Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

This book came into my hand at a time when I was thinking gardening and farmers markets and “what is so great about organic, anyway?” - that is to say, at a time when I was very receptive to the book's message. Fortunately Nick picked up this book (while I was in the middle of it, oh well), which opened his eyes to food issues as well. In fact, some of our best conversations about how we want to actually live in this world started out as conversations about this book. So what I got out of this book was a new resolve to pay attention to seasonality in my fruits and veggies; a willingness to buy the more expensive local and organic foods, because that is not an area of life to be chintzy about; and new adventures in cooking, making food, and gardening on a teeny tiny Manhattan balcony.

I agree with people who say this book is preachy. It is absolutely intended to make you feel depressed about how you live and eat, and realize that her family is better than yours. The upside is that she gives really practical advice about how to change, and you can either hate and envy her or take the advice and make things better - I think people either love or hate this book depending on which of these they choose. The sections written by Camille Kingsolver are the worst, just insufferably holier-than-thou, so I simply stopped reading those parts. Much better that way.