BUY THE BOOK

[jetsetjasonParticipant]

The book finally arrived and is super fab, now amazon have stock it arrives quickly !

I am off to discuss ‘technology in moderation’ at the philosophy now message board and plug the book

http://www.philosophynow.org/

[digitaltoastParticipant]

I’m afraid I have to agree a little more with this review from Amazon (I’d gone there to write almost precisely the same!)

blockquote One of the lesser problems with this book is that the author spends too much time talking about himself instead of the subject. For example he writes in detail about his difficulty in finding parking space when he visits one of the off- grid people. He also brags about getting gadgets for free and talks far too much about his family. He seems to brag about rather than describe his off grid place in Spain. He then says that he can not afford a house in the country in addition to his expensive 2 homes and his van.

The very worst problem is that the book is badly structured, in that the details of how each off grid community works is in a separate chapter to the general description of it and it’s inhabitants. It is hard to flick back and forth between chapters. The quality of writing is not the best.

The only saving grace is a very good tiny section at the beginning about the history of the grid. There is also possibly useful bit in the chapter about planning permission at the end.

There is also the odd thing, that Nick Rosen admits himself, about the irony of him choosing to drive a van to be “off grid”. I was disappointed.

/blockquote

EDIT: I give up – I’ve done exactly what it said, but it’s not block quoting, so you’ll have to imagine it!

Additionally, there are some glaring typographical and factual errors – weird things seem to happen with random brackets in several places, and p334 – energy saving bulbs do NOT cost £3.50! They are between 40p and 60p each. Well, the Philips ones do, anway.

Good that it is FSC paper though – I have first edition (2007).

I suppose it’s a good try – but it’s embarrassingly obvious that he must have been on “pay per plug” for the Vodafone 3g card

[jetsetjasonParticipant]

it is cheaper and easier than taking time out to visit ‘off gridders’ your self !

[blueskymineParticipant]

so far I’ve only read the excerpts but found those to be very good… I really like it so far and am anxious to read the rest of the book. I read the good reviews that were also on amazon, and so far agree with them in light of what I’ve allready read so far and I can tell how the rest will be in general. The excerpt that I liked the best so far and thought to be helpful was more about how not to live off-grid when he was visiting the off-gridders (“hippies”)who lived next door to the on-gridders (“dippies”, lol, .. I thought that was great and informative, and only an excerpt, so maybe it is just a case of looking for something different for those who may have disliked it rather than anything actually being wrong with the book itself, a you like apples and i like oranges kind of thing, yet they are actuall both quite good. Hope you all have a nice day

[Author]

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