Buy this book - even if you implement just a few ideas from it - you AND the earth will be better off.

As the owner of an eco friendly bed and breakfast inn I found this book to be inspirational and informative. My wife and I follow the philosophy of Inn Serendipity and agreed with many points made.

A great book for someone seeking a simpler eco friendly way of life by starting a "mindful" business. Great advice and strategies for success.

Good, if somewhat disjointed book that concentrates more on the thought processes behind going back to the land than on the mechanics of it. At times the use of third person narrative grates, but on the whole it is well worth overlooking these minor quibbles.

This is a good starting point for beginning your own journey back to the land, in that you must get your head in the right place to be able to walk the walk, so to speak. The authors give plenty of resources for further investigation of particular topics.

If you've never done much thinking or research into conservation and a sustainable lifestyle, this may be a good book for you. However, if you have, there is not a lot of new information, and the authors write in a self-congratulatory style that gets a little old. Many of these "novel ideas" are things that most cultured people are familiar with. For example, there is a section about reaching out in friendship to and learning from people who may not seem just like you -- perhaps an older person if you are young or someone who may seem eccentric. Other examples would be the couples' recommendation of staying in hostels when traveling abroad, reusing envelopes, and going to thriftshops. However, I still give the book three stars because there were tidbits of information that were helpful --like the fact that washing dishes by hand uses 70 percent more resources than using a dishwasher.

While I applaud the authors move to a "simpler" lifestyle, I really had a difficult time wading through this book. Filled with clichés and writing that would better suited for an overly sentimental greeting card, the pace of the book really dragged. It seemed to me that the editing could have been tighter, as the timelines were hard to follow at points, even though I tried to cross reference with their website. (Is the greenhouse finished, or isn't it?) Do I really care about the fact that they like to run around naked and are experts on all things cappuccino? If they have traveled all over the planet before "going green", they have already left a rather large carbon footprint (now they plant trees to offset their carbon production).

I found some of their math to be either hard to believe or nothing to brag about. If they are consuming fair trade coffee, Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby ice cream and Stonyfield Farm yogurt, plus buying most of their grains and dried legumes in bulk (all of which are good products in general), how can they be producing 70% of their own food? Bragging about their "super efficient" Sunfrost refrigerator having a payback time of 50 years (initial cost vs energy savings) - wow - either they or the refrigerator could be dead long before then. This wasn't going to have me running out to buy that fridge.

I did like their lists of sources and resources throughout the book, a few of which I had not seen before. I think this book would be good for urban dwellers who are just starting out "going green", if you don't mind a lot of extra verbage. I was born and raised in the country, lived in the city and suburbs, and have finally moved back to the country. I know a lot of people who have done more with less, and they're not being featured in USA Today and praised up and down by other national organizations. The authors are good at publicizing what they do, which is certainly am important part of running a successful Bed & Breakfast, I was just hoping for a more "down-to-earth" story.