In November of 2006, Colin Beavan, a writer of historical nonfiction, embarked on a yearlong ''lifestyle experiment'' in which he vowed to reduce his planetary impact by producing (nearly) no trash, using (hardly) any carbon fuel and buying almost nothing new except food, and only that grown within a 250-mile radius of his home in New York City (which he said is the farthest distance farmers at the Union Square Greenmarket travel to sell their produce). Mr. Beavan's wife, Michelle Conlin, a reporter at Business Week, and their daughter, Isabella, who was then 2, were by necessity embroiled in this stunt, which was further complicated by their address, an apartment on the ninth floor of a prewar coop on Lower Fifth Avenue. Mr. Beavan wrote a blog (noimpactman.com) about the experiment and got a book deal for it; it was also the subject of a documentary, titled ''No Impact Man'' as well. The experience seemed both confounding and compelling, and raised all sorts of questions about his larger motives, his marriage and even his bathroom habits (the stricture to produce no trash included using no paper products; ergo, no toilet paper). The questioners included those at a variety of places -- from The New York Times to ''The Colbert Report,'' NPR and French Glamour -- who pounced on the project, eager to dissect Mr. Beavan's particular expression of personal activism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]