Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

[mirime]

Great points, Reinbeau! Pollan does a great job in keeping it humble, having a "we all could use a little help" sort of attitude.

yep that's one of the main reasons I loved "The Omnivore's Dilemma" - I'm so excited because he's coming to speak at the college in the town where I live! :rose

 

[Reinbeau]

Oh, how lucky are you?? I'd love to hear him speak - I know he's probably been in the Boston area but I'm so darned busy usually teaching (I've got only two clients today so I'm having a nice morning gardening and browsing). I'll just keep reading his books and following his writings via Google alerts.

 

[amyquilt]

So glad to have found this thread. AMV and Omn are 2 books I've been wanting to read. Now I"m really excited to get them.

 

[simple life]

I read Animal, Vegetable,Miracle a while back. While it was entertaining and informative she personally got on my nerves.
I liked the book alot, her not so much.
Obviously thats my opinion but I felt that she came off judgemental. I didn't like how she tried to sneak stuff in there that made her appear to be self depricating but I felt she was in fact tooting her own horn.
There was on section of the book that irked me for some reason and I hate that I let it bother me. Its when she is disembowling a turkey and conversing with her friends at the same time.
I wasn't crazy about her writing style when they were slaughtering the chickens either.
I just think that her personality or writing style clash with my personal taste in reading.
Other than that, I found the book to be a great addition to my collection of self (sufficient) help books.
I actually recommend this book to people so I guess her smugness can be overlooked.
I am going to read the Omivore's Dilemma as soon as I finish reading the Queen Must Die which is about bee keeping.
By the way if anyone is looking for a good read I recommend the books by Sue Hubbell.
She moved to the Ozarks with her husband of 30 years and then he left her. She stayed there by herself in a cabin on around 90 acres.
She is a commercial beekeeper.
She writes about the people there and her experiences of living there on her own.
I really like her books, she has a very easy going way of writing . I read 2 of her books this past week,
A Country Year and A Book Of Bees
I really like her writing and her books are interesting.
The bee book isn't for everyone unless you have an interest in bees but The Country Year though is a book about everything related to her living on her own in the country.
I read the book the Four- Season Harvest the other day and that is a great book for anyone who wants to learn to grow and harvest vegetables all year long.

 

[DrakeMaiden]

I think, for me anyway, what was irritating about Kingsolver's book was that she was claiming to be eating only local, but she was still eating olive oil, coffee, etc. NOW, mind you, I know eating completely local is pretty near impossible, however it was the fact that she made the claim to be a purist, while it was obvious that they couldn't achieve that. I would have probably enjoyed it more if she had decided to drop non-local ingredients gradually from their diet and see how far she could go towards 100% local meals. Just my opinion.

If you can't quit your coffee habit, you're not hard-core enough for my taste.

However, I did enjoy the book.

 

[poppycat]

yep that's one of the main reasons I loved "The Omnivore's Dilemma" - I'm so excited because he's coming to speak at the college in the town where I live! :rose

DH heard him speak last spring and said it was really good. I got to stay home with a barfing 6 yr old. Lucky ME!

 

[Ron]

Get off Kingsolver's back, you Whiners! It was a great book and she very clearly explained that it was necessary to use some non-local things such as coffee, pepper, etc. Can't you just enjoy something or at least ignore if you don't like it???

 

[simple life]

You need to go back and reread this thread and then make a more polite and appropriate response.
Its obvious that you just skimmed what people were saying and took things out of context.
By the way in case you haven't noticed this forum is for discussion.
Its for people to voice their opinions in an intelligent and respectful way.hint hint
Its not the Barbara Kingslover's fan club.

 

[Reinbeau]

Thank you, Natalie, I couldn't have said it better myself.

 

[simple life]