The Brown Bag, Green Book lunch and learn series sponsored by the Knox County Public Library and the City of Knoxville continues on Wednesday, July 15, at 12 p.m. at the East Tennessee History Center auditorium, 601 S. Gay Street, across from the Tennessee Theatre. Ben Epperson, Coordinator of Beardsley Community Farm will lead a discussion of the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver. In keeping with the theme of "local food," a free light lunch will be provided by The Tomato Head, Market Square Farmers' Market and Slow Food Knoxville. The lunches will be available on a first come, first served basis while they last.

Part memoir, part journalistic investigation, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is an enthralling narrative that will open your eyes in a hundred new ways to an old truth: you are what you eat. Author Barbara Kingsolver and her family abandoned the industrial-food pipeline to live a rural life - vowing that, for one year, they'd only buy food raised in their own neighborhood, grow it themselves, or learn to live without it.

Ben Epperson completed a degree at UT and then spent some time in the Czech Republic teaching English. Back in the States, he spent some time working at Creekbed Farm, an organic farm and arboretum. He returned to Knoxville, discovered Beardsley Community Farm and has never left, inspired by his belief that community gardening is a solution to America's culture crisis.

"Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is an important story for all of us especially here in East Tennessee where our growing season can last up to 10 months," says Epperson. "I would like to discuss Kingsolver's move to a more agrarian lifestyle for her family and why I believe it is a step forward, in the right direction, and not a step back."

The public is invited to join the conversation, but reading the book is optional. The series will skip the month of August and continue on Wednesday, September 16.

For more information, please call Emily Ellis at 865-215-8723.