15-Day Challenge: Day 7 Book

Still plugging along with Sar's 15-Day Challenge. I'm having a great time reading posts from other bloggers. Hope you are taking the time to see what your fellow bloggers are up to! So here's the challenge for today:

[7] Recommend a book for us to read. Why do you think it's important?

This task was a little harder than I imagined. I enjoy reading, but I mostly read fiction just for fun. I have a few favorite authors (Elizabeth George, Reginald Hill, Tony Hillerman, Jonathan Kellerman, Faye Kellerman), but would have a hard time selecting just one of their books. I was tempted to recommend Wally Lamb's The Hour I First Believed, because it's one of those books that stuck with me long after I finished it. But I know that book did not strike a chord with everyone, including some critics, so I went with plan B.

 

I highly recommend Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. This non-fiction book accounts the year the Kingsolver family attempted to eat food either grown on their farm or obtained from neighbors or local farmers. We would now call them locavores, those who eats foods grown locally, but that term was not well-used in 2005 when this book was written.

 

The book begins as the Kingsolver family relocates from Arizona to rural Appalachia. Their adaptation to farm living, and all the livestock that entails, is warmly and hilariously described in detail. It is a funny, witty read that provides wonderful information on the history of food and how it gets to your table. Seriously, you will never look at food quite the same after reading this book. It really is an eye-opener to learn how the foods we routinely buy at the grocery store are processed and manipulated, all supposedly to benefit the consumer. A few recipes are thrown in for fun.

Read it and let me know what you think!

 

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