Our obsession with goods and gadgets leads us to neglect true and lasting joys: our health, creativity, self-reflection, and, most important, the time we spend with one another. Two decades ago, Ferenc Mate's cult classic, A Reasonable Life, forewarned us of our endangered environment, economy, and the bonds that make us human. In his new book, A Real Life, his impassioned, humorous prose challenges us to rethink the meaning of "success" and reevaluate how we live, work, eat, play, love, and raise our children. His eye-opening observations and startling truths remind us of the forgotten pride and joy of independence, self-sufficiency, neighborliness, friendship, working with our hands, natural benefits of physical labor, and irreplaceable rewards of face-to-face human contact. His book will not only reinvigorate even the most disillusioned but also convince the most technology-obsessed to give the mall and gadgets a rest and get a real life.
