Gaviotas by Alan Weisman, 1603580565, Lowest Book Price Finder

Customer Reviews:

Culture is the mother of invention

I've always thought 'necessity is the mother of invention' to be among the more poisonous memes to have crawled out of our collective subconscious. It has wicked consequences.

So imagine my delight on reading this account of how a bunch of people, who all had other places to be and other things to do, got together in a spirit of good-natured curiosity to build a culture where everyone's happiness was a primary concern, and where knowledge was valued more highly than wealth or glamour.

Looks like it's time to retire Old Mother Necessity, and let Mamma Culture start filling the world with homes, gardens, playgrounds and forests.

Can't think of a better gift for the future than to give this book to a school or library (or school library) near you.

Great book

This book allows us to realize what can be done to save our planet. It shows that it is possible if we want to. It shows how sone scientists and ordinary people did manage to create this peaceful world in harmony with nature. The story is a little bit slow at the beginning but after the first 20 pages, you are hoocked up with the story.

Sustainable living, tools and design that really, truly work

Disclaimer: I do not know Alan Weisman and do not hold stock in Chelsea Green.

"Gaviotas: A Village To Reinvent the World" is the story of the failures and successes of small but visionary sustainable community project in the "wastes" of Colombia's llano. The project succeeds, fails, and succeeds again in spite of drug war, guerrilla war, corruption (uh, I guess this goes without saying), inhospitable environment, unpredictable if not lame government policies, fires, chronic underfunding, technology learning curves, and more. What the pioneers of Gaviotas lack in stability and funding they make up with faith, cajones, and inspired resourcefulness. And a lot of hard hard work.

The machines the Gaviotans make and the town they build are dreams made real. Power generators using wind and water, solar-powered pressure cookers and water purifiers--they even manage to make a solar-powered refridgerator that operates on ammonia instead of freon. "Why make blueprints?" one of the engineers says. "You're going to build it anyway. It's easier to design in three dimensions."

Gaviotas-the-place sounds like a slice of paradise (albeit surrounded by chaos and otras cosas muy malas). No crime. No police. Neighbors who help each other. Excellent homemade music. Constant innovation, frequently in the guise of inspired play.

Author Alan Weisman is an NPR reporter/NY Times Magazine (et al.) writer who handles the big story with ease. Very readable. Not so techy as to alienate the non-geeks. Written with a two-part focus on the people *and* the machines they design and build. Plenty of humor, reverence, and plainly stated cold hard facts.

Inspirational!

Gaviotas is the true story of a group of people using their creative powers to invent a society that is environmentally sustainable without limiting the luxuries we take for granted living in the US. The story reads like a novel-- I had to keep reminding myself that this is real! A must-read. This is my Christmas present to everyone I know this year!

Inspiring but Bitter-sweet

At its best, Gaviotas is a wonderfully inspiring story of real people facing real problems, and coming up with real solutions (which sometimes work and somtimes don't work). The book is brimming with interesting tidbits, stories, and personalities. What is absent is a more coherent account of the implications of Gaviotas for the rest of the world. To be sure, there are plenty of these implications voiced by the residents of Gaviotas themselves, which is perhaps as the author intended. But these are too scattered. If the author himself had taken more time to step back and do some pleading himself, it would have been a much more satisfying book. But as it is, I would recommend it. But it should be read in tandem with a book like Richard Douthwaite's "Short Circuit" or Michael Shuman's "Going Local" -- both of these titles have more analytical and social substance, and are less anecdotal in tone than Gaviotas.

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