Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (2007)

this book inspired me spend more time in my garden and pay even more attention to where our food comes from. includes some great recipes and resources. ( )

One of my favorite books. Lessons to learn, wonderful writing and oh, those chicken stories.
Recommended!
Read in 2008.h ( )

Barbara Kingsolver is one of those rare authors who can also audibly narrate well. Listening to this book may have been more enjoyable than if I had read it the conventional way.

The book chronicles her family's move from Arizona to Appalachia to a farm on which they pledge to eat locally for one year. Most of the food they grow and can/preserve themselves (even turkeys, which becomes the motif for the book) or get from within an hour's travel. They meet many people with similar convictions throughout the book and share their struggles and triumphs. Throughout the book, there are sidebars from Kingsolver's husband on the science and technology side of sustainable agriculture, and vignettes from Camille, their 18 yr old daughter on meal preparation and the teen perspective.

It's an informative book, but also entertaining. With a biology background and an established career as a novelist, Kingsolver is the perfect candidate to write out this story. Worth the read.

My one puzzlement is the pity-party for tobacco farmers who are losing their livelihood as that industry shrinks. I get that Kingsolver regrets the loss of farmers, and that it's more personal for her because she grew up among them, but don't they fit into a category akin to that of the corporate factory farms that she goes on to condemn? I am unable to reconcile this apparent contradiction. ( )

So much of this book I loved, especially the day to day experiences around growing your own food and raising livestock. My favorite descriptions were about raising turkeys and what it takes to successfully breed them. Kingsolver as the narrator of this audiobook made me laugh out loud several times. I loved how she described all of thei work on their farm, but it would have been refreshing if her kids and husband had rebelled even a little bit! They were incredibly accommodating and helpful all the time.

I wasn't a fan of the lecture feeling parts of the book. I wish I could buy all my food from local sources and in season- and I do for the most part, but this isnt realistic for a lot of individuals. Rather than hunkering down with her own family (who seem to have unlimited means) I would have loved to hear about her using her influence to help address the urban food deserts we have across the country.

It is funny that she is described as one of the 100 most dangerous people in the US. Heck I think we need more dangerous people like her.

( )

Count me among the choir Kingsolver is preaching to, here. I found her writing clear and passionate. I learned some things about food and the way food gets to my kitchen. We have a vegetable garden every year, but this book made me want to have a farm. And can my own vegetables. I did find the interjections by Kingsolver's husband and daughter a little jarring but easy to forgive. ( )