This was one of the best audiobooks I have ever listened to. I was so inspired by this book! If we could all follow this path, just think what our future would look like. This is also one of the rare times when the author is the BEST person to narrate. Thank you!

Thank You Barbara Kingsolver for sharing some of your life with us. Thank you for introducing us to your family and sharing some personal anecdotes. Thank you for this true account detailing local, sustainable living and providing context for why you and your family decided to live this way as well as providing resources for anyone wanting to do the same. I'm a tremendous fan of your work and I remain inspired and enthralled.

I read In Defense of Food in about a day, but this is really hard to get through. There is so much detail- about everything. I'm not a hard-core farmer, just a gardener looking for some gems of information for my little yard. She goes into such detail about every little thing that it makes me wonder if it would go quicker as a 'read' rather than a listen, or if I should have looked for an abridged version first.

I gave this audio book 5 stars for the reading, the content and humor along the way. At times, some of the content was too preacher-like and demeaning to the intelligence of common folk. I have overlooked these areas because the overall approach of becoming aware is the most critical part of the book. It certainly takes a cold-turkey jump into buying locally to really appreciate all we (technologically advanced countries) have taken for granted.

While not everyone needs to follow her footsteps, it was the learning curve needed to be able to share this topic with others.

So, if you like to be respectful to the Earth, but you won't scream at the woman wearing a silk blouse, or berate the cowboy for wearing leather boots, then this book should be enjoyable. As with all audiobooks, which is very different than a physical paper book, the reading is the key. The book was read by the author, her husband and daughter, and the tone was pleasing. I could not have finished this book if the author were to have read with a hell, fire and damnation tone.
For this reason alone, I give 5 stars!

Barbara Kingsolver does know how to tell a good story. She manages to turn what can be a very boring topic and makes it relatively interesting. For anyone who hasn't grown a large garden, eaten their own food, or know why asparagus isn't available in August, then this is a good book. She talks about why, when and how food is grown.

In the vein of making a good story she also anthromorphize all animals and plants. For example, the end story turns a large part on turkeys she is raising. Having raised the exact breed of turkeys she does perhaps gave me a little more insight. Her story is cute, but they aren't people. Applying human attributes to turkeys, or any animal, is annoying and not very helpful. They will squat or want to mate with a towel on a stick.

You also have to be careful. She wants to return her turkeys to a more "natural" animal that can raise their young and help the breed survive. This desire may kill the breed. Bourbon Red Turkeys have never lived on their own, they are a commercial breed developed in the 1900 and raised for meat. If you want to save the breed you need people to buy the meat, which then encourages people to raise the breed to meet the demand. This means it has to be affordable. Having birds sit on their own eggs and raise the breed means a female may raise 6 or 7 birds a year. They can produce up to 50 eggs/year, artificially incubated that's 50 turkeys. Heritage turkeys are already expensive enough to raise and sell, you don't need to increase costs more. Over the last 100 years they almost died out since they have little economic value and are raised as a hobby. If we're not careful they will be lost forever.

Her parts of the book are mixed with commentary from her partner and daughter. She's pretty lose with the facts in the first place, but in these asides lack total balance or realism. They really do detract from the book.