Bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver returns with her first nonfiction narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: You are what you eat. “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 … 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.”
Includes an excerpt from Flight Behavior.
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Well written and inspiring for anyone who wants to eat more consciously by buying locally or raising/growing your own food.
I loved this book. I have read many Barbara Kingsolver novels and enjoy her voice and perspective. Reading this book, which talks about how her family raised their own food and/or sourced it from within 100 miles of their home for one year, was a window into her own life that had me looking for parallels in her novels. (For example, you may …
education within a story, perfect, you will get healthier and smarter as you read
After listening to Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (one of my favorite authors) on CD I have becoming a farmer on my bucket list. The family leaves sunny Arizona for the Appalachians. They decide to grow their own food and eat only what they grow for a year. What they don’t grow they get locally.
She reads it with her daughter …
I loved this family’stru story of one year of living almost entirely on what they grew and produced themselves. Recipes are included. Really inspirational.
VERY INFORMATIONAL — very long – slow going.
Interesting look at what we eat
Nostalgic, reminiscent of the day-to-day lives of my grandparents living off the land.
King silver at her best. A look into who she really is
I loved every Kingsolver book I’d ever read, so I thought this story of a family moving back to roots and eating only fresh, in season food would be interesting. It just didn’t hold my attention, encourage me to eat only food in season, or even really care that her family did so. And I’m a Carolina girl who in large part does eat this way, so I’m …