"Mill's account of the simple life reaches deep into classical sources of pleasure - good food, good health, good friends, and particularly the endless delights of the natural world. Her musings about the life she desires - and the life she has created - ultimately led her to the third-century Greek philosopher Epicurus, whose thought was premised on the trustworthiness of the senses, an outlook that Mills wholeheartedly embraces. While later centuries have come to associate Epicurus's name with hedonism, Mills discovered that he extolled simplicity and prudence as the surest means to pleasure, and his thinking offers an important touchstone for the book." "Epicurean Simplicity touches on a broad range of topics - the impacts of a consumerist lifestyle on the natural world, social justice, biological extinctions, friendship, the process of country living, the joys of physical exertion, the challenges of a writer's life, and the natural history and seasonal delights of a life lived close to nature. Mills uses her own experience as an entry point to the discussion with a self-effacing humor and lyrical prose that bring big subjects to a personal level."--BOOK JACKET.