Review: Farm City by Novella Carpenter
Title: Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer
Author: Carpenter, Novella
Length: 276 pages
Genre: Non-Fiction, Biography, Environmental
Publisher / Year: Penguin Books / 2009
Source: I received this from the publisher at BEA.
Rating: 3.5/5
Why I Read It: It sounded great, and informative.
Date Read: 10/08/10
A hilarious and interesting take on urban farming – this time in an abandoned ghetto in Oakland, California. Novella Carpenter and her boyfriend Bill may not call themselves hippies, but they have a large garden on an abandoned lot behind their house, converted their car to run on vegetable oil, keep a beehive on their balcony, egg laying chickens in the backyard and, through the course of this book, raise meat birds, rabbits, and pigs. All in an abandoned ghetto in Oakland, California.
The book is told as a memoir of three main years. The first year they get meat chickens, the second year they have rabbits, and the third year they have the pigs. Through telling the story this way the reader gets an intimate glimpse of what it is like raising animals (and foraging for their food in dumpsters behind restaurants) in a city.
Books like this always make me want my own garden, or to raise chickens. Obviously the fact that I am away so much makes this impossible though. Growing up though, I had a big local food experience – I grew up in the country, and we always had a large vegetable garden. My grandparents next door raised some combinations of chicken / geese / ducks each year, so we always had fresh bird as well. My parents fish lobster, and we used to fish other things as well, so I am also used to fresh seafood. As well, a few summers my dad decided t hat it would ‘build character’ for my younger sisters and I to raise pigs. Obviously we had no qualms about the fact that we would be eating them when the summer was over as we gave them such names as Black-bacon and Hammy.
This experience growing up really made the book even more enjoyable for me. Carpenter is a great story teller and had me laughing out loud in several instances, especially in terms of raising the pigs which I had some knowledge of already! Her stories of the turkeys wandering the neighborhood and up to the freeway, the pigs escaping and the monks helping escort them home, all of this lent the story humor and excitement.
My only negative with the book was the story Carpenter tells about trying to eat local for a month from her garden. By not planning in advance and not taking advantage of all options available she makes it seem impossible, where others have done it successfully before. Through her experience it makes eating locally seem impossible and way too difficult to maintain. Obviously it is her memoir so she is going to talk about her experience, but I do wish she had mentioned what she learned, or referenced others who had done such things successfully.
Overall it was a great read and I’m really happy that I picked it up. I highly recommend it as a great addition to the canon of urban farming and local food literature.
I’m not big on memoirs, but this sounds like it might be right up my alley. I’m not an urban farmer, but as a girl from the ‘burbs who now owns 37 acres and 4 laying chickens, I bet I’d get a kick out of it!
Yep Colleen, you might. And it was more adventure than memoir to me
This book sounds a lot like Coop, which I read a couple of months ago. I think that you might really like that one as well. I’d like to read this book. It sounds interesting and also very funny. If I can find my copy of Coop, I can send it to you. I think you’d love it. Let me know if you are interested!
Oh wow, thank you zibilee. I’d love to give it a read (if you are sure you don’t mine passing it on!). Especially if it is anything like this one.
This sounds interesting. It’s s shame the author didn’t make the local food experiment work, since others have shown that it can be done.
Yes laughingstars66, it was a shame. I wish she would have at least acknowledged that others can and do make it work and that it isn’t impossible.
This book has been on my wish list for awhile now. I wish the library would finally get it. Thanks for the review. Now I want it even more!
Chrisbookarama, send me your address and I will send you off the book if you would like! It is in my pile to give away.
This sounds great – it reminds me of another humorous memoir I read about a man who takes up farming after losing his office job (though of course I can’t remember the name of it right now).
Sounds interesting and kind of similar yes Donna. I’ll see if I can find out what it is!
This sounds really good. will send the link to a friend who keeps chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys and pigs. No rabbits. yet.
Heather, that friend might really enjoy the book. And books like this seem to be on the rise these days so you should advise your friend to write about her experiences
This looks great – I’ve seen it around before and it’s on my list of things to read!
It was a good read Carina, I hope you enjoy it.
It is amazing how many books like this are out there these days. Perhaps I should start offering tours of my husband’s farm to “big city folk”; rides in the tractor, four wheeling out to the irrigation systems, picking green beans, etc.
Heh. You should Trisha, you would be surprised who would do it. My parents always have people wanting to go out lobster fishing with them and they always want to help with the work. Mom thinks it’s great. lol
Have you seen the show The Fabulous Beekman Boys on Planet Green? It’s a reality show about these two Manhattanite guys in a relationship (one is a doctor, one is an ad exec) who decide to give up city life in order to go live in upstate New York and start their own farm where they have created a business selling their homemade goat’s milk soap and goat/cow’s milk cheeses. It’s all about living the farm-to-table lifestyle. Nicole from Linus’s Blanket and I attended the launch party here in NYC back in June. It was a lot of fun and I’ve so enjoyed watching the show!
One half of the Fabulous Beekman duo, Brent, wrote a book called The Bucolic Plague, where he tells all about his experience. I read it before the event and hosted a giveaway on my blog. I really enjoyed it, and since you liked this book, you probably would love this one too! It’s a really fun read!
I haven’t seen that show Allie, though I have seen the book mentioned a few times (including on your blog!). I might have to look it up at some point
I hadn’t heard of this before but it sounds incredibly neat. I’ve never read anything about urban farming before.
It is pretty crazy Ladytink_534. Having bees and pigs especially in a city seemed just so weird to me!