Book Review: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver has been personally recommended to me several times, and appears to be the food book I see most referenced behind Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food and/or The Omnivore’s Dilemma (in fact Pollan’s and Kingsolver’s books are the first and third most popular food books on Amazon when you eliminate recipe books).

I finally decided to give up after trying to read this book for months. I never want to actually read it, so I have to keep talking myself into picking it up to read the next few pages. Not a good sign.

However, almost everyone else seems to LOVE this book.

Why don’t I like it?

• It’s too anecdotal. The entire book (well, I only made it halfway) is little more than stories of her personal journey through a year of eating locally. Think:
  • yay, the asparagus is finally here
  • we drove up to Canada and ate some local food there
  • let’s talk about when my friends came over to eat
• It preaches, rather than educates. The logic behind her food choices is explained as “this is how it should be” rather than being based on any statistics or deep understanding of the complex issues involved in eating locally.
• It’s not compelling. At any moment, I could put down this book and walk away, without caring. In fact, I usually wanted to skip ahead to the next chapter in the hopes that it would talk about something more interesting. There is no story, and I did not care about the characters.

I wanted to like Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I really did. I suspect much of my issue with this book is that I rarely read fiction. In my opinion, Barbara Kingsolver (who primarily writes fiction) unsuccessfully toes the line between fiction and non-fiction. The book is too anecdotal for a non-fiction book, and not cohesive and plot driven enough for fiction.

If following the journey of someone you don’t know (but who writes well) on a journey of their experience eating locally for a year sounds like a fascinating read, then you will likely love this book like everyone else. But if you need to be educated (rather than told), you will probably want to pass.