I should have read reviews of this book before buying it. I've been a member of a local, organic, community supported farm for 2 summers BEFORE I read this book. The first couple of chapters were very hard to get through, and I kept thinking, OK she's going to get into the specifics soon... But they never came. I assumed that she'd be writing to an audience that already knew of the importance of eating locally, and was going to give good advice on how to apply it practically for a whole year. WRONG. I'm a little more than halfway through and I can't wait to be done with it. There are no details about the variety in her garden, pest control, planting times for different produce. Perhaps the biggest disappointment is the fact that they didn't really only eat local food! Rice, olives, sugar, sardines! What a ripoff. The tone is preachy, she hits you over the head with themes again and again, and there are only a handful of recipes, most of which have one or more nonlocal ingredient. Just. Disappointing. And a total waste of money.

I found this story fascinating and inspiring! I originally listened to this book as a download but had to buy a hard copy to loan out because I keep recommending it. If you are interested in learning more about the local food movement, sustainable farming/gardening, seasonal eating, etc... this book is for you. I have always been a city girl but six months after I read this book I was blessed with the opportunity to move to a nearby organic family farm and I love it!
Reading this book also caused me to check out Kingsolver's novels and I have really enjoyed those as well, especially The Bean Trees.

I love the message of this book but found the stream of consciousness writing style was a bit distracting. It was hard with all the side tracks to read this for more then short sessions although I was really pulling for the turkeys at the end. Barbara was also a bit heavy handed in her promotion of her friends who so happen to be offering this book on their web sites. I would have loved to found the reference for the source of the statement that is take 1.2 acres to grow food for one person today and in the year 2050 we will only have .6. That is a startling fact that I have found nothing to back it up. Barbara is pretty good for the most part in providing back up for statements. The other major puzzle was why the heck did she not buy her husband a flour mill so they could grind their own flour. They are not that expensive and fresh ground flour is so much more nutritious. Once milled wheat starts to break down as soon as oxygen and light to the expose kernel, plus all the driving around to find flour seems to be a serous waste of time.

Barbara Kingsolver's lyric prose is so fun to read, and it's good for you too! It's heartening to see the locavore movement get such attention on a national scale. Maybe American food culture isn't doomed after all. The inserts from her family are entertaining, but sometimes awkwardly placed. I can't wait to lend this out to my friends.

I enjoyed reading this book as a story about a family and how they chose to eat for a year. It certainly inspired me to cook more often, and to head to the farmer's market up the street a little more often. The sections I didn't like were those by Kingsolver and her husband broached bigger societal issues like subsidies for big agriculture companies, problems with feed lot animals, etc. These are all very real problems, but I wish the book had given more details, some statistics, references and footnotes from where her info came from, etc. Also, as a well-informed vegetarian of 17 years, I found the section about how vegetarians are all delusional to be very demeaning and her arguments weak.

Anyhow, read it for the family and farming story. But also pick up "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan for a much better explanation of the bigger issues.

I avoided reading this book for a while, because I had the feeling that I wasn't going to like it. And then a friend brought it to my house. Well, I was right. Two stars for some (but not many) good anecdotes. A bad review for a humorless, avuncular tone. We, consumers, are getting clobbered over the head from every direction with the "locavore" message anyway. Although I am in agreement with the idea that it is important to support our local farmers, it really is a conceit to think that this food is accessible to everyone. Also, I'd like to know more about the economics involved. Is it really more fuel-efficient to have dozens of farmers drive to the farmers market and hundreds of people make a special trip, compared to the economies of scale present in our big grocery store system? Just wondering. . .

You won't find answers to any difficult questions in this book. Instead, Ms. Kingsolver uses the money that she's made from her loyal fan base to look down her nose at us and write a santimonius, preachy book about how we all should be eating. I fail to see how her year of intensive gardening on her large farm in Appalachia has any bearing on the problem of how we average folks can actually best spend limited food dollars. It seems to me, that if she really wanted to make a difference, she would have spent the year dipping into her sizable bank account to buy local farm products from people who truly are trying to make a living that way rather than just ramping up her gardening efforts. Don't buy this book unless you love being condescended to.

I love anything by Barbara Kingsolver and this book was no exception. She made a believer out of me and many of our bookclub members. Even though many of us do not have gardens (this year anyway), we're all haunting the farmers' markets in town and stocking up on organic, locally grown produce, meats, eggs and dairy. The writing was just as mesmerizing as any of her fiction -- one of those books that you just don't want to finish because you don't want to not be reading it.

I don't even remember how i came across this book, but it was definitely a good read. Not 5 stars as the book was a little repetitive and slow at times, but definitely 4 stars. The book is another of the typical "i'm going to change my life and write about it plus add in statistics and side stories and such". Which is fine because i like books like this. I felt that one of the strongest points of this book were the short essay's and recipes from the authors husband and daughter. These helped the book move along and provided a break from all the local food statistics and preaching. I'm your interested in reading about local food, gardening, and rural east coast life this book would be for you.

Do you know what a CAFO is? I confess that I did. I learned it from reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan but I did not know what a locavore was or that it was chosen as 2007's word of the year by The New Oxford American Dictionary. I also had no clue what the 100 Mile Diet was, though in retrospect, it should be pretty easy to figure out.

I have been fascinated with the subject of additives to our foods and a more natural way of eating for quite some time. That is what lead me to read books on the subject. With this book, Barbara Kingsolver has written in a fascinating and approachable way about what it means to really know your food sources. However, it's about more than just that. It's about working for and truly enjoying your food, not just settling for the closest and fastest thing available. It's about being connected to the community that labors together to produce, savoring the best that the seasons have to offer and not taking it all for granted.

There are recipes, informative sidebars written by her husband, Steven Hopp, and sections by her daughter Camille that share a young person's perspective on being raised and living this way. In fact, the best parts of the book for me were about how this all tied in as a family experience. Everyone does their part and enjoys gathering together to perform the work, however difficult it is, as well as reap the benefits.

There were some areas where I didn't agree with the author due to philosophical differences but, overall, I loved this book!

I enjoyed this book! The writing style was easy, informative and very motivational! What a neat topic to research for a year. This an easy and comfortable book to curl up with. I hope it changes the world! I recommend it for the health of your family and the planet!

You'd probably like this book if you're looking to introduce natural or organic food consumption into your every day like. For me, it was a waste of $9. It was a slow read and did not hold my interest.

This is a fascinating, insightful, well written and easy-to-read book explaining in detail how our dependency on food from global sources has made us that much more dependent on oil to have the food brought to us, and this is an extremely enlightening description of how we can rid ourselves of this fuel dependency as a society by changing things in our life through changing what we choose to eat, and deciding for ourselves what we will tolerate as far as how the food is distributed throughout the world, and from where. This book illuminates the facts of how simple food expectations that we are unaware of but are ingrained deeply into our social structures which connect to other people and societies through out the world, can be altered in ways that are dependent on US individually to make, not through our governments. It describes how our government, economy and the treatment of food starting from the creation of hybrid seeds, to the ability the seeds have to resist insects, to how it gets to us at the table, is intertwined in such a way that we can no longer have the capacity to grow naturally, or organically, on a global scale. It is frightening what has been done, yet there is still hope for us.

A fascinating account of a family's journey to live off the land--THEIR land. The discussion of how our food supply has changed in the last 50+ years and how it affects our health and our economy is excellent, something we all should be thinking about.

This is well written and very informative. In today's world we do need to take back some of the healthy past when it comes to food. This is a great teaching tool. I would recommend this book to everyone.

Thinking globally and acting locally, novelist Barbara Kingsolver and her family decided to move from their home in Tucson, Arizona to their farm on which they had only previously vacationed in southwestern Virginia. Appalachia. Kingsolver, who has a graduate degree in biology, and her husband, Stephen Hopps, an environmental scientist, knew that Tucson was a desert community stressing natural resources and carbon-fueled transport just trying to keep its increasing population in water and foodstuffs produced on large corporate farms hundreds of miles away. They also knew they had a place to go to where they could live more simply, closer to the land. In the spring of 2005 they began a year of eating locally--foods they grew or raised or otherwise came from within a 100-mile radius, from small farmers and businesses. This book is an account of that year.

It was a lot of work: Kingsolver and Hopps have other jobs to keep them busy, but they farmed their land and raised chickens and turkeys, for the eggs and for the meat. They were ever conscious of how every decision they made reflected back on global warming, the high price of oil, genetically modified foods, collapsing small farm economies, the obesity epidemic, endangered species, pesticide residues in food, mad cow disease, etc. Kingsolver reviews a lot of the issues, and Hopp contributes intermittent essays on policy and action, coming down on the side of small, organic and heirloom species every time. The family, which includes young Lily, who cared for the chickens and eggs, and college-bound Camille, the family cook who supplies accompanying recipes and reflection, enjoyed support from their community and extended family, which made walking the talk possible. That, and a lot of canning and freezing to get them through the winter when nothing fresh was in season.

Kingsolver finds the process of feeding individual hunger to be part of a huge dynamic and her book weaves government policy and scientific research with personal experiences like cooking, celebrating birthdays, and the other people with whom they interact. There is a chapter on the harvesting of poultry. It is honest and respectful. Not everyone can do it, but on a farm it is necessary and part of the life cycle. Kingsolver is elegiac about the lifestyle, and speaks out against our culture's celebration of urbanity as the ideal and farming as something old, simple and dirty.

Kingsolver's book came just at the right time for those of us who are concerned about our environment and our food sources. I was very excited to read about the good things that are found in really "organic" or homegrown foods. It does take time and thought to find and eat foods which are grown for their nutritive value more than their sales value, but it is certainly well worth the trouble. I heard about this book on NPR and really wanted to find out more. I can honestly say it has changed my thinking and my eating habits. I am even making my own cheese with milk from local, grass-fed cows! The farmers have had it right all these years.

I have learned so much from this book about the society, communities, stuggles, and the goodness of people. I love to live naturally and simple; this book brings out the simplicity of life. This book is full of life and the true meaning of living with and in nature. This book is full of advice and stories of those before us. Take time to treasure what we are blessed with on this Earth, and you will reap the goodness of it and learn from the mistakes with grace and strength. HAVE FUN WITH NATURE, FOOD, AND LIVING. Oh, the recipe ideas are great in this book also. The ideas for giving are wonderful.

I'm sure I can't add additional glowing praise for this book that hasn't already been said, but as someone who is actively living this life, as a large-scale organic farmer who tries hard to raise all our own food and put priority on our family sitting down at a meal that consists primarily of our own meat, milk, cheese, vegetables, fruit, and grain (fresh ground for bread) - year round, I am loving each and every experience that Barbara Kingsolver describes in her wonderful, eloquent, humble, and amusing manner.

She is such a good writer, she uses words so well to convey ideas and personality - and her topics here are right on the mark. To be able to eloquently explain the reasons for growing your own and working together as a family to provide and preserve your own food, for eating meat, avoiding pesticides, abhoring factory farming, and especially enjoying the flavors and purpose of fresh local food and the people with you - I am just so glad she took the time to write this book. Through it, she has given us a invaluable gift.

Regardless of whether you read it as a tourist, observing amusedly such quaint antics, or as a student, trying to learn how to be more self-sufficient, or as a co-practitioner, knowing well how it feels to be working in a hot kitchen in August canning countless jars of tomatoes - this is a book to be savored and saved.

This book documents Kingsolver's commitment to live off the local land for one year. During the commitment year, Kingsolver, her husband, and her two daughters tended a garden and raised chickens and turkeys on their small farm in Virginia. The family supplemented their food stores with trips to the local farmers' market and with a few, strictly limited, non-local items (like coffee and olive oil). I enjoyed this charming account of the seasonality of produce, the work required to harvest and prepare fresh foods, and the family's enjoyment of their time spent on the land. Although I'm not the slightest bit tempted to plant a garden or raise livestock after reading this book, Kingsolver has a convincing argument, and I have been persuaded to begin buying produce and meat from local farmers. I highly recommend this book if you're interested in the food economy, the environment, or nutrition.

This summer I have read this book along with Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. Both of these explore the current state of food production in the US as well as look that the organic and local food movements. These
books are not about being a vegetarian and actually push the other way. Ms. Kingsolver's work is mainly about her family's efforts to eat locally for a year. The book is full of information abut our traditional food production and the advantages of eating locally produced food. The book has many recipes for making great meals and even discusses ways to make your own cheese! Highly recommended, especially if you have questions about the food you are currently purchasing.

I was a fan of Kingsolver until reading this book. I loved her insight about pesticides in The Poisonwood Bible, and I've read all of her other novels. A, V, M was terrible - describes a year of eating locally. But, this was no challenge to Kingsolver. She easily has the means to do this, and had apparently been doing this anyway for years. It would have been great to read a memoir on this theme by people who actually are like the rest of us - now that would have been a hoot. This is also is not a feel-good book. Although there are some things in there I'd like to do (I like the Friday night homemade pizza tradition), after reading it, I feel bad that I'm not baking my own bread, making my own cheese (yes, really!), raising my own chickens, etc. Reading this is way, way worse than watching or reading anything by Martha Stewart. Moreover, Kingsolver just comes across as a nerd, sorry to be so crass. I am sorry I wasted money on this - wish I spent it at the farmers' market.

As I read this book, I found myself turned off by the pious tone Kingsolver took in the first chapter. I am a passionate locavore to the extent possible, and my family is devotedly organic, but this conversion only took place over the last four years of my life. The first chapter reminded me how I felt when my preachy acquaintences tried to push that lifestyle on me. I agree that Americans need a good dose of the truth when it comes to food policy, but it can be delivered without making anyone feel defensive. Also, I must state that Kingsolver does not exactly qualify as "everywoman" when she speaks of the challenges of incorporating this life as a working mother...I'm not sure that being a full-time writer is quite the same as running home from an 8-5 job to get dinner ready.

If you can get past that first chapter, however, the rest of the book is quite enjoyable, and very informative. I found myself intrigued by the incredible storage vegatable bounty and on the edge of my seat to learn whether heritage turkeys would indeed reproduce. Despite my initial misgivings, I will make this book part of my permanent collection simply because I hope to incorporate much of its wisdom in my personal garden.

Bottom line: great info, but please do not recommend this to your friends and family who don't already subscribe to the locavore liturgy; it will probably only reinforce the inaccurate perception that the local food movement is home to uppity snobs out of touch with the realities of middle class America. Michael Pollan is a much better read for the masses.

As a fan of Barbara Kingsolver other books, I expected an insightful, warm story about her year. Instead it is nothing but a boring lecture on the state of food in this country. I have more than enjoyed coming to those realizations through Michael Pollan's, In Defense of Food and the Omnivores Dilemma without being brow beaten and lectured to. Her tone is so high and mighty that I had to resist throwing the book out of my window more than once. This is an important topic for all people who eat to be aware of, but books like this make you want to run to the closest fast food restaurant.

I love all things written by Barbara Kingsolver. This book provides practical ways a person can become a little less dependent on store purchased foods (especially those out of season) and a little more aware of where the food they are eating is from. Recipes, ideas, and facts are included in the book. While many people reading the book won't make the commitment that Kingsolver makes to eat an entire year using only local and home grown foods, all of us can use the advice and tips she gives. One of the most poignant facts involves how much oil/gas is saved if every family ate only ONE locally grown meal per week. I had never really considered the impact of moving so much food around the country. Some of the stories are humorous, others are very fascinating with the detailed description she provides. I say...give the book a try, it might just make you think a little bit or a lot differently about your food.

This book was a true disappointment.

While I understand and agree with many of her ideals, such as growing one's own produce and eating locally, this book is written from the perspective of a wealthy millionaire who can gaze with disdain on the masses eating at the 99cent menu at Taco Bell from her the inside of her airconditioned $40,000 hybrid car while munching on her organic self-canned tomatoes that actually cost more in energy than purchasing them at the local den of evil, Kroger.

The fact is, if you live in subsidized housing in a large city, and survive on food stamps, or a tiny food budget, you probably are not going to trek across the city to the chi chi farmers market to buy heirloom tomatoes, even if it does take food stamps. The more likely scenario is making your purchases as close to home as possible, for as cheaply as possible. When the organic, locally grown apples are twice the price of conventional, then that is half as much food that can be provided to a family struggling to get by.

Tell me something I didnt already know, Ms Kingslover, local is better. Now show me how to afford it.

I love anything written by Barbara Kingsolver. She has a way with words that is amazing to me.
This is the first nonfiction I've read from her, and I love it. It was a perfect choice for me since I have lately been interested in starting my own garden, and eating locally and organically as often as possible.
Even though I agree with most of what she and her family are saying, she can be a little preachy about how the world is wrong to live the way its been living. However, she makes up for it in many ways. She has great stories about neighbors and friends making the same efforts to live locally that really help me feel better about the Earth. The variety of the heirloom veggies she lists and grows makes me wonder what I've been eating all my life!
There are lots of great links listed throughout the book for more information on her discussions, Steven Hopp's information, and Camille Kingsolver's recipes.
This is a great book. I recommend it to anyone who likes this author or wants to know more about gardening and living healthy and preserving an American way of life.

While reading this book, I went through my cabinets and looked at where some of the products I buy come from. Honey from South America? There is honey at my LOCAL farmers market! Eggs 400 miles away? I see a sign for "Fresh Brown Eggs" on my way home everyday! While we may not have enough land to raise all my food for the year, with a little planning, most of our food can be brought local, and raised at home. A very enlightening book. I very much enjoyed it.
Karen
www.Gardenchick.com

Very few books make me want to be a better person, even fewer make it seem easy. Kingsolver's engaging writing style was as fresh as her veggies. I've spent the past week identifying the location of everything on my plate and feeling better about the future than I thought possible.

I'm amazed that so many negative reviewers claimed that Ms Kingsolver's tone was smug. I did not get that impression at all, nor was I smacked in the face with "wealth". I suppose some people are just looking to be offended, from any and all directions.

Rather, I found her tone refreshing. Her talent as a writer and her passion as a lover of good food, gardening, and the environment came together beautifully to create an entertaining and inspiring read.

I highly recommend it, along with Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food.
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. The book is most informative and an eye opener of our food sources. I would love to follow the Kingsolver/Hopp family's "A Year of Food Life" and maybe I'll be able to at some point. Anyway, the book is wonderful.

This is not only an outline and testament of one family being committed to local food production and consumption, it is a view into the lives of the author and her family. Sidebars from her husband provide more motivation and reason to become a Locavore. Her daughter provides excellent commentary on various parts and stages of the project as well as some excellent recipes that I look forward to trying myself. This book has motivated my wife and I to be more committed to being Locavores. Here in NW North Carolina we also have many local farmers that provide reasonably priced produce, meat, milk and cheeses, and other food items that are organically raised/grown. Thank you Ms. Kingsolver for sharing your experience on becoming a Locavore. My wife and I are more committed to local farmers as a result of your work and we have recommended this book to our family and friends.

I first read this book just over a year ago, starting to read while sitting in a full auditorium waiting for author Barbara Kingsolver to begin speaking. I made it through the first ten pages or so before she began. For the next hour she read and discussed her book and graciously answered audience questions. Her interesting stories and personable manner drew me in. Afterwards, I couldn't wait to continue reading! This book lived up to my expectations. Premise? Her family made a decision to move to the Virginian Appalacians, grow their own food, raise chickens and turkeys, and buy what they couldn't grow/raise themselves from local farmers. They made tough decisions, worked hard, and had some wonderful stories to tell along the way. In her writing, interspersed with essays by her husband and college-age daughter, Ms. Kingsolver takes us on their year-long journey of eating locally.

Barbara Kingsolver is not suggesting that we all should be able to do what her family accomplished - growing much of their own food, supplimented with food grown locally primarily by people she knew in her own community. Rather, she is sharing her family's story, much of it humerous, some of it sobering, and all of it educational. She is sharing the rationale of why they chose to do what they did. She admits that most families won't be able to make changes to the extent that her family did. Rather, she suggests that we all might be able to eat more locally. Whether that means beginning your own backyard garden, growing herbs in pots, buying from your local farmers market, or even reading labels in your grocery store... every bit counts.

Thanks to Ms. Kingsolver for changing the way I think about food.

I wanted to love this book, I really did. The premise is idealistic: to live on home-produced and locally raised food for one year. The authors are likeable: Kingsolver herself, a sharp and sometimes ironic observer, her daughter Camille, a cook and contributor of earnest little essays on eating well; the author's husband, Steven, who contributes scientific sidebars on all sorts of things associated with food production. I myself am a longtime devoted organic gardener, raiser of chickens and beef, and evangelical bore on the topic of compost. I'm with this family one hundred percent. Unfortunately, the book is all over the place. It is full of tidbits and interesting information, but very little useful guidance. If you're a gardener, you won't learn much from Kingsolver's ecstatic prose. Does she have a secret for getting rid of potato bugs? Does she cut her tomato hornworms with scissors or drop them in a bucket of soapy water? Are there ever problems in this Appalachian paradise? Not too many, evidently, although gardeners know that keeping a garden is unpredictable (it rains, it doesn't rain) and demanding. When Kingsolver writes best, she keeps a narrow focus, as in her fine depiction of the intricacies of breeding turkeys. But even this tale is maddeningly broken up, as if it were fiction, by a family trip to Italy. Will the poults hatch? The reader must stay tuned. I also think that readers contemplating a shift to eating seasonally and buying locally might be a bit daunted by the efforts of Kingsolver and her family, particularly if they don't keep writer's hours. Read Michael Pollan on the same subject, particularly (in this order) "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food" for much more practical, do-able ideas, particularly if you don't own your own farm. If you can raise your own tomatoes---and you should if you have the opportunity---that's fabulous. But if you can't, I fear this book has little to offer except some charming stories.

Once you get through the first chapter (which does have a stern tone for the typical American food lifestyle), the book is fun, inspiring, humorous, and somehow humble. Barbara Kingsolver has a great approach to reporting on her year of eating locally. You get the inside scoop on some things you may never do (such as killing your own roosters) to things that even city dwellers can manage (like planting a small window box of edibles and visiting your local farmer's market). I loved it!

This is an awesome book for anyone who consumes or prepares food. There is so much information that a smart consumer should know about the origin of their foods. Not only is this book informative , it is entertainging to follow Ms. Kingsolver and her family on their journey to slow food.
There are also some fabulous and healthy recipies ( I have tried about 4 of them and all get 5 stars!).

This is the second book I have read of Barbara Kingsolver, the other, The Poisonwood Bible, I must read again because the details of that particular piece are a bit sketchy, but I digress...
Recent events highlighted in the news, bulldozed bloated and sickly cows and salmonella tainted tomatoes make opting out of our national food chain a viable option. This book defined many terms and allowed me to expand my vocabulary for example by defining "locavore" and CAFOs, and just in many ways increased my awareness of what I was putting in my mouth. This book higlighted all the work and preparation required to raise food and the importance of supporting local small farmers. Granted we all do not have a back 20 or 40 to till and grow or own vegetable and raise animals to provide meat to eat nor do we have the time and most of us don't have the inclination to do such. But we can support our farmers by buying direct in local farmer's markets and vegetable stands. By buying directly we also support only our consumption of quality foods. Also we are reminded of seasonality and regionality of food through Ms. Kingsolver's work. Tomatoes and other vegetables and fruits maybe should not be available year round or bred to survive being shipped from around the world because certain vegetables only grow well in certain regions and lose nutrients and disease fighting capabilities when they are bred to withstand the rigors of travel and grocery store shelf life. Hat's Off to Ms, Kingsolver and her family for their commitment to this daunting undertaking. This book encouraged me to become a locavore and I started my own garden this year. I also found out about an organization called Seed Savers and endeavor to produce some of those plants. I have also gained a greater respect for the land that produces the bounty we take for granted and have gained a greater respect for those that are able to coax the bounty from the land and nourish us all.

Barbara Kingsolver is a fun author, a smart person, and she writes about interesting things. But I couldn't get engaged with this book. It strikes me as a less incisive, but sweeter, version of "The Omnivore's Dilemma." Kingsolver and family seem to be nice and well-intentioned people who care deeply about how food choices relate to broader environmental issues. While they are very critical of agro-business, there is very little critical complexity to the broad argument about how food reflects broader issues and inequalities. Local farmers are good; oil companies and big business are bad. More people should try to be good. I tend to agree philosophically with most of what she says about eating things in season and trying to be aware about where food comes from, but partially because I agree philosophically this book did not provide many bursts of insight. It is a nice book to agree with, and the intentions are admirable, but that alone failed to keep my interest.

When I first picked up this book, I absolutely loved it. Kingsolver touches upon poignant themes that echo arguments made by Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser -- basically, that the way Americans produce and consume food is setting the stage for dire consequences. And I enjoyed her emphasis on a new consideration: taste. If I would have put the book down after Chapter 10, I would have left content. But, as I continued, I began feeling like I was reading the same thing over and over again. Consequently, it began to feel heavy-handed and preachy. I, like presumably most of her readers, are already proponents of the food values that Kingsolver champions. Yet she continues to amuse herself by pointing out what must surely be obvious to most of her readers after the first 100 pages. To prospective readers, this is a book you'll want to taste and put down at the first sign of feeling full.

This is the best book I read in 2007.

The great writer, Barbara Kingsolver, chronicles a year in the life of her family as they move back to a family farm in Appalachia to grow all their own food for a year. It is a wonderfully entertaining and wise month-by-month narrative which speaks to our conncction with food, the land, and the planet.
Along the way, Ms. Kingsolver's teenage daughter and
her professor husband also offer their perspectives on the family's adventures.
Most people who take up this book cannot put it down.

This book is a fantastic look at our food industry and ways to become independent of chemicals used to produce both plant and animal foods, as well as ways to connect with the earth through gardening. Although most people would not have the garden space or time to totally turn their backs on the grocery store, I was inspired to try to do what I could to grow my own vegetables and frequent the local farmers market. I would recommend this book for anyone striving to eat in a healthy manner and gain a greater understanding of the food chain in America. Once again, Barbara Kingsolver brings us closer to the earth and the earth's systems that sustain us.

Barbara Kingsolver has written a very important book which everyone should read! It is filled with environmental and nutritional information and it's a fascinating account of the pleasures and trials of feeding oneself and one's family almost entirely with home-grown products!
Of the four of us who listened to this audio cd in the car, nobody thought Kingsolver had a particularly good reading voice, but the material always made up for it! Given the choice though, I'd say read the book.

Barbara Kingsolver does a great job at portraying her year living on a farm, raising her own poultry, growing her own produce, and buying locally without being too preachy or political. The commentary that was include by her husband and daughter was useful and complemented the book. I recommend this for anyone who is curious about why we should eat organic and local foods. It was a very insightful and enjoyable read.

This story of a family's journey into eating local for one year is entertaining, informative, and thought-provoking. While I don't have a farm to take on quite what they have, I will be making local choices for years to come as a result of reading this book.

Barbara Kingsolver and her family relocated to a homestead in southern Appalachia and resolved to spend a year eating home-grown or locally produced food. What they didn't raise or grow themselves, they bought from local farms.

Kingsolver demonstrates the benefits of sustainable agriculture without coming across as preachy or overly judgemental. I loved the way, with humor and grace, she shows how anyone can add a little local flavor into their diets.

My mom is an avid gardener and a great cook, but I, unfortunately, inherited neither the talent nor the interest to follow in her muddy footsteps. Kingsolver's wonderful narrative has inspired me to, at the very least, support my local farmer's market. Perhaps, I might even attempt a small kitchen garden this year.

This book introduced me to Barbara Kingsolver. I liked her writing style so much I went on to read many of her other writings which I also enjoyed.

This book is the story of her family's journey from a rather typical American lifestyle to something far more fulfilling, rewarding, interesting and sustainable. I feared it might be a bit preachy, but I didn't find it to be at all. I found it to be earthy, hearty, informative but not technical, funny (I laughed out loud on several occasions) and yet it had an air of class and charm all at once. It is definitely a "green" book with an underlying sense of urgency, but it was refreshingly subtle compared to similar books I've read. Rather than being filled with "You must all do ___ or the world is going to end!" it was more about "We decided to do ___ for ourselves as a family. It makes sense to us, it feels right and it works very well."

Sometimes I felt like I was on the farm with her, learning for the first time how to coax my own food from the earth and changing at a fundamental level how I contribute my energy, my money, my life to this country I love so much. She seems always to contemplate how her decisions will affect the world around her and act accordingly, and has created a beautiful and bountiful life around that. Go Barbara. I admire you and the life you've created.

I enjoyed this book and would highly recomend it to any gardener or anyone interested in feeding their family from locally grown products. It is a good read, fast, and entertaining.

I had read that this book was a bit preachy. "A bit" doesn't cut it, folks, this book is Preachy. Sanctimonious, actually, and too bad, because the idea is great.

I have never written a review before, but this book was such an incredible eye-opener for me, I felt I needed to share it with others. I was curious how it would be possible for Kingsolver and her family to pull off eating locally for a year - it sounded to me like a great idea, but almost impossible to execute given our reliance on the industrial food machine. Not only does she show that it is possible, she makes you want to jump right in, plant your own garden, make your own cheese and what I wouldn't give for a bread maker! Though I am sure it is harder than she makes it out to be, I can't think of an effort that is more worthwhile given the impact on our health, our environment and our culture. As always, her writing is incredible - she creates a compelling and informative story that makes you sad to finish the book. Everyone should read this book - once you become aware of the problem, you can't help but change how you view food and hopefully then change your behavior.

What a diappointment. The bulk of the book is a preachy synopsis of Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma." There is a holier-than-thou attitude which permeates the writing, so much so that I threw it down in disgust several times.

For readers well-versed on the subjects of sustailable agriculture, local eating, food chains, and organics, there is *no* new information in this book. For those just delving into the subject, this is *not* the place to start. Please, please, please do yourself a favor and start with Michael Pollan's books, "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and then "In Defense of Food." They both offer better, documented, and more thorough information.

I gave this book two stars because the storyline about breeding turkeys is some of the funniest writing I've ever come across. Unfortunately, it only comprises about 10% of the book.

ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MIRACLE, A Year of Food Life
By Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp, and Camille Kingsolver

This book for me was like returning home. After years of living in Tucson AZ the author and her family decide to return to their roots and learn to live off of the land and other sustainable sources. I grew up on a small farm and many of the experiences that the author talks about have such a familiar ring to me that I could not help but laugh out loud.

This book takes you through an entire year of planting, harvesting and storing their own produce from their garden and their own hand raised meat and eggs. When they were unable to produce for themselves the food stuffs that they needed, they purchased locally with very few exceptions. It was good to be reminded that in most parts of the country fruit is not available year round unless it is trucked in from somewhere else. During the coldest winter months in most of the country there are no crops being produced. In order to be able to eat locally produced food it is necessary to know how to store food and plan for those cold months. While this seems like a lot of work there is no feeling like finishing up a day of canning by seeing the "fruits" of your labor happily lined up on a pantry shelf.
Each chapter of this book takes you through a different month of local food production as well as discussing the many reasons why it is absolutely necessary that we start to look at the foods that we consume with new eyes. As well as the words of Barbara Kingsolver you will also see a section written by her husband, Steven L. Hopp on the realities of commercial farming and its impact on the environment as well as our health. Camille Kingsolver, the author's daughter also adds a wonderful array of recipes that will answer the age old question of "now that I have a basket full of wonderful vegetables what on earth do I do with them?" I am especially thankful for the information on cooking asparagus. I have now discovered the pure joy of eating fresh local asparagus all by itself or with other foods.

I really liked reading the story of this first year learning to eat locally. While the author makes it clear that it is hard work sometimes it is not that difficult. You just have to make different choices than you are used to. You eat what is in season, by the time you are sick of it something else is in season so you eat that when it is fresh. At one point she talks about the abundance that can come from the zucchini. She comments on the need to lock your car doors not because someone will steal your car but that they may pass on their excess squash to you. I remember some years in Ohio when that was very true of tomatoes. Everyone always planted more than was necessary and the glut of tomatoes would keep your fingers in tomato juice until you knew it could never end.

After reading this book I thought to myself that I could be preparing meals from locally grown produce at least several times a week. To my surprise I had no problem eating almost everything locally. Now I have to admit that I live in Southern California and we have organically grown farmers markets available to us everyday of the week, every week of the year. In Los Angeles we have no excuse to be eating oranges grown in Florida. After about a week of eating local I clearly noticed an increase in energy and more ability to focus. I know that this was due to eating clean healthy local foods. One of the other benefits to eating local produce is that you get to know the farmers personally. You are supporting a person, a family, a real farm. Not a corporate CEO who has never seen dirt under his nails.

This book was an inspiration to me. The writing style is very enjoyable as well as being informative. It made me want to make the effort to rethink my food purchase choices. It is an honest account of how a family makes a conscious choice about their health, and the health of the world around them.