When Barbara Kingsolver and her family set out from their home in Arizona to their small farm in western Virginia, book deal in hand, the term "locavore" had little meaning to most of us. However, during and after their year-long experiment, the local food movement has exploded into the consciousness of most Americans.
In this work of non-fiction (from a largely fiction writer), one family resolves to spend a year growing as much of their own food as possible and finding the rest, with a few small exceptions, within 120 miles of home. The narrative is written conversationally, with contributions from the author's husband and daughter, resulting in a non-fiction book that reads like fiction (I'm looking at you, Gina).
While I'm not going to be moving to a farm in Appalachia any time soon to recreate this experiment, I have taken a lot from it with respect to the value of knowing from whence our food has come, eating locally and supporting smaller scale organic food production. Also how damn lucky some of us are to live in California.
Barbara Kingsolver is my current favorite author. Though admittedly, I have not read the book for which she is probably the most famous: The Poisonwood Bible. Most of her works are fiction, many set in the Southwest United States. Animal Vegetable Miracle is the exception. Others that I've read and loved by Kingsolver are: The Bean Trees and its sequel Pigs in Heaven and Animal Dreams. I think I have copies of those first two if any one is interested in borrowing. The others were from the library.
xo Jennie
Wasn't The Poisonwood Bible the one Denise was reading when we were in Peru? I remember starting it. And thanks for the "reads like fiction." Otherwise, I probably wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole. Just being honest here.
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