Notes from April and May Not Fiction Book Discussions

We have spent the Spring months considering Barbara Kingsolver and Bill McKibben's arguments for what McKibben calls "the economics of neighborliness," the feasibility and the benefits of participating in economies that are local in scale.


Everyone who attended the discussions of Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life unreservedly enjoyed her narrative of her family's year of eating locally, finding it both personable and informative. We were especially impressed with her daughter Camille's menus and recipes at the end of each chapter. Many of us reported being inspired by her family's example to make changes in our food life, such as joining community supported agriculture projects, visiting the local farmer's market, planting a few herbs and vegetables in our yards, and even making our own cheese. Although some critics felt that her project amounted to "stunt eating" (New York Times), an experiment that most of us could not hope to duplicate, we agreed that we could all try buying more fruits and vegetables locally and in-season even if we weren't prepared to put by a year's worth of tomato sauce or butcher our own meat.


Those of us who attended the discussions of Bill McKibben's Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future agreed that we were glad we had read his book even though we might not otherwise have considered reading a book about sociology and economics without the discussions to motivate us. We were persuaded by his clear, emphatic, reasonable arguments that local economies might be workable on some scale. Several of us described our experiences of belonging to food co-ops, bartering one service for another, sharing ownership of infrequently used but necessary tools such as a snow blowers, using town-issued currency for purchases, and participating in New England town hall meetings. However, we all agreed that in this "flat" world, as Thomas Friedman calls it, some centralization of government, economy, and services is unavoidable and even necessary, for example, in the case of curtailing the spread of an epidemic or controlling the effects of climate change.


We also discussed the changes, not often for the better, in cultural attitudes about material possessions versus community that have occured even in our lifetimes. Most of us live in larger homes filled with more stuff, but we spend less time with family and friends and often do not know our neighbors. Both Kingsolver and McKibben ask us to consider essential questions: Is more better? What does richer mean? (McKibben) What is your answer to these questions?


For a virtual seasonal tour of the Kingsolvers' farm, visit http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/. To learn more about Bill McKibben's international campaign to build a movement to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis, visit http://www.350.org/. And to learn more about participating in the Lowcountry's local economy, visit http://www.lowcountrylocalfirst.org/.