
Good Soil
The Education of an Accidental Farmhand
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Narrated by:
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Jeff Chu
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By:
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Jeff Chu
About this listen
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A profound meditation on nature, heritage, and belonging, from an accomplished journalist who left New York City for life on a working farm
“I needed this book. I think you need it, too.”—Maggie Smith, New York Times bestselling author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful
In his late thirties, Jeff Chu left his job as a magazine writer and found himself at Princeton Theological Seminary’s “Farminary”—a twenty-one-acre working farm where students learn to cultivate the earth while examining life’s biggest questions. Now, he unpacks what he learned about creating “good soil,” both literally and figuratively, drawing lessons from the rhythms of growth, decay, and regeneration that define life on the land.
In gorgeous, transporting reflections, Chu introduces us to the cast of characters, human and not, who became his teachers. While observing the egrets that visit the pond, the worms that turn waste into fertile soil, and the Chinese long beans that get passed over in the farm’s CSA, Chu considers our desire to belong, the story behind the food on our plate, and the significance of his own roots. What is the earth trying to tell us, if we’ll only stop and listen?
Good Soil helps listeners connect to the land and to one another at a time when we seem drawn most to the phones in our hands. For nature lovers, foodies, and anyone who has daydreamed about a more fulfilling life, this book is a tribute to friendship, to the sacredness of our bond with the natural world, and to how love can grow from the unlikeliest of places.
©2025 Jeff Chu (P)2025 Random House AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“A big-hearted meditation on belonging, compassion, and the transformative power of friendship . . . I needed this book. I think you need it, too.”—Maggie Smith, New York Times bestselling author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful
“By turns wrenching and funny, heartbreaking and hope-filled, Jeff Chu’s Good Soil teaches us how to keep going despite our own gravest doubts, and how to keep loving when love has already failed us too many times. By whatever name you may call it—God, family, partnership, community, the whole living world—love is what this book is about. At its true heart, this is a book about love.”—Margaret Renkl, New York Times bestselling author of The Comfort of Crows
“A beautiful book on the growth that we spark when we tend to our soil.”—Katherine May, New York Times bestselling author of Wintering and Enchantment
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What if you could build a garden that not only cuts back on these costs and eliminates harmful pesticides from your family’s diet, but also helps restore the planet in the process? The time is now to stop the waste of resources and consumption of contaminated foods and turn back to permaculture–this book is here to help you every step of the way.
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do not buy, it is ai
- By Alex W. on 12-03-24
By: David Whitehead
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The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue
- A Story of Climate and Hope on One American Street
- By: Mike Tidwell
- Narrated by: Brandon Pollock
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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In 2023, author and activist Mike Tidwell decided to keep a record for a full year of the growing impacts of climate change on his one urban block right on the border with Washington, DC. Tidwell's story depicts the neighborhood's battle to save the trees and combat climate change: The midwife who builds a geothermal energy system, the Congressman who battles cancer and climate change, and the Chinese-American climate scientist who wants to bury billions of the world's dying trees to store their carbon and help stabilize the atmosphere.
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This book made me want to be with trees and protect our climate
- By Molly on 04-11-25
By: Mike Tidwell
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Carbon
- The Book of Life
- By: Paul Hawken
- Narrated by: Peter Coyote
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Carbon is the only element that animates the entirety of the living world. Though comprising a tiny fraction of Earth’s composition, our planet is lifeless without it. Yet it is maligned as the driver of climate change, scorned as an errant element blamed for the possible demise of civilization. Here, Paul Hawken looks at the flow of life through the lens of carbon. Embracing a panoramic view of carbon’s omnipresence, he explores how this ubiquitous and essential element extends into every aperture of existence and shapes the entire fabric of life.
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I am deeper because of this….
- By Susan C. on 04-23-25
By: Paul Hawken
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The Second Machine Age
- Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies
- By: Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Second Machine Age MIT's Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee—two thinkers at the forefront of their field—reveal the forces driving the reinvention of our lives and our economy. As the full impact of digital technologies is felt, we will realize immense bounty in the form of dazzling personal technology, advanced infrastructure, and near-boundless access to the cultural items that enrich our lives. Amid this bounty will also be wrenching change. Recent economic indicators reflect this shift: fewer people are working, and wages are falling even as productivity and profits soar.
By: Erik Brynjolfsson, and others
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Awake
- A Memoir
- By: Jen Hatmaker
- Narrated by: Jen Hatmaker
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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An Avid Reader Press book. Simon & Schuster has a great book for every listener.At 2:30 a.m. on July 11th, 2020, Jen Hatmaker woke up to her husband of twenty-six years whispering in his phone to another woman from their bed. It was the end of life as she knew it. In the months that followed, she went from being a shiny, funny, popular leader, to a divorced wreck on antidepressants and anti-anxiety meds parenting five kids alone with no clue about her own bank accounts.
By: Jen Hatmaker
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Dear Writer
- Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life
- By: Maggie Smith
- Narrated by: Maggie Smith
- Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Drawing from her twenty years of teaching experience and her bestselling Substack newsletter, For Dear Life, Maggie Smith breaks down creativity into ten essential elements: attention, wonder, vision, play, surprise, vulnerability, restlessness, tenacity, connection, and hope. Each element is explored through short, inspiring, and craft-focused essays, followed by generative writing prompts. Dear Writer provides tools that artists of all experience levels can apply to their own creative practices and carry with them into all genres and all areas of life.
By: Maggie Smith
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Practical Magick
- Ancient Tradition and Modern Practice
- By: Mitch Horowitz
- Narrated by: Mitch Horowitz
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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"Simplicity,” wrote legendary occultist Jack Parsons, “has been the key to victory in all the idea wars and, at present, Magick does not have it.” In Practical Magick, acclaimed historian and esotericist Mitch Horowitz responds to this call, distilling magick to its core essentials. Drawing upon ancient, Hermetic, Renaissance-era, and modern sources, Mitch dissects the building blocks of magick and provides formulas of immediacy, simplicity, and potency.
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A call to Adventure
- By Mp on 03-31-25
By: Mitch Horowitz
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I've Got Questions
- The Spiritual Practice of Having It Out with God
- By: Erin Hicks Moon, Sarah Bessey - foreword
- Narrated by: Erin Hicks Moon
- Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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When your faith as you know it has been commodified, nationalized, scandalized, and rebranded beyond recognition, is it even possible to recover the "good" of Jesus from this cluster of epic proportions? Writer and podcaster Erin Moon has questions, and this book is her open letter for anyone who feels iffy, conflicted, or just downright devastated by this disconnect. With empathy, insight, and the therapy of memes and a good laugh, Erin maps out not a rigid prescription but an open-hearted pathway for you to reclaim what you once loved about your faith home and light a match to the rest.
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That it’s ok to ask questions to God and about God
- By Becky Williams on 05-07-25
By: Erin Hicks Moon, and others
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Ghosts of Iron Mountain
- The Hoax of the Century, Its Enduring Impact, and What It Reveals About America Today
- By: Phil Tinline
- Narrated by: Phil Tinline
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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A compelling work of investigative journalism that explores the surprising origins and hidden ramifications of an epic late 1960s hoax, perpetrated by cultural luminaries, including Victor Navasky and E.L. Doctorow. For readers curious about the surprising connections between John F. Kennedy, Oliver Stone, Timothy McVeigh, Alex Jones, and Donald Trump.
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Audio quality
- By Chas30166 on 03-29-25
By: Phil Tinline
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How Can I Help?
- Saving Nature with Your Yard
- By: Douglas W. Tallamy
- Narrated by: Adam Barr
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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With the publication of Bringing Nature Home, Douglas Tallamy revealed the critical role native plants play in attracting beneficial insects—and ushered in what is widely considered one of the most consequential movements in gardening. With Nature’s Best Hope, Tallamy expanded his audience from gardeners to homeowners with a passionate advocacy that detailed how everyone with a yard can make a positive environmental impact.
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The author’s ability to bring a topic with various complicated topics to a level that was understandable but still thorough.
- By D. Martin on 04-18-25
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Ordinary Time
- Lessons Learned While Staying Put
- By: Annie B. Jones
- Narrated by: Annie B. Jones, Emily P. Freeman
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Annie Jones always assumed adulthood would mean adventure: a high-powered career; life in a big, bustling city; and travels to far-flung places she’d longed to see. But her reality turned out differently. As the years passed, Annie was still in the same small town running an independent bookstore—the kind of life Nora Ephron dreamed.
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It was everything I wanted it to be…
- By Lory Chrane on 05-02-25
By: Annie B. Jones
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There Is No Place for Us
- Working and Homeless in America
- By: Brian Goldstone
- Narrated by: Dion Graham, Brian Goldstone
- Length: 13 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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The working homeless. In a country where hard work and determination are supposed to lead to success, there is something scandalous about this phrase. But skyrocketing rents, low wages, and a lack of tenant rights have produced a startling phenomenon: People with full-time jobs cannot keep a roof over their head, especially in America’s booming cities, where rapid growth is leading to catastrophic displacement. These families are being forced into homelessness not by a failing economy but a thriving one.
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Re gentrification has unintended consequences
- By ALB on 05-03-25
By: Brian Goldstone
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Story of a Murder
- The Wives, the Mistress, and Dr. Crippen
- By: Hallie Rubenhold
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 16 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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On February 1, 1910, the vivacious, diamond-adorned music hall performer Belle Elmore suddenly vanished from her home, causing alarm among her friends, the entertainers of the Music Hall Ladies’ Guild. Their demands for an investigation would lead to the unearthing of a gruesome secret and trigger a fevered international manhunt for Belle’s husband, medical fraudster Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen.
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Great but none of the heart of The Five
- By S. Armor on 04-13-25
By: Hallie Rubenhold
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Raising Hare
- A Memoir
- By: Chloe Dalton
- Narrated by: Louise Brealey
- Length: 6 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and slept in your house for hours on end and gave birth to leverets in your study. For political advisor and speechwriter Chloe Dalton, who spent lockdown deep in the English countryside, far away from her usual busy London life, this became her unexpected reality.
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A beautiful reading of a heartfelt story. I didn’t want it to end.
- By Sparrow on 04-02-25
By: Chloe Dalton
What listeners say about Good Soil
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Ehom
- 05-07-25
Beautiful
This book is a beautiful, thoughtful and deeply theological reflection on our lives, using the patterns of growth, death and renewal found in the garden. Jeff Chu offers his story in ways that are vulnerable, real, and moving. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.
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