Book cover of The Unsettlers: In Search of the Good Life in Today's America

Book description

“An in-depth and compelling account of diverse Americans living off the grid.” —Los Angeles Times

The radical search for the simple life in today’s America.

On a frigid April night, a classically trained opera singer, five months pregnant, and her husband, a former marine biologist, disembark an Amtrak train in…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Unsettlers as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I read this in the early days of my fantasizing about off-grid living, and I found a true kindred spirit in Sundeen and the remarkable new-gen back-to-the-land pioneers he followed to write the three deep-dive stories that form this beautiful book.

Sundeen is a master of the immersive journalism genre in the vein of Jon Krakauer or Sebastian Junger and a true writer’s writer (i.e., never in love with the sound of his own voice, yet blows you away with the choiceness and poignancy of his storytelling). That this book isn’t yet more widely known is astonishing.

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Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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