This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader [Paperback]

The style of writing did not bother me. Although she does seem at times to meander in the early chapters, she has quite a few complicated and inter-related subjects to cover: the purchase of her first home, the purchase of her new home, the development of her commitment to self-sufficient agriculture (or something close to it), and the death of her husband. Once those subjects are covered, I found the book became clearer and more linear (for better or worse).

Most of what she says I can't argue with. I agree that there is something fundamentally wrong with a food production system that makes it more affordable for we Northeasterners to buy food shipped in from California than to buy food from our own home states. When she describes the system as essentially a lot of fuel going to ship cold water, one has to want to reevaluate their food choices.

I found myself nodding in agreement when she talked about the taste of the foods we have the "luxury" of being able to buy year round. Having tasted food right off the farm, I can verify that there is a world of difference between it and the items you find in your store- even if they are "in season". Fresh produce does get addictive. Of course, not everyone has the luxury of having enough land to grow a substantial garden on, as Gussow points out. She suggests a CSA as an alternative, but that can be an unrealistic commitment for many people as well.

...I took puzzled offense to her chapter on vegetarianism. While I feel that serious gardeners and farmers have a right to protec their crops from "varmints" and that therefore there is a little death in even the most stringent vegan diet, I felt that she completely dropped the ball in her argument against a vegetarian diet. Throughout the book she drives home that the gasoline used to ship food all over the country contributes to the greenhouse effect that caused her (and most of the country) some of the most erratic summers and winters on record. In her dismissal of the vegetarian diet, she does not once make mention of the fact that the waste from the livestock is also a major contributor to the greenhouse effect. She talks about an organization that touted the belief that the planet would return to an Eden-like state if we all stopped eating meat. Perhaps (although she gives an incomplete argument against that assertion), but the argument I have heard for the last decade is that if everyone in the US cut their consumption of meat by 10%, we would significantly reduce energy consumption and livestock waste- enough to make a difference in the global warming trend she (and I) is so concerned about.

That aside, this is a book worth reading if you are interested in sustainable agriculture. Again, it's not something we'll all be able to do, but it's something we can all participate in.