Book 67: The Good Life Lab

I thought this would be so interesting: a book about a couple who went off-grid and learned to make stuff out of the waste stream. I was hoping for something like No Impact Man, and the author does mention Colin Beavan's book, but her reading of it was so different from mine that I was frustrated and puzzled.



Unfortunately, The Good Life Lab was just kind of weird and nonspecific. For instance, the author describes how her partner desulfates dead batteries so that they can still be used. But what kind of batteries does this work for? (My in-house engineer tells me it only works for lead-acid batteries, not your average household rechargeable battery.)

There were some aspects of the book that I liked, and the illustrations were nifty (though not that easy to appreciate in ebook format). But overall, I felt kind of "huh?" about the whole thing.