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| Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (P.S.) | 
 enlarge | List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $8.19
You Save: $6.76 (45%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (based on 310 reviews)
Sales Rank: 133
Category: Book
Authors: Barbara Kingsolver, Camille Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Studio: Harper Perennial
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
Label: Harper Perennial
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0060852569
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.0973
EAN: 9780060852566
ASIN: 0060852569
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
Release Date: April 29, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Author Barbara Kingsolver and her family abandoned the industrial-food pipeline to live a rural life?vowing that, for one year, theyd 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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 305 more reviews...
 Local is better October 4, 2008
This book is very inspiring for those who are unaware or unclear about how much buying produce from far away affects our environment, our farmers and biodiversity. I loved it, and starting following the principles - they make sense.
I love this book! October 4, 2008
Barbara Kingsolver is such a fluid writer and as this book chronicles her families' year eating only locally grown foods, I was inspired to change the way I gather, prepare and consume our meals. I probably couldn't do right now what they did for a year but I am inspired and the recipes she shared were all very very good.
Amazing and Inspiring September 30, 2008
My students now ask me if I am on Barbara Kingsolver's payroll because I have been so moved by this book and quote it all the time. The emphasis on both personal health and the well-being of the planet is something we ALL need. Brava!! Amazing!
 Inspirational, Entertaining and Informative September 27, 2008
Barbara Kingsolver knows how to impart her knowledge with a wit and style that keeps you entertained and at the same time makes you want to change the world (or your life, at least).
 Pretentious, condescending and should have been interesting September 26, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I picked up this book with no history of Ms. Kingsolver as an author, simply thinking the premise behind the book, trying to purchase local foods and understanding the history of food and agriculture would prove interesting. As a typical homeowner with a small vegetable garden, I also thought it might prove to have some good tips. Sadly, any positives out of the book gets lost and weighed down by a superior and condescending writing style.
Ms. Kingsolver suffers from the same problems that afflict so many "advocate" authors, whether they be on the right,left, conservative, liberal side of a position. Instead of presenting an interesting and positive position based on a combination of facts and beliefs, she starts from the assumption that her viewpoint is simply a superior one and then continues to mock, insult, judge any other viewpoint or process.
A reader knows right away that when the first chapter extols the virtues of a European lifestyle without critically pointing out the flaws or the negative consequences of that culture and then proceeds to make silly conclusions that Europeans must be healthier because they have nude beaches, you know exactly what is coming next, a trashing of all things American. Instead of sticking to critical analysis of what is wrong with the American process of agriculture and food culture, the book is a romp in trashing any innovation, an assumption that all advances in food "technology" was part of the usual corporate conspiracy, and a self-righteous tome about how she is living her life.
The sad part is that many of her arguments are valid: There is a vast amount of energy wasted in current shipping of agricultural goods, the use of excessive pesticides and chemicals has not significantly decreased crop disease, the failure of a majority of not just Americans, but most citizens of developed nations to understand the food chain, the importance of local farmers to a society and to a community. There should have been an interesting story here without the pretentiousness, or moral/agricultural superiority. The book provides good sources for anyone interested in understanding local farming, in how and when vegetables grow and when they really should be purchased and eaten.
However, by the time I was able to even make it through the fifth chapter, as a reader I could not take any more preaching. WE GET IT, you are better then the rest of us. Even as someone sympathetic to much of what she was saying, I still could not digest anymore, nor did I care and that is the worst sin of any author; making your reader not care.
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