Title: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle – A Year of Food Life
Author: Barbara Kingsolver, with Stephen L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver
Other works: (by Barbara) The Poisonwood Bible, Prodigal Summer, Small Wonder, The Lacuna, The Bean Trees, etc.
Recommended by: Book Club! I also find that Kingsolver’s work recommends more of itself to be read.
Genre: Non-fiction/Cooking/Poetry (because honestly, everything she writes is full of poetic gorgeousness)
Main Characters: Her family – she, her husband, and two daughters – and the FOOD.
Opinions: I adored this book, as I expected to. I had read a bunch of her fiction, as well as non-fiction essays; Animal, Vegetable, Miracle has the added practical advice, recipes, and lots of horticulture that make it useful and educational, as well as just beautiful. I don’t remember all the opinions from the Book Club meeting, but it gets 4/5 on Goodreads.
A quotation I liked: “Human manners are wildly inconsistent; plenty of people have said so. But this one takes the cake: the manner in which we’re allowed to steal from future generations, while commanding them not to do that to us, and rolling our eyes at anyone who is tediously PC enough to point that out. The conspicious consumption of limited resources has yet to be accepted widely as a spirtual error, or even bad manners.”
What sticks with me: This book is not preachy, but it says a lot about sustainability and the realities of our food culture, especially in North America. It makes me think all the more often about where my food has come from, and whether I want to support the way it’s grown or exported. I also really really want to have dinner with the author.
Recommended to: Farmers, Gardeners, Foodies, Environmentalists, Poets, and people who don’t cook but want to start.
To sum up: Inspiring. Sometimes depressing, but mostly uplifting. Barbara’s writing is always full of compassion for humanity, and this book makes you feel like a friend in her warm kitchen.
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I felt just the same way about this book. I’m pretty sure it was one we read (at least some of) to Mother. I’m glad you mentioned the poetic nature of her writing — so true, so pervasive, so engaging.
Yeah. Even hard – and sometimes angry – things she says with so much beauty.