A poet at heart, Amy Minato rejects her life of consumption in Chicago to go back to nature—specifically, to a commune in Oregon, where she rediscovers herself. She also cops occasionally to the pretentiousness of her mission, and laughs along with the reader at her attempts to be both environmentally-friendly and sane, considering the fact that she's moved in with a bunch of strangers in a remote locale. Jan Muir, a relative of the great environmentalist John Muir, lends her beautiful black-and-white illustrations to the book

Written with a grace and clarity of vision reminiscent of Annie Dillard's prose, Siesta Lane is both a practical case study in living green, and the heartwarming story of a modern idealist who dives head-first into the fray and discovers just what it takes to live a year unplugged. This is a must-read for armchair adventurers and a perfect, engaging primer for anyone who wants to stride confidently into the new, environmentally-conscious twenty-first century.