|
| Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (P.S.) | 
 enlarge | Authors: Barbara Kingsolver, Camille Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $7.61
You Save: $7.34 (49%)
New (76) Used (18) from $7.61
Avg. Customer Rating:  321 reviews
Sales Rank: 196
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0060852569
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.0973
EAN: 9780060852566
ASIN: 0060852569
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new item. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20081115221554T
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Negativity abounds February 8, 2008
38 out of 60 found this review helpful
When referring to organic produce, the author asks who put the sanctimony into the phrase organic. If she has read her own book it should be crystal clear that it was none other than herself. Sanctimonious perfectly describes almost the entire book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I say almost, because the portions added by her daughter and husband are actually informative and enjoyable. The book must not be aimed at the American consumers to which it would be sold, because the author does not have one nice thing to say about her fellow Americans. She has even trained her younger daughter to deny her American heritage by saying that she is American, but not really. You can't possibly hope to influence people's attitudes by attacking them and then explaining why you are so much better, and this is what Kingsolver tries to do. The sad thing is that she even attacks like-minded people. She criticizes a "starlet" for wanting to save farm animals, saying that her logic is flawed. Then the author proceeds to say that dairy cows are bred to produce milk and cannot live without being milked. She should check out her facts before ridiculing someone else for getting them wrong. If a milking cow is not milked, the milk will eventually stop being produced, just like it does for us humans. For large-scale dairy farming, the cow could be milked less and less until the milk dries up. So it is pretty ridiculous to giggle about the starlet's stupidity and then say something really stupid herself.
Ms. Kingsolver repeats over and over in the book that America has no food culture. This is totally untrue. America is a melting pot and has the richest food culture of anywhere else. America absorbed peoples from every nationality and their food cultures along with them. She also avows that the French sample McDonald's, but they don't really eat there. I hate to break it to her, but there are McDonald's restaurants in almost every European city, and if you want to buy a burger there you will have to wait in line. France is no different. The lines are always nearly out the door. I live in a European city with a population of only about 100,000 people, and there are no less than 4 McDonald's here. They are never empty. Ever.
It was difficult for me to get all the way through the book. Most of the factual material was no news to me, and I think the book was a big waste of my time.
Rich White People Pretend to be Farmers January 19, 2008
34 out of 53 found this review helpful
I don't understand some of these customer reviewers' apparent surprise that a family can "live off the land"--of course they can (people have done that since the beginning of time). The problem is that not everyone can afford their own land in our country (let alone their own home these days, given the economy we live in). But Kingsolver's book does not address these issues at all; it is basically a pretentious display of self-congratulatory, self-perceived superiority, and offers very little useful information for people who DON'T actually own a large chunk of land in Appalachia. Frankly, the book even falls short on the touchy-feely side (there is not real growth, nothing learned, no actually problems, challenges, or difficulties faced).
Although Kingsolver's message about eating locally is salient, and the book is an entertaining read at times, I would like to point out that people CAN eat locally without owning several gardens, traveling to Tuscany for inspiration, and breeding their own heritage turkeys and hens and making their own cheese. Kingsolver's book is basically a story about some rich white people playing at farming. Well, kudos to them, but spare us the mind-numbing boredom of your newly enlightened state, please!
I would recommend that readers stick to Michael Pollan's excellent, informative books if they want useful information about local food. If they want to hear someone brag arrogantly about her own family, all the while insinuating (not so subtly) that every other American lacks culinary taste, food culture, and intelligence, read Kingsolver's book.
 Great, Now I Want Chickens May 13, 2007
27 out of 30 found this review helpful
Wonderful, insightful book about the importance of eating locally, and even more importantly, eating thoughtfully. Barbara Kingsolver details the year in which she and her family strive to live off of foods grown locally, but the book is much more than an interesting personal memoir; she, her husband and their daughter explain in great detail WHY they feel the need to do this.
There is no vague talk or philosophy here, rather very thorough forays into biology, politics, history, education, and every other genre of study that explains how we, as Americans, eat-- which is generally pretty badly. The scientific background of both Ms. Kingsolver and her husband (who has essays scattered throughout the book) really shines through. The decision to eat locally (in this case, from their own garden or farms within the same county) is presented not as a throw-back to a better, earlier time but as the way forward, the beginning of a new and improved chapter. Instead of presenting this painstakingly-researched information in one overwhelming block, Ms. Kingsolver carefully intersperses it with the personal story in easily-digested bites. This keeps both the science and the garden-family-diary part in balance and makes the book very readable.
The personal side of the story is excellent. Growing vegatables; raising poultry; making cheese at home(!!!); baking bread every day (the husband's responsibility in this case); canning, freezing, braiding, and otherwise storing the garden's bounty; each of these and more are a part of the grand experiment. "Deprivation" never sounded so fun or so fufilling. If you've ever dreamed of canning your own tomatoes or keeping chickens, this book will make your yearnings worse.
Ms. Kingsolver and co. are refreshingly non-vegetarian, blithely describing Turkey-Harvest Day (what it sounds like, yes) and explaining both why "vegetarian" crops like corn kill more animals via thresher and pesticide than meaty "crops" like chicken, and why the idea that the world would be better off with more vegetarians is deeply flawed. Vegetarians may be perturbed by their findings, but I think it would still be worth reading with an open mind.
The glimpses into her family life, too, are fascinating-- kids who are more interested in chickens and tomatoes than Playstation and cable? Huh. The book includes several essays by Kingsolver's elder daughter, Camille, who provides an interesting perspective: as both an interested member in this "new" lifestyle and a college freshman, she is a bridge between these cultures.
Like any garden/farm narrative, I suppose, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is very regional and it really captures the flavor of its paticular locale--Virginia. I am a recent transplant to Virginia myself (this is my first spring/summer here) and the book answered some of my questions about this new place, like "Why does my front yard smell like onions? Are those chives growing wild all around the neighborhood?" Apparently they are "ramps". Who knew? Not this Texan. That sudden retreat to freezing last month is a "dogwood winter". I realize that to most readers of this review it's not important, but I felt a sudden thrill of recognition to realize that this farm and author are probably within a hundred miles from here-- to realize that she is describing my newly adopted environment.
My only bone to pick is a very small one. Near the end of the book, Ms Kingsolver expresses surprise that her pet topic of eating locally has suddenly mushroomed from a secret underground movement, to the mainstream. As far as I can tell, this isn't true. Yes, the Times (or whatever it was) has a cover story on eating locally. But I was learning about it back in college (2001-ish) at the University of Vermont. My environmental classes covered the costs of shipping tomatoes and included a trip to the local CSA. That CSA, as well as the one I've joined here in VA, have been around for a while-- at least 5-10 years I think. Ms Kingsolver mentions several upscale restaurants (and one diner) that serve only local foods, and cookbooks. So clearly, this trend/idea/philosophy has been gaining steam for at least a decade, and didn't just pop out of the ground as the book was going to the publisher. But, as I said, small quibble. The book is fantastic, I'd reccommend it to anyone interested in changing the way they eat, gardening, farming, chickens...
A Total Rip Off July 15, 2007
26 out of 92 found this review helpful
I was foolish enough to order this book thinking it would give me some practical advice on organic gardening--WRONG!!! The book is poorly organized, and as another reviewer stated "meandering". In reality the book was just a rambling and not too well thought out political statement. I found it not to have one iota of useful information.I also found the book to be insulting toward Ms. Kingsolver's Appalachian neighbors who have fed themselves for many generations without the help of this arrogant outsider coming into their lives with her superior attitude.
I just want to warn others from buying this truly stupid book.
 A Member of the Industry June 14, 2007
25 out of 25 found this review helpful
I work in large-scale, corporate agriculture. Over the years I have worked for chemical companies, seed companies, grower-shippers and allied industries. I have recommended Kingsolver's novel "The Poisonwood Bible" to many of my colleagues. I have also endorsed Pollan's "Ominovore's Dilemma", having bought several copies and distributed them around. I very much enjoyed Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life". It contained all the wit and humor I would expect from one of this nation's finest novelists. I think this book as well as Pollan's are a bit weak in the plant science area and I think both lack some of the insights into the machinations that really drive some of the food production industries. Then, again their intended audience is not the readers of TAG: Theoretical and the Applied Genetics, it is the populace at large. I very much agree with the sentiment of eating local, of shopping local, and of the slow food movement. It puts money back into the local community, it fosters a sense of community and it improves the quality of our diets. What is local though? Many of the fruits and vegetables eaten during Kingsolver's year of eating locally do not have Virginia as their center of origin. Some purists might cry foul. But, I think the focus needs to be on breaking the transport chain. People need to rediscover what a fresh peach or tomato is supposed to taste like, and their proper season. The bulk of the 'civilized' world buy their food at a chain grocery store dominated by one of the multinational grocery conglomerates. You think you have a choice when you walk into the store? You do not. That choice was made by a buyer probably at some regional DC (distribution center) who purchased the fruit from a packing shed sight unseen, and certainly did not taste it. And, their main concern was not taste, it was making sure the fruit had a minimum level of sugar, since it is picked under ripe, and that it was firm enough to withstand many hundreds of miles in a truck. It is too bad, because I know the farmers want to produce a high quality product. And, I know the shippers want to ship fruits and vegetables that taste good. But they must bow to the buyers and market forces. In the California cherry industry, about half the fruit is exported each year, but it accounts for well over half the revenue because it is a 'high value' market. By my recent calculations, it takes 7.75 calories of fuel for every calorie of cherries flown from SFO to Tokyo. That is just the flight, it does not include any other production or transportation energy costs. Does that sound like sustainable agriculture? Do you really need those Chilean cherries or that asparagus from Peru in December?
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
