds hiding among stacks of used books, and collectors will find prizes among the region's rare book dealers. At the Tattered Pages Book Shop in Monroe in Fairfield County, two big floors are chock-a-block with used books, some 30,000 of them. A 1783 schoolhouse in Litchfield County is home to Lavender Path Antiques and Books in Harwinton, another large dealer with a stock of 20,000 used and out-of-print titles. Litchfield Hills offerings for collectors includes Barbara Farnsworth Booksellers in West Cornwall that offers more than 45,000 books with large selections in a wide variety of categories and Salisbury's Johnnycake Books that sells rare and collectible titles in appropriately vintage quarters a nineteenth century cottage.

 

For more information on area shops and free color guides to nearby attractions, lodging and dining in the Litchfield Hills and Fairfield County, contact the Western Connecticut Visitors Bureau, PO Box 968, Litchfield, CT 06759, (860) 567-4506, www.visitwesternct.com.

 

 

Information:

Bank Street Book Nook, 50 Bank Street, New Milford, 860-354-3865, www.bankstbooknook.com

Barbara Farnsworth Bookseller, 407 Route 128, West Cornwall, 860-672-6571, farnsworthbooks.com

Barrett Bookstore, 314 Heights Road, Darien, 203-655-2712, barrettbookstore.com
Books on the Common, 404 Main Street, Ridgefield, 203-431-9100, booksonthecommon.com

Diane's Books, 8 Grigg Street, #A, Greenwich, 203-869-1515, dianesbooks.com

Elm Street Books, 35 Elm Street, New Canaan, 203-966-4545, elmstreetbooks.com           

Hickory Stick Bookshop, 2 Greenhill Road, Washington Depot, 860-868-0525, hickorystickbookshop.com

House of Books, 10 North Main Street, Kent, 860-927-4104, hobooks.com

Johnnycake Books, 12 Academy Street, Salisbury, 860-435-6677, johnnycakebooks.com

Lavender Path Antiques and Books, 50 South Street, Harwinton, 860-689-8081, http://www.lavenderpathantiques.com

Tattered Pages Book Shop, 150 Main Street, Monroe, 203-261-6755, www.tatteredpagesbookshop.com.

 Editor's note: All information in this post was contributed. It is largely unedited here. (And it's a press release, but since reading is cool, it's posted here as a public service to those who might be looking for something to do!)

Heck yes, this is interesting. What's not interesting about the idea the air folks breathe around airports might be able to be made cleaner? Go figure, those folks over at Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies figured it out. So I'm sharing it. I did not edit it - not even a little.

 

A Yale study examining the impact of aviation on climate change found that removing sulfur from jet fuel cools the atmosphere. The study was published in the October 22 issue of Geophysical Research Letters.

 

"Aviation is really important to the global economy. We better understand what it's doing to climate because it's the fastest growing fossil fuel-burning sector and there is no alternative to air travel in many circumstances. Emissions are projected to increase substantially in the next two decades—by a factor of two—whereas projections for other sectors are expected to decrease," said Nadine Unger, the study's author and assistant professor of climate science at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.

 

Particles of sulfate, formed by burning sulfur-laden jet fuel, act like tiny mirrors that scatter solar radiation back into space. When sulfur is removed from the fuel, warming occurs but it's offset by the cooling effect of nitrate that forms from nitrogen oxides in jet exhaust. The result is that desulfurization of jet fuel has a small, net cooling effect.

 

In 2006 the United States introduced an ultralow sulfur standard for highway diesel, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is interested in desulfurized jet fuel for its potential to improve air quality around airports. Aircraft exhaust particles lodge in the lungs and cause respiratory and cardiovascular illness. In 2006 there were more than 31 million flights across the globe, according to an FAA emissions inventory.

 

"It's a win-win situation, because the sulfate can be taken out of the fuel to improve air quality around airports and, at the same time, it's not going to have a detrimental impact on global warming," she said.

Unger used a global-scale model that assessed the impact of reducing the amount of sulfur in jet fuel from 600 milligrams per kilogram of fuel to 15 milligrams per kilogram, which is the level targeted by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

 

The study also simulated the full impacts of aviation emissions, such as ozone, methane, carbon dioxide, sulfate and contrails—those ribbons of clouds that appear in the wake of a jet—whereas previous studies examined each chemical effect only in isolation.

 

"In this study we tried to put everything together so that we account for interactions between those different chemical effects," said Unger. "We find that only a third of the climate impact from aviation can be attributed to carbon dioxide."

 

Unger also ran a simulation of aviation emissions at the Earth's surface and found that the climate impact is four times greater because the emissions occur at altitude in the upper atmosphere.

 

"The chemical production of ozone is greater in the upper troposphere and its radiative efficiency is greater," she said. "It's a stronger greenhouse gas when it's higher up in the troposphere, which is exactly where aviation is making it."

 

The paper, "Global Climate Impact of Civil Aviation for Standard and Desulferized Jet Fuel," can be found at http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/gl1120/2011GL049289/.