Review: The Good Life Lab: Radical Experiments in Hands-On Living

The Good Life Lab: Radical Experiments in Hands-On Living by Wendy Tremayne
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

You figure with the words lab, experiments, and hands-on in the title, you’d be getting a instructional book. But here, that’s not what you’re getting. More than half of this book is the author’s story about why she and her husband moved from the big city to desert New Mexico to live life off of the waste stream of society and nature. I liked how the author described the issues and the thinking she went through to make this decision. I don’t foresee myself ever making this same kind of decision, but I find it interesting when people think through issues and consider or ignore some aspects. You can understand what they value through that journey. When they get to New Mexico the author describes the many ways they made their way through life, making a living, foraging for food and supplies, and the like. The last section of the book, less than half, provides some capsule comments on the specific things they tried, from food foraging in the desert to using used cooking oil to power a car. There wasn’t enough detail here to guide the reader to experiment, so I found the title of the book misleading. However, this was of some interest in the variety of topics covered. I used to read “Whole Earth Review” and “The Whole Earth Digest”, and this is the kind of post-hippy maker-forward content in variety, if not in depth, that I enjoy.

The three things I found most interesting in the book:
- The author starts with attending Burning Man, and from there starting an event to re-use modified clothing that becomes somewhat popular. Certainly interesting from an entrepreneurial perspective, and you get that builder mentality throughout the book.
- People that use a restaurant’s used frying oil to power their cars are affectionately known as “greasers”.
- The author’s husband creates and sells electronic devices he designs and makes on the side. While a lot of what this couple does seems like subsistence work, this was the best example of how they could get ahead in the moneyed economy as well. Quite interesting ideas for products.


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