Animal, Vegetable, Miracle : a Year of Food Life

Locations
Call Number: BOCD 641.09 Ki, Adult BOCD / Nonfiction / Biography / Kingsolver, Barbara
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Traverwood Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	BOCD 641.09 Ki	4-week checkout	Reshelving
Traverwood Adult A/V 4-week checkout	Adult BOCD / Nonfiction / Biography / Kingsolver, Barbara	4-week checkout	On Shelf

Compact discs.
Read by Barbara Kingsolver.
When Kingsolver and her family move from suburban Arizona to rural Appalachia, they take on a new challenge: to spend a year on a locally produced diet, paying close attention to the provenance of all they consume. "Our highest shopping goal was to get our food from so close to home, we'd know the person who grew it. Often that turned out to be ourselves as we learned to produce what we needed, starting with dirt, seeds, and enough knowledge to muddle through. Or starting with baby animals, and enough sense to refrain from naming them."--From publisher description.

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Yes and no submitted by gardenfaerie on June 25, 2018, 8:01am I have mixed emotions about this book, which I really wanted to like.

I do like Barbara Kingsolver's voice and she did a nice job with the recording. I skipped her husband's and daughter's chapters after the first one each because meh.

I was interested in the book mainly because I wanted to learn how she and her family survived a year eating only local foods. Ironically, that isn't the main topic covered.

She spends about a third of the time lecturing about the modern food process and how we're all disconnected from our food and HFCS is in everything. Fair point, but if you're even vaguely aware of this concept, you can't help but feel a bit lectured at.

The other third is about about big ag and how seed patents suck, and the plight of farmers overall and especially smaller ones. Again, I agree with everything she says, but if you know anything about this topic, it drags on and/or leaves you feeling lectured again.

The remaining third is about raising vegetables and animals for consumption and some fun stories of her travels and visitors. This is what I was hoping the whole book would be about, and the part I enjoyed most. it still left me wanting a bit, though, because I'm still not practically sure how they survived the year and exactly what they grew.

Fortunately, it's easy to skip sections on the CD and overall I enjoyed it, but it wasn't what I expected.

OK submitted by LauraMarie on August 9, 2019, 9:14pm I was very excited to listen to this on CD, and although there were many insightful moments, I found Barbara Kingsolver's voice/tone to be particularly condescending. I recommend reading this instead of listening!

This book will educate you about modern day food submitted by mickplu on June 10, 2023, 7:42am I read this years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it to the extent that it did change my eating habits. Although I couldn't survive on eating only locally I do have admiration for Kingsolver and her family. This did inspire me to visit more farmer's markets and it certainly challenged my views on food and what is really necessary.