Eric Brende

While I don't get all hot and bothered thinking about getting a manual clothes washer, his point that we serve the machines is well taken. For example, this morning at the store, the PLU code for the bulk bulgur wheat didn't register at the checkout computer, and the checker had to go get the "override key" so she could have some authority over the computer brain. It's clearer and clearer that we rely more on machines and technology than we do people, and this book and the lives behind it do show more something to bring balance to the many and daily deaths of community life. Jawohl! show less

The cover of Better Off reads, "Two People. One Year. Zero Watts." That is the premise of the book in a nutshell. Eric Brende and his new wife, Mary, travel to an undisclosed community to try a life without technology. It ends up lasting a little over a year and it's like a science project on a much more grandiose scale; to live in a community considered "primitive" even by Amish standards. But, as I read I found myself asking how far back does one scale back technology in order to be show more considered primitive? According to Brende, this Minimite community used flashlights. You forgo electricity in favor of kerosene. Yet, how is that different from using a flashlight? Electricity is electricity. Shouldn't the limit be a candle for illumination? Nothing more, nothing less?
But in truth, I fell in love with Brende's book right from the start, mainly because of his explanatory note, "...Readers have some options in how they choose to proceed. The story can be read the way stories usually are, that is, as entertainment (I hope riveting), or as food for thought on the broader human condition (I hope stimulating), or even in this case as a real-life model for practical action (I hope instructive)." In giving us choices he voices no expectation. This is not meant to be trivial, preachy or didactic, but rather interesting, thought-provoking and education. show less

Overall a good book but the author comes across to be a bit of an evangelical fundamentalist with his anti-technology views. Perhaps I'm overly sensitive to that, though, having had similar feelings and broadcast them on my blog back when we lived in a yurt with no electricity or running water for 2 years. Ten years after that, living then in a highrise in Canada's biggest city I realized that it was pretty narrow-minded of me to be so sure that living that simply was not only right for me show more but the way everyone should be living. It was right for our family then, and a different way of life is right for us now.

The author seems to fall into the same trap I did - feeling that the fact that the life change he made then and that worked so well for him then was the life change that everyone else needs to make, and that many of society's ills are caused by the failure of everyone to do so. show less

Very readable, good writing about the author's adventures joining an Amish-like community, living without electricity and most other modern technology for over a year. It's certainly a biased account since the author was predisposed to reducing or eliminating technology in his life. But it was interesting nonetheless, and gave me a lot to think about in my own life.