| Qty | Store | Section |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Burnside | Featured Titles- Biography |
| 17 | Burnside | Biography- Cooking |
| 4 | Hawthorne | Environmental Studies- Food and Famine |
| 3 | Home & Garden | Cooking and Food- Sustainable Cooking |
| 25 | Local Warehouse | Biography- General |
| 49 | Local Warehouse | Literature- K |
| 25 | Remote Warehouse | Biography- Literary |
| Hide store locations | ||
|
|
|
About This Book
ISBN13: 9780060852559 |
Powells.com Staff Pick
After 25 years in the Arizona desert, in 2004, Kentucky-bred Barbara Kingsolver moved back to the Appalachians, to a Virginia farm just hours from her childhood home. Family called. "Returning," she explains in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, "would allow my kids more than just a hit-and-run, holiday acquaintance with grandparents and cousins."
But Kingsolver adds, "There is another reason the move felt right to us, and it's the purview of this book. We wanted to live in a place that could feed us: where rain falls, crops grow, and drinking water bubbles right up out of the ground."
The typical food in an American supermarket has traveled considerably farther than some people do in a year of vacations. Consider the impact of those miles on fuel consumption, or the effect that chemical preservatives and industrial processing have on our health, not to mention what this long haul paradigm does to local economies and to our grasp of what food really costs, what food is.
For one year, the author's family pledged to eat only what it could procure from within an hour of its home. Meats, vegetables, grains, you name it.
After eleven previous books — bestselling novels, short stories, essays, and even a volume of poetry — Animal, Vegetable, Miracle marks yet another departure for Kingsolver. Her first full-length nonfiction narrative, and it's a family project besides. Husband Steven Hopp contributes informative sidebars that supplement Kingsolver's narrative and point out sources of additional information. Daughter Camille pens a short personal essay at the end of each chapter, offering seasonal recipes and weekly meal plans. Third-grade Lily starts an egg and poultry business.
"As we come around to being more mindful of our carbon footprint, being more thoughtful about the fuel we use as consumers, food is a natural place to begin," Kingsolver explained a week before publication. "Food is the rare moral arena in which the choice that's best for the world and best for your community is also the best on your table."
Recommended by Dave, Powells.com (read Dave's interview with Kingsolver)
Review-a-Day (What is Review-a-Day?)
"This may sound like a pretty crunchy read — either a frivolous ecofantasy or an uncomfortable scold aimed at those of us unable or unwilling to raise chickens in our backyards. But rest assured, it's neither. This is largely an informational book, short on plot, and don't expect any deep insights into the Kingsolver-Hopp family. Yet Kingsolver...adds enough texture and zest to stir wistful yearnings in all of us who have 'lost the soul of cooking from [our] routines.'" Marjorie Kehe, The Christian Science Monitor (read the entire CSM review)
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
"As the U.S. population made an unprecedented mad dash for the Sun Belt, one carload of us paddled against the tide, heading for the Promised Land where water falls from the sky and green stuff grows all around. We were about to begin the adventure of realigning our lives with our food chain.
"Naturally, our first stop was to buy junk food and fossil fuel...."
Hang on for the ride: With characteristic poetry and pluck, Barbara Kingsolver and her family sweep readers along on their journey away from the industrial-food pipeline to a rural life in which they vow to buy only food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it. Their good-humored search yields surprising discoveries about turkey sex life and overly zealous zucchini plants, en route to a food culture that's better for the neighborhood and also better on the table. Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle makes a passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life and diversified farms at the center of the American diet. "This is the story of a year in which we made every attempt to feed ourselves animals and vegetables whose provenance we really knew . . . and of how our family was changed by our first year of deliberately eating food produced from the same place where we worked, went to school, loved our neighbors, drank the water, and breathed the air."
Review:
Review:
Review:
Review:
Review:
Review:
Review:
Review:
Review:
Synopsis:
About the Author
Camille Kingsolver attends Duke University, where she studies biology, anatomy, and dance, and teaches yoga.
What Our Readers Are Saying
Add a comment for a chance to win!
Average customer rating based on 13 comments:
-
grevillea, April 12, 2008 (view all comments by grevillea)
This account of one family's attempt to eat locally has changed the way I buy and cook food.
-
megcampbell3, December 23, 2007 (view all comments by megcampbell3)
The warmth of Kingsolver's life, home, and kitchen is wonderfully translated to the page, as is the notion that if we choose to care, we can reconnect to our bodies, our communities, our families, and yes, the sources of our food. And while the majority of people reviewing this book tend to say something along the lines of… "we don’t expect Kingsolver thinks we'll all start gardening and raising chickens…" I would have to say that I think Kingsolver hopes she has at least ignited our hopes that we could if we wanted to. She, her husband (Steven Hopp) and her daughter (Camille Kingsolver) certainly give us enough inspiring narrative, sidebar snapshots of the current state of food in the world, and seasonal recipes from their year, to encourage action over defeated sighs of complacency. This is a very important book for everyone who eats: those of us with enough money to choose exactly what we want, and those of us on food stamps: we can all benefit from Kingsolver's experience and insight.
-
awisehart, December 16, 2007 (view all comments by awisehart)
Infused with sharp wit and a conversational style, this is the story of one family's quest to live small - growing their own food, buying the rest from almost exclusively local sources. Immensely readable, funny, inspiring, and rarely preachy, this is a book about re-connecting with where our food comes from, and making responsible, conscious choices. Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite writers, and this book does not disappoint. Rather than portraying this journey as a deprivation, she conveys a sense of adventure and pleasure in food - growing it, preparing it, and eating it. Quite a feat these days, when convenience, pre-packaged foods are the norm.
View all 13 comments
Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9780060852559
- Subtitle:
- A Year of Food Life
- Author:
- Author:
- Author:
- Author:
- Author:
- Publisher:
- HarperCollins
- Subject:
- General
- Subject:
- Literary
- Subject:
- Food habits
- Subject:
- Farm life
- Subject:
- Organic
- Subject:
- Personal Memoirs
- Copyright:
- 2007
- Publication Date:
- May 2007
- Binding:
- Hardcover
- Grade Level:
- General/trade
- Language:
- English
- Pages:
- 384
- Dimensions:
- 9.22x6.60x1.24 in. 1.54 lbs.
