Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology

Two People. One Year. Zero Watts

Eric Brende

За особеностите на екземпляра

Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology

Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology - снимка 1

Състояние:: Много добро
Забележка:: Почти отлично състояние.
Език:: Английски
Наличност:: 1 бр.

За изданието

Издателство:: HarperCollins Publishers
Град на издаване:: New York
Година:: 2004 г.
Език:: Английски
Страници:: 233
Корици:: Твърди
Категория:: Публицистика, документалистика
Тегло (гр.):: 499
Ширина (мм):: 160
Височина (мм):: 230
Дебелина (мм):: 21
ISBN:: 9780060570040

What happens when a graduate of MIT, the bastion of technological advancement, and his bride move to a community so primitive in its technology that even Amish groups consider it antiquated? Eric Brende conceives a real-life experiment: to see if, in fact, all our cell phones, wide-screen TVs, and SUVs have made life easier and better -- or whether life would be preferable without them. By turns, the query narrows down to a single question: What is the least we need to achieve the most? With this in mind, the Brendes ditch their car, electric stove, refrigerator, running water, and everything else motorized or "hooked to the grid" and begin an eighteen-month trial run -- one that dramatically changes the way they live, and proves entertaining and surprising to readers. Better OFF is a smart, often comedic, and always riveting book that also mingles scientific analysis with the human story, demonstrating how a world free of technological excess can shrink stress -- and waistlines -- and expand happiness, health, and leisure. Our notion that technophobes are backward gets turned on its head as the Brendes realize that the crucial technological decisions of their adopted Minimite community are made more soberly and deliberately than in the surrounding culture, and the result is greater -- not lesser -- mastery over the conditions of human existence. * Advance Prise for Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology "This calm and unjudgmental account of living a little more lightly on the earth will do readers more good than a thousand of the self-help books crowding the bestseller lists. It will make you think about your own life more than you've thought about it for years, and for that service we can be deeply grateful to the talented Eric Brende." — BILL McKIBBEN. author of The End of Nature and Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age "Brende's book doesn't merely make a case; it tells a gripping story about turning your back on technology, or (at a deeper level) acting on what you believe. The book is hard to put down because the story is so good, the life it describes is so wistfully attractive, and the prose has the soothing, mesmerizing rhythm of a forest stream. You want to read Better OFF all day long and get lost in it—and dream about a different, better life; the book is a vicarious Utopia. It will make you sad, and you'll remember it for a long time." — DAVID CELERNTER. author of Drawing Life: Surviving the Unabomber and Mirror Worlds: Or the Day Software Put the Universe in a Shoebox: How It Will Happen and What It Will Mean "For those who want to get away from modern life and technology altogether, Eric Brende presents his own interesting and evocative personal experience, demonstrating that it is possible to pursue Thoreau's ideals today, and perhaps emerge richer for it." - MICHAEL KORDA, author of Country Matters "I more than read this book ... I lived with it. I read it slowly, intentionally, as one does a good novel, because I wanted it still to be there for me. The book most reminded me of Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, in that the journey is a vehicle for a wide range of observations, musings, and philosophizing. . . . The writing is finely crafted and perfectly paced—a pleasure to read, and the message is clear and compelling without being preachy or self-righteous. Indeed, the tone matches the theme, a blend and balance of insights and humility. This book works brilliantly." — DAVID F. NOBEL, author of 77ie Religion of Technology and Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation ** Contents Cast of Neighbors xiii Prologue 1 Taking Orders Section I: Planting 3 1 Seeds of Discontent 5 2 Paring Back 16 3 Lightening Up 30 4 Artfully Answering Nature 39 5 The Ram 46 6 The Missing Refrigerator 60 7 The Sounds of Silence 65 Section II: Growing 71 8 Quickening 73 9 A Church Meeting 79 10 A Barn Raising 90 11 The Dating Game 103 12 Meet the Neighbors 108 13 Secrets and Politics 132 14 Heatstroke 138 15 Weighing the Work 153 Section III: Harvesting 169 16 As the Pumpkins Turn 171 17 After the Pall: Even Partners Get the Blues 179 18 Birth 188 19 Husbandry 196 20 Pulling in the Reins 202 21 Closing Time 215 22 Outside, and the Box 219 Epilogue 227 Recipe for a Leisurely, Laborsaving Life