Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

This book chronicles the life of Kingsolver’s family as they live solely from food grown on their farm and local food for a year. The delicious descriptions of heirloom fruits and vegetables made me hungry (and strengthened my resolve to visit the farmer’s market more often), and there were many tips and recipes throughout the book for seasonal eating. I didn’t appreciate the arguments against vegetarianism (for example, she contends that we don’t feel guilty for mowing our lawn and killing the grass…) or the callous way in which she describes her daughter’s decision to kill chickens instead of selling the eggs to make more money. The judgmental tone of the book bothered me enough that I probably wouldn’t read anything by this author again. I imagine that the type of people who are drawn to this book are already doing their best to live an eco-friendly lifestyle, and don’t require additional preaching.