Small is Possible: Life in a Local Economy | 
| Author: Lyle Estill
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $7.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 159588
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.7
ISBN: 086571603X
Dewey Decimal Number: 320
EAN: 9780865716032
ASIN: 086571603X
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: New - No Remainder Mark
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
In an era when incomprehensibly complex issues like Peak Oil and climate change dominate headlines, practical solutions at a local level can seem somehow inadequate. In response, Lyle Estill's Small is Possible introduces us to "hometown security," with this chronicle of a community-powered response to resource depletion in a fickle global economy. True stories, springing from the soils of Chatham County, North Carolina, offer a positive counterbalance to the bleakness of our age. This is the story of how one small southern US town found actual solutions to actual problems. Unwilling to rely on the government and wary of large corporations, these residents discovered it is possible for a community to feed itself, fuel itself, heal itself, and govern itself. This book is filled with newspaper columns, blog entries, letters, and essays that have appeared on the margins of small-town economies. Tough subjects are handled with humor and finesse. Compelling stories of successful small businesses, from the grocery co-op to the biodiesel co-op, describe a town and its people on a genuine quest for sustainability. Everyone interested in sustainability, local economy, small business, and whole foods will be inspired by the success stories in this book. Lyle Estill is "Vice President of Stuff " at Piedmont Biofuels, and has won numerous awards for his work in the biodiesel business. He is the author of Biodiesel Power and lives in Moncure, North Carolina.
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| Customer Reviews:
Very interesting, well written... July 10, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I just finished the book and found it very interesting and well written. As a reporter for a small weekly newspaper that covers Pittsboro, NC, I was fascinated to learn more about the many personalities, businesses and organizations that make up this small town. I certainly see Pittsboro as a more dynamic and exciting place through Lyle Estill's eyes. I initially had low expectations of the book since I thought it would just be a compilation of essays, blog entries and newspaper columns, but it contained about 98 percent original writing. I have been telling many people around town about the book as a great way to learn more about Pittsboro. I think the book will be popular on a national scale since it talks about many ways that communities, and individuals, can be more self sustaining and this is an important issue nationally. On another level, it is interesting as the story of an entrepreneur who had the courage to renounce a very high-paying conventional job to pursue his dream.
Small is Possible - I will strive for big June 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I need to first point out my conflict of interest in this review. lyle is my brother.
He calls this a non-fiction book and I am sure it is but it is unlike the other non-fiction books that I read. I would call it more of a storybook and Lyle is a great story teller.
It is a story about Lyle's life in a small town and the characters in that town.
In the book he did mention me:
"He (that would be me) is an insatiable entrepreneur who insists he be measured not by the vast pile of bad ideas, heaped at the bottom of the wall - but rather by those ideas that stuck. As a risk-taker he has figured out a way to stay in the possible, and not dwell on those ventures that stung him."
At one point he talked about his blogging and how he was finding it difficult to come up with topics and someone suggested that he needs to entertain people. I found his book very entertaining and this is something that I should probably consider more in my blogging.
I love the book and found it easy and quick to read. Lyle is a great writer (and always has been).
I don't agree with everything in the book. I think supporting small just for the sake of supporting small has some flaws. His book lays out many reasons why small can be better value. And if it is better value - then clearly I support it.
Although small is possible, I am going to strive for big. I wonder if Lyle will still like me?
After reading "Collapse", read this! June 12, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
It is easy to be overwhelmed with the doom and gloom consequences of American's thoroughly unsustainable lifestyle: climate change, pollution of air, water, and soil, declining ecosystems, and the very real risk that in 60 years, nobody will be living what we today consider to be a first-world lifestyle. What to do?
For starters, read Lyle Estill's Small Is Possible, a wonderful collection of writings that chronicles Lyle's own shift from get-setting deal-maker to homesteading community-builder.
Lyle's writing style is excellent: concrete, humorous, and often self-deprecating, Lyle's stories spring to life from the pages, and then linger in details which keeps the community and its members, not Lyle himself, in the foreground.
This book variously strikes me as: non-fiction Huckleberry Finn, a North Carolinian Omnivore's Dilemma, a contemporary Guns, Germs, and Steel, and The Tipping Point as played by actors in Chatham County.
Let me say again: the book is very well written, the material is extremely compelling and relevant to the 21st century, and, in the great tradition of open source software (which Lyle himself acknowledges), it is designed to be a resource for others who believe that small is possible.
A "Wendell Berry of Chatham" May 26, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Yesterday, I received a copy of Lyle Estill's newest book, Small Is Possible. I came home at 2:30, put on some easy-going clothes, lay down on the couch on the porch, read until 8, took a half hour off, then finished the book. I could not put it down. This is a wonderful reclaiming of the recent history of events in our county, Chatham.
The chapters are contained by writing on one subject in the true essay form, full of details about people we all know and some of whom we love. The writing is almost lyrical in some places. But what is exciting is to read is all that has made our county special. In a way I am scared that this excellent book will make it nationally as it is so well written, a Wendell Berry of Chatham, and that our special place will become a spotlight for people who want to see that change is possible in our dis...eased world. If that happens, however, I will hail to the chief who wrote it.
This is one of those books that comes along once and a great while, the kind of book that you want to send to EVERYONE, the kind of book we can take pleasure in reading to our children, as well as chuckling at various places while we read to ourselves. I absolutely love it and hope that all of you rush to buy it. I hope you buy a lot of copies and pass it around as birthday, wedding, graduation whatever kind of gift. It is that universal in its message.
-- Barbara Lorie
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