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Rating: 
Summary: One of the best...
Review: ...thinkers I was exposed to in high school while researching for an essay report. His well-balanced thoughts on various agrarian and community-based themes are the most eloquent I have found from a single writer. His words and rationales spring from the land and argue pursuasively for more restraint for the betterment of the world by the human animal. The most compelling living philospher I know of is Wendell Berry. I recommend all of his written works.
Rating:
Summary: One of those "if you don't read any other book this year...
Review: If you're a content postmodern, don't read this book. It will leave you unsettled. The title essay from Berry's book is worth the price of the whole book. If you were to read only one book this coming year to guide both your thinking and your behavior (aside from the Bible which undergirds Berry's thinking), this would be a great choice. If the following snippet from the title essay resonates with your spirit, you'll want to pick this one up."If you destroy the ideal of the "gentle man" and remove from men all expectations of courtesy and consideration toward women and children, you have prepared the way for an epidemic of rape and abuse. If you depreciate the sanctity and solemnity of marriage, not just as a bond between two people, but as a bond between those two people and their forebears, their children, and their neighbors, then you have prepared the way for an epidemic of divorce, child neglect, community ruin, and loneliness. If you destroy the economies of household and community, then you destroy the bonds of mutual usefulness and practical dependence without which the other bonds will not hold." Why is it that we have our best thinkers like Berry running old family farms, and our worst thinkers running our national government? Sigh.
Rating:
Summary: One of those "if you don't read any other book this year...
Review: It is more than a little gratifying to have your dearly-held opinions vindicated--and eloquently so--by a living writer of note. I was treated to this experience recently in reading Wendell Berry's Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community, a collection of eight essays varied in subject but all founded on the premise that our current social ills stem from the consumer-culture's rapacious destruction of local communities and their resources, both natural and human. Not surprisingly, as a Kentucky gentleman farmer, Berry's definition of community centers on the bond between the people and the land on which they live. Modern urban readers may be tempted to dismiss as an old farmer's finger-wagging Berry's accusations against the global economy and its insatiable appetites (a la "Well, when I was a boy..."), but his arguments are sharp-witted, penetrating and thoroughly convincing; I found myself frequently exclaiming to the empty room (or on the train, where I do most of my reading) a self-righteous "Yes!" to his analysis of the myth of the global economy. Having dropped any guard to Berry's disarmingly kindred spirit, I did find myself challenged in other deeply-held beliefs by his essay "The Problem of Tobacco," in which he argues for the economies and communities of the tobacco farmers with whom he was raised--despite his acknowledgement that smoking is unhealthy and that he himself quit many years ago. But his manner is so straightforward and honest that it feels only just and natural to set aside one's personal prejudices and to examine the underlying issues on their own merits--no small achievement in critical writing. In all, I found the essays refreshing and powerful not merely for the boost they gave my ego (after all, Wendell Berry thinks like I do!) but because his gentlemanly style of writing--with just a dash of sarcasm to give it kick--is engaging and disarming. I recommend it to any armchair social historians as well as those concerned with the disappearance of community in America. I'd throw in some quotes--plenty of his pithy statements come to mind--but I've already lent my copy to a friend whom I suspect will feel similarly vindicated by Berry's views.
Rating:
Summary: One to read slowly and thoughtfully
Review: This highly stimulating collection of Berry's essays contains some of the most important things Berry has written. The essay "Christianity and the Survival of Creation" is one of the most insightful and important theological statements of our day. It is in everyone's best interest to work to see that the organized churches take Berry's essay to heart. Of course, the book is also notable for the beauty of Berry's writing -- not coincidental, since he argues here and elsewhere for a recovery of the idea of work as sacred and for beauty as a measure of "right livelihood."
Rating:
Summary: One to read slowly and thoughtfully
Review: This highly stimulating collection of Berry's essays contains some of the most important things Berry has written. The essay "Christianity and the Survival of Creation" is one of the most insightful and important theological statements of our day. It is in everyone's best interest to work to see that the organized churches take Berry's essay to heart. Of course, the book is also notable for the beauty of Berry's writing -- not coincidental, since he argues here and elsewhere for a recovery of the idea of work as sacred and for beauty as a measure of "right livelihood."
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