Michael Foley has 3 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators, with an average listener rating of 3.2★ across 6 ratings. The most-rated is Farming for the Long Haul.
Farming for the Long Haul
Summary
It’s all but certain that the next 50 years will bring enormous, not to say cataclysmic, disruptions to our present way of life. World oil reserves will be exhausted within that time frame, as will the lithium that powers today’s most sophisticated batteries, suggesting that transportation is equally imperiled. And there’s another, even more dire limitation that is looming: at current rates of erosion, the world’s topsoil will be gone in 60 years. Fresh water sources are in jeopardy, too. In short, the large-scale agricultural and food delivery system as we know it has at most a few decades before it exhausts itself and the planet with it. Farming for the Long Haul is about building a viable small-farm economy that can withstand the economic, political, and climatic shock waves that the 21st century portends. It draws on the innovative work of contemporary farmers, but more than that, it shares the experiences of farming societies around the world that have maintained resilient agricultural systems over centuries of often-turbulent change. Indigenous agriculturalists, peasants, and traditional farmers have all created broad strategies for survival through good times and bad, and many of them prospered. They also developed particular techniques for managing soil, water, and other resources sustainably. Some of these techniques have been taken up by organic agriculture and permaculture, but many more of them are virtually unknown, even among alternative farmers. This book lays out some of these strategies and presents techniques and tools that might prove most useful to farmers today and in the uncertain future.
©2019 Michael Foley (P)2019 Chelsea Green Publishing
The Age of Absurdity
Summary
The good news is that the great thinkers from history have proposed the same strategies for happiness and fulfilment. The bad news is that these turn out to be the very things most discouraged by contemporary culture. This knotty dilemma is the subject of The Age of Absurdity - a wry and accessible investigation into how the desirable states of well-being and satisfaction are constantly undermined by modern life. Michael Foley examines the elusive condition of happiness common to philosophy, spiritual teachings and contemporary psychology, then shows how these are becoming increasingly difficult to apply in a world of high expectations. The common challenges of earning a living, maintaining a relationship and ageing are becoming battlegrounds of existential angst and self-loathing in a culture that demands conspicuous consumption, high-octane partnerships and perpetual youth. In conclusion, rather than denouncing and rejecting the age, Foley presents an entertaining strategy of not just accepting but embracing today's world - finding happiness in its absurdity. Cover credit: The Caravan Gallery.
©2011 Michael Foley (P)2016 Audible, Ltd
Isn't This Fun
Summary
Michael Foley wants to understand why he doesn't appear to be experiencing as much fun as everyone else. So, with characteristic wit and humour, he sets out to understand what fun really means, examining its heritage, its cultural significance and the various activities we associate with fun. He investigates pursuits such as dancing, sex, holidays, sport, gaming and comedy and concludes that fun is not easy, simple and fixed, as many seem to believe, but elusive, complex and constantly changing. In fact fun is a profoundly serious business - a range of new group rituals evolving in response to cultural developments, often motivated as much by spirituality as hedonism. Also, while fun is a modern phenomenon, it turns out to have re-created many of the elements of early ritual. His findings will invigorate you with insights, make you laugh at life and quite possibly help you to understand why the post-postmodern is actually the pre-premodern. Michael Foley was born in Derry, Northern Ireland, but has lived most of his adult life in London, working for 23 years as a lecturer in information technology at the University of Westminster before retiring in 2007 to concentrate on full-time writing. He has published critically acclaimed poetry, novels and nonfiction, including New and Selected Poems (Blackstaff Press, 2011). His first nonfiction book, The Age of Absurdity (Simon & Schuster, 2010), was a best seller and has been translated into seven languages.
©2016 Michael Foley (P)2016 Audible, Ltd