Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

"Pure drivel" is how I would describe this book. Absolutely no content. I heard about this book when its author was interviewed on NPR radio. I was intrigued by the idea of vertical farming, and thought the book would tell me something about it. The book completely failed me. The first 131 pages of the book (out of a total of 268 pages) do not discuss the vertical farm AT ALL! Instead, the first 131 pages consist of a directionless wander through the history of the planet and of mankind, including discussion of ecosystems, "technospheres" (whatever they are!), the dustbowl of the 1930s, the spread of infectious agents, the Bible and the Reverand Billy Graham, John Steinbeck and "The Grapes of Wrath", the US Civil War, the oil industry, dynamite, the Atomic Bomb, injustice and inequality, climate change, Charles Darwin and the Galapagos Islands, genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), and HIV/AIDS. Most of these subject have little, if anything to do with vertical farming. I got excited when I reached the 2nd half of the book and Chapter 5 entitled "The Vertical Farm: Advantages." Finally, I thought, a discussion of the vertical farm. Alas, no such luck. Very little of the second half of the book addresses vertical farming. What discussion there is about vertical farming addresses either technologies most of us know about -- such as hydroponic growing and photovoltaic cells -- or about ideas that are so far-fetched they are hardly worth discussing. The words "could", "would" and "should" are a prevalent as rats in a sewer. If you want to get the entire content of the book, refer to pages 145-146 where a list of eleven advantages of vertical farming are given (double-spaced, I presume, to take up more space than they deserve). That's all the real content of the book. Eleven bullet points. (By the way, if you are looking for a list of disadvantages of vertical farming, don't bother. The author wants us to believe that vertical farming will solve all of mankind's problems.) I think vertical farming is a wonderful idea with lots of potential. The problem with this book is that it does not advance the idea of vertical farming; more likely it will hinder its development by causing sensible, reasonable people to conclude that advocates of vertical farming hallucinate way too much.