3 authors picked
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle as one of their favorite
books. Why do they recommend it?
Jeanne McWilliams Blasberg
Author
I was inspired and shocked that it took me this long to find this book. Both because I am beginning my own agricultural journey and because Barbara Kingsolver is an all-time favorite, I loved this book’s calendar-following content and the voice it employs. The family’s pact to eat local and seasonal food for a year is portrayed honestly with humor and joy instead of preachiness.
It speaks to the things we dive into full-bore without completely appreciating how much work it entails. With determination and intentionality, they commune with the land and find a community- truly aspirational.
It is a memoir where Barbara Kingsolver writes humorously about a year of living off the land. She is not a vegetarian but must raise, kill, and butcher animals if she wants to eat meat. The result is, every time she eats meat, she weighs the emotional cost.
This reckoning has been my bible. I ask myself, would I be willing to kill the chick I raised to eat? Inevitably, the answer is “no.”
The book is not a treaty encouraging people to live off the land, it’s the opposite. It…
As a longtime fan of Barbara Kingsolver, I highly recommend Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which chronicles her family’s experiences during their first year of growing and raising their own food on a family farm in Appalachia.
After living in Tucson, Arizona, for most of her adult life, Kingsolver moves with her husband, Stephen Hopp, and their two daughters to Virginia, in an effort to reduce their own impact on the environment and live more sustainably.
Between accounts of the successes and mishaps in the garden, Kingsolver intersperses thought-provoking essays about climate change and the state of the environment along with ways…
A retired English teacher has come home to Appalachia, a land of industrial disaster and natural beauty. He has been enticed with stories of Wildcat’s transformation: of the collective action embodied in Hotel Wildcat as well as the artisanal pursuits springing to life in the old iron mill. But in returning, he must confront his dark memories: the lost love of his hippie chic girlfriend not to mention the lost trust between his middle-class family and working-class Wildcat.
Written in the lyrical grit so characteristic of America’s Rust Belt, Wildcat: An Appalachian Romance is a testament to the redemptive potential…
Journey into Appalachia's Heart: Love, Loss, and the Resilience of a Forgotten Land
Discover the captivating allure of the Appalachian region as Jeffrey Dunn skillfully weaves a tale of love, loss, and redemption in his exquisitely crafted literary fiction masterpiece, Wildcat: An Appalachian Romance. Immerse yourself in the depths of the rust belt's rugged landscapes, where the echoes of industrial disaster intertwine with the sublime beauty of nature, all while the characters navigate the delicate dance between past and future.
In this poignant narrative, our protagonist, a retired English teacher, returns to his roots, lured back to the once-shuttered Hotel…
