This road novel presents a vibrant and unconventional journey through America, blending stunning imagery with stark realities. The author's prose is wild and poetic, bringing to life a cast of characters marked by their sincerity and charm. The narrative captures the beauty and chaos of the American landscape, making it a unique exploration of both the gorgeous and the awful aspects of life. This debut work is celebrated for its originality and emotional depth.
Mark Sundeen embarks on a humorous journey to write about bullfighting in Spain, despite lacking experience and language skills. After misusing his book advance, he explores bullfighting in Mexico, only to find it lacking the grandeur he sought. To cope with his inadequacies, he creates an alter ego, Travis LaFrance, channeling the spirit of Ernest Hemingway. This leads to a comical exploration of dreams and delusions, revealing the challenges of transforming mundane life into high art, making it a sly and poignant tale of literary aspiration.
Grand Prize Winner of the 2015 Green Book Festival Mark Sundeen's new book, The Unsettlers, is coming in January 2017 from Riverhead Books In 2000, Daniel Suelo left his life savings-all thirty dollars of it-in a phone booth. He has lived without money-and with a newfound sense of freedom and security-ever since. The Man Who Quit Money is an account of how one man learned to live, sanely and happily, without earning, receiving, or spending a single cent. Suelo doesn't pay taxes, or accept food stamps or welfare. He lives in caves in the Utah canyonlands, forages wild foods and gourmet discards. He no longer even carries an I.D. Yet he manages to amply fulfill not only the basic human needs-for shelter, food, and warmth-but, to an enviable degree, the universal desires for companionship, purpose, and spiritual engagement. In retracing the surprising path and guiding philosophy that led Suelo into this way of life, Sundeen raises provocative and riveting questions about the decisions we all make, by default or by design, about how we live-and how we might live better.
“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 La Plata, Missouri, assemble two bikes, and pedal off into the night, bound for a homestead they've purchased, sight unseen. Meanwhile, a horticulturist, heir to the Great Migration that brought masses of African Americans to Detroit, and her husband, a product of the white flight from it, have turned to urban farming to revitalize the blighted city they both love. And near Missoula, Montana, a couple who have been at the forefront of organic farming for decades navigate what it means to live and raise a family ethically. A work of immersive journalism steeped in a distinctively American social history and sparked by a personal quest, The Unsettlers traces the search for the simple life through the stories of these new pioneers and what inspired each of them to look for -- or create -- a better existence. Captivating and clear-eyed, it dares us to imagine what a sustainable, ethical, authentic future might actually look like.
Daniel Suelo (vlastním jménem Daniel Shellabarger) se v roce 2000 dobrovolně rozhodl žít zcela bez peněz.
Nežebrá ani není bezdomovec. Nemá nouzi, naopak, lidi kolem sebe často obdarovává. Nestraní se společnosti, má spoustu přátel a účastní se různých aktivit a projektů, své názory vysvětluje a obhajuje na vlastních webových stránkách. Zároveň však ve vztazích a v diskusích respektuje také jiné názory. Žije bohatým vnitřním i společenským životem v přítomnosti – tady a teď. Suelův pozoruhodný životní příběh plný dramatických zvratů i jeho svébytný světonázor vzbuzují naléhavé otázky o osobních jistotách a filozofických, etických, náboženských a sociálních hodnotách každého jedince, o smyslu lidské existence, o mezích osobní svobody – a především o základech a hodnotách společnosti, v níž žijeme.
