Feathers fly. Guns fire. Beets ripen. Salami cures. There’s a bit of flavorful adventure around every page in Novella Carpenter’s debut memoir Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer. Just as her urban farm tumbles with chickens, pigs, and watermelon, Carpenter’s book bubbles with a blend of funny, nostalgic, rebellious, and heartfelt tales not to be missed.

Raised by former hippies, Carpenter’s veins run thick with bloodlust to live in harmony with the land. Yet, like most children, Carpenter has her own ideas about how this plays out. Instead of running barefoot through the woods of rural Michigan plucking berries, she dons a headlamp to dive in Oakland city dumpsters in search of food for her rabbits and pigs. Rather than a white picket fence-lined home on a ranch, Carpenter builds her farm illegally on a vacant city lot next to her apartment. When she picks extra lettuce from her bountiful crop, she doesn’t package it for market. Instead, she carries it on her bicycle handlebars to donate to the local Black Panthers.