7. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle:
A Year of Food Life
By Barbara Kingsolver
Publisher: HarperCollins
384 pages
$27.95

When Kingsolver and her family moved from arid Tuscon, Ariz., to verdant Appalachia, they upped the ante by deciding to eat only food they grew themselves, or which grew locally, for a full calendar year. They're not the first to try it, but they may be the funniest. Kingsolver and her family — who chip in on the writing — are never shrill or scoldy about their project, just quietly convincing, and they make the food in their agricultural epic practically vibrate with seductive organic intensity.