Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (P.S.)

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Author Barbara Kingsolver and her family abandoned the industrial-food pipeline to live a rural life—vowing that, for one year, they'd only buy food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is an enthralling narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat.

Customer Reviews:   Read 291 more reviews...

Eat me!   August 27, 2008
Thea Williamson (Brooklyn, NY)
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.


Good annecdotes, light on facts   August 26, 2008
K. Suhr (Tottori-ken, Japan)
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.


Preaching (truly) to the converted   August 24, 2008
smilla
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.


A little slow at times, but very informative   August 23, 2008
C. Barnard (portland, OR USA)
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.


Classic Kingsolver   August 23, 2008
Chestelle Samford (Austin, TX)
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.