Year of Plenty By Craig L. Goodwin Sparkhouse Press, 224 pp., $12.95 paperback

Presbyterian minister Craig Goodwin's Odyssey into local food began with a postholiday argument with his wife about who was more to blame for their rushed, packed and disappointing Christmas. Goodwin and his wife decided for the upcoming year they could buy only things that were used, local, handmade or from Thailand. Products from Thailand were acceptable because Goodwin's wife had spent time there, and they were uncomfortable with a model of consumption that cut them off completely from the global economy. Goodwin writes with humor and insight. His book is worth a read not so much because he is an original thinker about matters of local food and local economies, but because he is an insightful and humorous writer who wants to reach "recovering conventional Christians" like himself. Goodwin blogs on the topic at yearofplenty.org.