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.

Barbara Kingsolver and I probably have very little in common. I've read her essay books, and I find that I typically disagree with her opinions. However, more important to me than whether or not I agree with her is the quality of her writing. On that topic I am a huge Kingsolver fan and this book does nothing to change my mind about her writing. Again, I haven't bought into the premise that you can, or even should, try to grow your own food or eat everything local. I'm not going to use the space in this review to pick holes in her premise - clearly it worked for her family. But because the book is so well written it made me rethink my own opinions about food and where it comes from. It will make you think, too.

Great read for anyone who enjoys growing their own food or buying locally grown food, knowing their food source, etc.
A real eye opener with facts about the US food industry.
Fantastic!

A brilliant expose of food production in the US. The light touch makes the information palatable despite the bad news. The 3 writers are honest, keeping the struggle to eat local real. The suggestions are reasonable for most people, allowing the reader to join in the movement to eat local produce again.

I have loved Barbara Kingsolver as an author of fiction, now as someone who has inspired me to change the way I buy food and feed my family. I have started asking questions, purchasing from a local farm and planted garlic! Small steps. This book is entertaining as well as informative.

similar to "omnivore's dilemma" but written so entertaining by a fiction writer, you can't put this book down! they take you through the seasons zooming in to the garden and back out into the world of politics, food policy, environmentalism, etc. you will learn so much and be entertained and possibly even motivated to plant your own urban garden - i was!

I actually bought this for my daughter-in-law who has kept the library copy too long. The book itself was masterful; I laughed aloud several times as well as commiserating at other times. The recipes are very interesting and useful. I want a sequel. I was not a Kingsolver fan before, but I am one now.

Thank you Barbara Kingsolver for bringing the food issue to the top of the list for the average American. Your approach makes it feel so sensible, so beneficial to grow food, to share it, to build community, to TRY. Wonderful book, wonderful author.
--Heather Coburn Flores, author of Food not Lawns
Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden And Your Neighborhood into a Community

If you want a well written and factoid packed book and are interested in the foods you feed yourself and your family, this is an excellent resource. After I finish the first reading I'd like to go through it to try the recipes! Excellent read!

You will never think the same way about your living habits again! Highest recommendation! I have wished I could give this book to so many people, it is truly life changing!

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is an amazing book! Although I'm a vegetarian, I found this book moving, life changing, relatable and real. Barbara Kingslover takes you through a year of her life when they decide to forgo everything that is not grown on their land, purchased at the local farmer's market, or purchased from local manufacturers/vendors. They are allowed to have one luxury item each and purchase their organic flour from an out of state source, but otherwise they live sustainably within a 100 mile radius. Absolutely amazing and incredibly motivating. Barbara's husband, Steven L. Hopp, writes small sections throughout the book that are powerful, research based and say more in a small box than many say in a whole book. Camille Kingslover, Barbara's daughter, ends the chapter with her viewpoint about "going local" from a teen's point-of-view and contributes both her family's weekly meal plans and recipes that are both simple and simply delicious. I was impressed by the fact that Steven makes fresh bread for the family almost every morning, and how their youngest daughter became an entrepreneur raising chicks humanely and selling their organic eggs, even to her own mother!

While I do not eat animals for ethical reasons, I admired Kingslover's conscious raising and humane killing of her animals. Her rendering about Thanksgiving and what it really means - giving Thanks for the land that gave the food and for the animals that gave their lives - brought me to tears. While I'll never eat meat, especially from a CAFO, I can appreciate the Kingslovers' approach to treating animals humanely throughout their entire life and only buying meat from farmers who hold the same beliefs as them.

This book is a diary of sorts, with interesting and educational tidbits along the way. It is also a how-to book - detailing how easy it is to live and eat locally no matter where you live and no matter what your circumstances are. It really is easier, healthier and gentler to the earth to eat organically and locally.

and changed the way i view food, farming, gardening and gained an appreciation for all the work in the world. She gave us a gift of thought and we all should take it and run with it or walk. Thanks, Barbara for all the thinking I have done.

This book really is life-changing. I won't say much, (I'll leave that to Kingsolver herself) but I will say this. I've been a vegetarian for a long time (sometimes dabbling in veganism) and thought I understood "the issues." However, what I realized after reading this book is that it's not necessarily the eating of animal flesh that I am opposed to. It is industrial farming methods--the mass production and slaughter of animal lives in an inhumane way (after they have lived under the most horrendous conditions in "concentrated animal feeding operations"). This book illuminates the miracle of sustainable agriculture, and helped me realize that eating a Ritz cracker or even a conventionally-produced grain-filled veggie burger is potentially more deadly to the environment, the U.S. and local economies and the health of our families than eating a cow that has fulfilled the measure of its creation on a peaceful farm--to graze, mate, and live happily until it eventually becomes a source of life for another being that happens to be a bit higher on the food chain. That's nature, and I feel comfortable with that. I'm still not a huge fan of "hamburger" but this book has impacted the way I make food choices--from growing and purchasing, to preparing and eating. Knowingly or unknowingly, we all make significant choices everyday, and I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to be a little more educated about those choices.

Okay, I guess I did say a lot. :) Enjoy the book!

I was all for the local food movement (assuming the terrain supports the type of food grown and they aren't wasting water trying to get water-intensive crops to grow in the desert and what not) but reading this book just about put me off of it. Preachy, preachy, preachy. And why is she interjecting opinions about holidays in the middle of a book about food? And she's so defensive about eating meat! We're omnivores, get over it, Barbara. I was really hoping by the end of it that the kids would go on strike until they could get a large soda and order of fries from the local fast food place...

Ok, it is a good idea to grow your own vegies if possible, and to go to local farmers markets, to eat what is in season. yes, yes, yes. But she's so "holier than thou" about it. And I have no desire whatsoever to spend my weekends and evenings canning tomatoes in August (and no, I'm not watching TV instead - I'm reading books like this one). Also - what kind of freezer space does she have? She's freezing meats, vegies, broths... all in convenient one-meal packets... so how many plastic ziploks does she go through? Look, I'm off the grid - I rely on solar - no way can I support a big old storage freezer to hold all the stuff she mentions. The power it would draw!

Maybe I would have found this book more enjoyable if I liked more types of vegies. I was raised on meat & potatoes & just the standard vegies ... Even asparagus was something I didn't eat until the last few years. What can I say, my palate is retarded!

Parts of the book were interesting; I just wish she hadn't been so preachy and instead had been more fun. But ok, I will finally start going to the local farmer's market (we've lived in our current town for three years and haven't made it yet). And I did start a very small garden this year- some onions, 2 tomato plants, and a pepper plant - which I actually expect to fail, but wanted to try anyway. And maybe I will try making cheese - I had looked into that a couple years ago, but the sites I checked made it seem much harder than how Kingsolver presented it, so maybe I'll give it another shot.

But stop preaching at me, please!

Reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life took me back to growing up on a farm. While we did many of the same things author Barbara Kingsolver and her family did during their year of living off the land and local products, I learned so much about the benefits of my childhood way of life. Even though the book is nonfiction, Kingsolver brings to it her playful way with words and concepts, and that makes a fascinating read.

I've never given organic produce a second look, thinking a carrot is a carrot. But Kingsolver has made me think twice about the value of eating foods grown without exposure to pesticides. I have more respect for the free-range chickens I see pecking grains on a local natural food farm and will probably visit their store as a direct result of reading this book. Few of us may consider going the route Kingsolver's family chose, but in a day when foodstuffs come to us from around the world, there is increasing interest in understanding and appreciating the diversity and the dangers of the marketplace.

The stories of daughter Lily's venture selling eggs from "Lily's Lovely Layers" is precious, and daughter Camille offers a college-student's perspective along with delicious sounding recipes. College professor/husband Steven L. Hopp adds an academic flavor with brief but insightful sidebars for those who want more knowledge about government regulations. But the charm of the book lies in Kingsolver's colorful descriptions of raising everything from asparagus to turkeys, including on-site reporting of the challenges of breeding of the latter.

Fantastic book! I actually had borrowed a copy and had already read it but it is so teriffic with lots of information and recipes that I wanted my own copy. Kingsolver also is a fantastic writer!

As I write this, "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" is ranked #89 on the Amazon list and that fact has given me more hope for the future than any national political campaign. Put this up there with "The Omnivore's Dilemma" for inspiring, thoughtful books about food and our national mess with shipping stuff all over tarnation just to eat it. This is as good as her fiction--wry, witty, detailed, colorful and engaging. I could have done without some of the side trips (especially to Italy) and the book is a bit long once it's made the point, but the arc of the year at work is worthy and then some. Her take on what constitutes "killing" is a great riff and impossible to argue otherwise. Kingsolver's conjoining of practice and real life and the sense of community that resolves around this philosophy is palpable. The recipes, the sense of family, the whole direction that this book suggests, you have to ask: is this the way it's supposed to be?

First a confession - I love how Barbara Kingsolver writes. Her word selection and building of scenes can make me reread a page just for the sheer beauty of it. Leaves me speechless at times.

That said, I did find moments like this in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, but not as many as I expected. So much of her beautiful writing was drowned out by long proselytizing paragraphs. There was a structure to the book that could have saved it: the bulk of the pages devoted to her telling the story, her husband's sidebars for the heavy facts and statistics, and her daughter's comments with introductions to the recipes. They just didn't follow the structure. Instead the lines were blurred and I found my eyes blurring and as the preaching ramped up my brain screamed "sidebar!"

I don't think this book will convince anyone who doesn't already believe in buying locally and being responsible for their small but important link in the food chain. For those of us however, who already know the dairy where their milk comes from and walk two miles everyday in spring for farm-fresh asparagus this book just may convince us to take the next step and make some mozzarella cheese.

Barbara Kingsolver left me wanting more when I finished reading this book. I learned so much and was also charmed by her entertaining style of writing. I loved the parts about her daughter's chickens who laid multicolored eggs, her trip to visit a cheesemaker (she inspired me to make my own yogurt which I now do on a regular basis), her description of her kitchen invaded by hundreds of tomatoes in August, and especially the very informative sections in which she taught me about the importance of species diversity in the plant world and how terrible it is for Big Companies to prosecute seed savers. But perhaps what's best about the book is that it does not give a doom and gloom feeling at all. You finish the book feeling hopeful... inspired... and ready to eat some yummy organic greens or an organic hamburger! Very well done, Barbara. You are awesome.

Loved this new book. Barbara gets down to the real truth about our food(?) industry. Most people in this country have no idea what they're really eating and probably won't believe it when they're told. She did an outstanding job in presenting the facts in a well told story about ONE growing season in Virginia. As she points out - we've lost the knowledge of how to grow our own food in only 2 generations. My mother was raised on a farm and always talked of how good the food tasted. No - it's not as easy as going to the 'supermarket' but everything from chickens to greens taste better when you don't pump them full of chemicals and then ship them thousands of miles. I've grown everything from eggplants to zucchini in pots on the deck of my patio home. Now we have nearly 50 chickens(some with names) that help keep the grasshopper population in control on the acreage we've since moved to. They and their eggs are beyond anything you can buy in the grocery stores. Great job Barbara! Hopefully people will start paying heed to the footprint they leave and ,ultimately, their health.

I loved this book, but then, I've been a fan of hers for many years. I'm a gardener, and I found it very engaging from start to finish. Perhaps it's not something that all of us can do. I don't own a farm and never will but I do have a back yard and I'm raising some of my own food. I also frequent our local farmer's market where I can get many things I am not able to grow myself. Changing our way of life happens one step at a time. I figure if this book inspires a few thousand people to start a small home garden, we're all better off. Even people in cities can take part in community gardens. There are lots of possibilties out there. Bravo, Ms. Kingsolver!

I like the message of this book and I consider myself an environmentalist. I eat mostly organic and natural foods. However, I find Kingsolver's tone to be overly preachy for most of the book. I agree that we all need to take actions to change the cultural norms of our country but I don't think it's always as easy as she makes it sound. We don't all have the luxury of owning a large plot of land in a favorable growing climate. Also, her logic is failed at several points in the book. In her defense of eating meat, Kingsolver uses goats in marginal parts of Africa to justify the need for non-vegetable food sources. Okay, if you live in Africa I'll buy that explanation. But, that's not a good argument for somebody living where growing plants is not a problem. She seems unwilling to admit that raising livestock can be a drain on energy and a major source of pollution. Her defense of tobacco farming also seems a little stretched. Yes, it provides jobs, but what are the costs? I find it annoying when somebody thinks that they have all of the answers. Even more annoying is when they try to convince you that there is one silver bullet for fixing all problems. The isolationism that Kingsolver advocates can lead to more issues. Trading with other countries in a responsible manner (labor laws, environmental regulations, etc.) can give the people in those countries a chance at a better life that they would not otherwise get. Kingsolver should open an economics book and read about the concept of comparative advantage. You don't have to do everything for yourself. And it doesn't kill the U.S. to have economic ties to other countries. We may just build some friendships that way. In the end we're all tied together on this planet. The basic ideas of this book are worthwhile and I'm glad that they're getting some attention. But, an article in a magazine could have gotten across the same point without beating the reader over the head so many times. Finally, I enjoyed Camille's sections the most because she seemed more down to earth and in touch with reality.

This book would rank as a Master's thesis on the author's year of research as a locavore when compared to introductory works on food such as Harvest for Hope and the Omnivore's Dilemma. Having set aside Christianity in the Poisonwood Bible (much as the author of Infidel set aside Islam) Barbara Kingsolver now preaches about her commitment to eating local food. Her new faith that a family that plucks feathers together and eats healthy food will be fortified to face life and thrive. Her family members provide varied perspectives often incorporating humor. Several laugh-out-loud moments involved her description of turkey mating.

At times I felt exposed to too much detail about asparagus tomato zucchini goats and squash but I feel more inclined to pick up fresh produce at the Farmer's Market and will try some of her recipes and preservation techniques. Her argument against a vegetarian lifestyle was a big surprise worth the price of this book. If you have questioned the sustainability of spending non renewable petroleum to ship food and water around the globe, you will find wise alternatives in this book.
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel (P.S.), Infidel, Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating

...it just didn't keep my interest. I've enjoyed some of Kingsolver's fiction, though it bothers me when characters get preachy. The messages should be clear throughout the story without a long monologue or didactic dialog. The writing in this was sort of flat and not very engaging. Since it's set up like a sort of "family scrapbook"-- excerpts from each family member, such as a more scientific point of view [Kingsolver's husband] and a younger generation's perspective [her daughter]-- perhaps that's too many voices or too jarring. Other similar writers such as Michael Pollan or Eric Schlosser have some more interesting ways of writing about the same subject with more poetry and action. One plus that it has going for it-- it's a neat idea, and certainly has me wondering why I can't actually get more local foods in a state that has plenty of agricultural offerings.

I cannot get enough of this book. It has completely changed the way that I look at food. I work in food policy, but this book taught me a lot of things I didn't know and inspired me to shop locally more often. I've even started a small vegetable garden!

Many of the reviewers seem not to have gotten the point of this book. We are slowly killing ourselves and our culture with our reliance on industrialized foods. Current skyrocketing prices are one proof. We use up so many resources to get our food from point A to point B when we should be eating within our environment as much as possible. Food travels from country to country, and losing the depth and variety we could be having locally.

Barbara Kingsolver is a gifted writer and this memoir about HER experience is beautiful. It's not a treatise on "live my exact life;" it's about making changes that can have worldwide implications.

If you expect a typical Kingsolver book, you will be disappointed. But if you put that aside, this is a fabulous book! She catches the current movement towards sustainable living and shows us the practicalities as well as what it means for farmers around the country. I love the familial collaboration with her husband providing more scientific information and her eldest daughter providing recipes (which are delicious, by the way). I really think this is an important book because it makes this lifestyle accessible for people who are not environmental extremists (or who grew up on farms where this information would be 'old hat') but who want to do what they can to make a difference: not only to the environment but also for the nation's farmers, who lead a very difficult life. And as a bonus, the food is fresher (=tastier).

Let me start off with full disclosure: I am a huge Barbara Kingsolver fan. I've read most of what she's written and loved all of that. Except this.

She just can't quit lecturing throughout the entire thing. She can't even finish a small story without interspersing it intolerable amounts of pedagogy. It's really just one lecture after another. Perhaps if I were interested in, but not knowledgeable about, the subject matter I would be more forgiving. But I have to think that folks who are reading this book are already at least baseline knowledgeable. So why is she lecturing us all? We're the good guys. We already agree. Enough, already. We really want to hear how you did it, what you thought about it, the ups, the downs, the turkeys.

So, those looking for another tremendous Kingsolver story: Be Warned.

If I had never read another work of Kingsolver's, this one alone would have turned me into an instant fan, though the truth is I already love her fiction. I found this book funny and warm if read as a "country adventures" sort of book and not as a bible to living right. I especially loved the recipes, and the "turkey sex" section is hilarious (BTW, artifically inseminating poultry is no big deal. Takes only minutes to learn, as birds aren't too fussy).

The dry and / or preachy parts were mostly her husband's writing, and I found myself skipping over a lot of that, as it was way too much preaching to the choir. Being already involved in many of the cooking and cultivation aspects mentioned in this book, and I found a wealth of inspiration and new ideas here. I envy their complete immersion in a lifestyle that I can only partially indulge in due to career and location issues. I think the message here is that one does what one can under their life circumstances.

That being said, I found that many of the "facts" listed to be of questionable accuracy, in need of further explanation, casualties of faulty logic, or just plain strange, such as the statement that "no part of a corn plant is a natural food for cattle". By that logic, tomatoes, potatoes, and chocolate are not natural foods for people either. This is not a criticism of the book but normal scientific process: no two experts in any field will agree on everything.

I also think there is a bit too much pie-in-the-sky idealism here. Raising so-called 'organic' food takes a huge amount of time, space, and physical effort, especially if livestock are involved. The nastier aspects of pests and diseases are skimmed over far too lightly: free-range poultry are far more likely to pick up internal parasites by eating earthworms, snails and other invertebrates than your confined chicken, and the parasite egg and larva burden of your average cow pasture would boggle your mind. This does not make 'organic' (a poorly defined term) a bad thing, just don't be surprised if you find a worm larva in the freshly laid egg from your free range chicken. It's rare, but it happens.

My own feeling is that we'd be far closer to saving the environment by not using any form of plastics, not owning or driving cars, and not having more than one child than worrying about eating locally, but those issues aren't even mentioned; no doubt the author felt they were beyond the scope of her intended message. You pays your money and you takes your choice. Take this book for its terrific entertainment value, and enjoy it hugely. I know I did.

This book starts out sooooo pedentic... then picks up some. I loved many of her other books, but this one is almost a chore to finish. In this genre, I highly recommend 'The Omnivore's Dilemma', which traces meals from the farm to the table.

Buy this book-buy this book for everyone you know. There is loads of valuable information in here that should give everyone a kick in the pants to do something-take some action. Written in story format, but really a lovely guide and reference book to keep near, rather that alphabetized on the shelf. Read this book, start a revolution.