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by Barbara Kingsolver
Follows the author's family's efforts to live on locally and home-grown foods, an endeavor through which they learned lighthearted truths about food production and the connection between health and diet.
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by Eric Brende
An MIT graduate working through an Institute program to study the effects of technology on society describes his year-long residence in a Mennonite-type community and recounts how his wife and he experienced reduced stress levels, weight loss, and overall life satisfaction throughout the course of their stay.
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by Mark Obmascik
Follows the 1998 Big Year competition between Sandy Komito, Al Levantin, and Greg Miller during which the three rivals risked their lives to set a new North American birding record, an event that took them to such locales as Del Rio in search of the rufous-capped warbler and British Columbia in pursuit of the Xantus' hummingbird.
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by Katherine Ellison
A Pulitzer Prize winner recounts her journey to understand and reconnect with her high-spirited preteen son — a story bound to beguile parents grappling with their children’s bewildering behavior.
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by Michael Perry
The author recounts his haphazard forays into farm life and parenthood, an effort marked by his Christian fundamentalist upbringing, his wife's decision to give birth at home, the death of a close friend, and a pair of backside-biting pigs.
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by Tony Danza
Danza spent a year teaching the 10th grade at Philadelphia's largest high school. He recounts the challenges he encountered keeping today's alienated students engaged.
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by Julie Powell
The author escaped the doldrums of an unpromising career and lackluster Queens apartment by mastering every recipe in Julia Child's 1961 classic, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, a year-long endeavor of humor and accomplishment that transformed her life.
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by Robyn Okrant
Chronicles the author's efforts to live for a year as Oprah advises on her TV show, in her magazine and on her website, with each monthly entry including a running tally of the financial and time costs required to do each assignment, reflections on the results and revelations the author experienced.
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by Rachel Bertsche
A web producer documents the year she spent looking for a new best friend after relocating to Chicago, a search marked by weekly girl-dates and her observations on current social research about the friend-making challenges faced by modern adults.
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by Colin Beavan
Describes a one-year experiment with minimizing his impact on the earth, an effort for which he eschewed technology, processed foods, and other negative-impact products while evaluating the plausibility and actual value of sustainable living.
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by Maggie Anderson
Describes the experience of two successful African American professionals who embarked on a year-long public pledge to “buy black” in an attempt to mobilize the black community but instead found little support and criticism of their efforts.
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by Alisa Smith
Concerned over the vast distances food travels before it hits the dinner plate, the authors describe their determination to eat only foods grown locally or produced within a one-hundred-mile radius of their home, sharing their reflections on the satisfaction of eating home-grown food, and the benefits and pitfalls of local eating.
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by Jen Lancaster
Searching for domestic bliss, the author embraces the word of Martha Stewart and attempts to follow her in all things, from closet organization to stain removal, to laughably disastrous results.
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by Peter Mayle
An amusing account of an English couple's first year as residents of rural Provence, from the unpleasantness of the winter mistral to the transgressions of summer tourists.
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by Rachel Held Evans
The author spends a year exploring traditional Biblical roles for women, including such activities as interviewing a polygamist's wife, visiting an Amish school, abstaining from gossip, and corresponding with an Orthodox Jewish woman.
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by A. J. Jacobs
Documents his improbable adventure of living one year in literal compliance with biblical rules, a quest during which he adhered to famous and lesser-known scriptural laws, from being fruitful and multiplying to growing a beard and avoiding mixed-fiber clothing.
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by Eve O Schaub
Chronicles one family's 12-month no-sugar experiment and the positive results it yielded.
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by Sara Bongiorni
After she and her family spent one year not buying any products from China, the author offers revealing insights into the complex relationship between the American standard of living and the numerous Chinese imports that are necessary to maintain it.
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