11 min · 11 chaptersNarrated in your voice
Original summary · AI-drafted, human-published · added by Library
What it's about
Barbara Kingsolver, her husband Steven L. Hopp, and their daughter Camille recount a year in which their family ate only food they grew themselves or sourced from farmers within their own Appalachian county. The book argues that the industrial food system has severed Americans from the seasons, the land, and the true costs of eating, and that a return to local, seasonal food is both an ecological necessity and a source of genuine pleasure. It became a touchstone of the locavore movement.
Reading plan
Pick a finish date and Genius lays out the days — the plan shows today's target and keeps you honest.
Read together
Start a circle and share the code — everyone sees everyone's honest place in the book. Accountability, not leaderboards.
Who it's for
- Home cooks curious about growing or sourcing more of their own food - Readers concerned about the environmental cost of the industrial food chain - Parents wanting to rethink how their children learn to eat
What’s inside
- 1The Hidden Price of Cheap Food1 min
The industrial food system's low prices are an illusion sustained by fossil fuel subsidies and monoculture, not genuine efficiency.
- 2The Rules of the Experiment1 min
Deliberately narrowing food choices to what is local and seasonal produces more variety and satisfaction than an unlimited supermarket aisle, not less.
- 3Relearning the Calendar1 min
Seasonal eating restores a sense of anticipation and scarcity that the year-round supermarket has erased, and that erasure has a real psychological cost.
- 4Raising the Turkeys1 min
Raising and killing your own meat produces a more honest relationship to eating animals than either factory meat or abstract vegetarianism.
- 5The Summer Glut and the Work of Preserving1 min
The labor of local eating is real and substantial, and the book argues it is worth it, though it does not pretend this labor is evenly distributed or free.
- 6Seeds, Variety, and What Gets Lost1 min
The consolidation of the seed supply into a small number of hybrid, patented varieties represents a hidden and largely irreversible loss of agricultural insurance against future crop failure.
- 7Rebuilding a Local Food Economy1 min
Local food networks survive only if enough consumers choose to pay for them, which makes the locavore choice as much an economic vote as a personal habit.
- 8Passing It On1 min
A child's early, hands-on relationship to food shapes taste and habit more durably than any adult attempt to eat differently later in life.
About Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver is a novelist (The Poisonwood Bible, The Bean Trees) with a background in biology and ecology. She wrote this memoir with her husband, ornithologist Steven L. Hopp, who contributes food-policy essays, and her daughter Camille, who provides recipes and a younger perspective, from their working farm in southern Appalachia.
What readers say
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