Here is a short synopsis of The Long Emergency, by James Howard Kunstler, which was run in Rolling Stone. Basically, it is a chilling collection of thoughts as we turn the corner in our ability to pull oil out of the ground and what that may mean for everything from the suburbs to transportation to alternative energy to medicine to agriculture to social and political landscapes...
Also, I have recently read The Ominvore's Dilemma , by Michael Pollan, which serves up an effective indictment against large scale agriculture and what passes for diet and nutrition in this day and age.
Usually, I read fiction and am an escapist by nature but these books, and a couple others recently read, have me rethinking a lot of things. My son went vegetarian about five or six months ago and so I am really overhauling my efforts in the kitchen and have established a fairly ambitious garden at our new house. I am now vegetarian myself, though I will eat seafood on occasion, and though I don't much miss the meat, I do miss the variety of dishes but I have picked up a lot of new wrinkles in my cooking repertoire.
