Category: Book Review

Barbara Kingsolver is best known for writing literary fiction. She’s garnered critical acclaim for decades now, between The Poisonwood Bible and Demon Copperhead, among other novels. In fact, she was at the top of the list last week in our literary fiction booklet for Exploring Genres. She started her career, however, as a science writer, and she is also a talented nonfiction author in her own right. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is the best known of her nonfiction works, and it is well worth reading, especially this time of year when everyone’s preparing their gardens for summer.

In 2006, Kingsolver, her husband, and her two children decided to eat local for a year. Basically, other than a handful of essentials, like coffee and olive oil, they either made or grew or raised everything they ate on their farm in Appalachian Virginia, or they purchased/bartered for things local to them in season. Now, this is the kind of premise that could easily descend into a ridiculous farce in the hand of amateurs, but this isn’t this kind of book.