Shelf Awareness: enlightenment for readers

The Way Home: Tales from a Life Without Technology
by Mark Boyle

First Mark Boyle was The Moneyless Man in his memoir about a year living without money. That impulse has expanded--Boyle now lives on a smallholding in County Galway, Ireland, forgoing electricity, running water, phones and the Internet, and other myriad conveniences the modern world relies upon. Editor Alex Christofi writes, "I think [this lifestyle] takes great courage--he is lighting the way for the rest of us by showing that life begins when you put down your smartphone." The Way Home is an introspective, heartfelt, practical and often funny chronicle of Boyle's inaugural year in this new, yet old, lifestyle. Organized as a diary of four seasons, this book will excite the like-minded and jumpstart the unconverted. It is a singular, invigorating read. --Julia Kastner

(Oneworld, $24.95 hardcover, 9781786076007, May 14, 2019)