Rating: 
Summary: SIMPLY IRRITATING
Review: After reading the reviews on Amazon.com I bought this book. I quickly saw that I should have taken more note of the negative reviews here. So I'm writing this to add to their number so others won't waste their money (and isn't that what simple living is about?). The other negative reviewers really say it all for me, so I advise any perspective readers of this book to read their comments before buying this book. There is much better material out there, such as the books written by Janet Luhrs (also called SIMPLE LIVING) and Vicky Robin (YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE).
Rating: 
Summary: A Better Life
Review: i don't know if i'm more thankful to wanda and frank for writing this book or to my friend kurt for passing it along to me. either way, it helped change my life.the book tells the story of how wanda and frank transformed their LA lives. mixed in with their narrative are vignettes of other peoples' searches for simplicity in their lives. maybe the word "simplicity" has become overused and its definition washed out. for me, the book showed how different folks found peace of mind on a daily basis. how they realigned their goals and actions with their values. how they stopped competing and started living. after i read it, i took a trip to Levering Orchard with my friend kurt. we wanted to meet the authors, to let them know that their book had touched us. so we took some time off from work, drove to virginia and found the orchard. when we arrived, frank was working at the pack house. we bought some apples and told him why we were there. frank called wanda, who was up at the house, and told her that some "fans" had arrived at the pack house and wanted to meet her. and over time, kurt and i became friends with frank and wanda. we visited them on several occasions and kurt even helped them pick apples during the last week of the season that year. i saw how they lived ten years after the move from california. i understood what they were writing about in Simple Living, and i began changing my own life. i wouldn't say that life has become "simple", but it sure is more peaceful than it used to be. my daily actions reflect my personal values and i have learned to live well with less stuff. i even moved from california to north carolina, in the blue ridge mountains, not too far from Levering Orchard. so thanks, wanda and frank, for writing this book. and thanks, kurt, for letting me know about it.
Rating:
Summary: A Poor Attempt to Illustrate Simple Living
Review: I have just completed reading Simple Living: One Couples Search for a Better Life by Frank Levering and Wanda Urbanska. I am now under the belief that anyone can write and publish a book if they have enough words assembled. The authors took a great idea, and wrote what I believe is a collection of thier experiences with people that the authors have met though thier life experiences. The amazing thing is, these people add nothing to the concepts of simple living! If you are looking for a book that describes the process of transforming one's existence to one of simplier living, you are strongly advised to look elsewhere. If you are looking for a collection of unrelated encounters, then this may be the book for you.
Rating: 
Summary: I LOVED IT
Review: I read this book at a time in my life when I really needed it. The stress of being self employeed working 16 hours a day was killing me. I have now sold my business and am doing something I love as well as enjoying more time to smell the roses. I even hopped a plan, found their town and went to their house to tell them how much I loved their book but they weren't home. If anybody doesn't like this book, I figure they're ate up with being a yuppie.
Rating:
Summary: There are many different paths to living simply.
Review: I really enjoyed this book. In part I suppose because owning an orchard is my idea of a great life (at least as a dream) but also because it showed that there are many different paths and definitions of a "simple life." One can be a doctor living something very much like a middle class life or two former nun carpenters living without electricity. Frank and Wanda show that simple living is much more a matter of personal spiritual development and balance than any particular income bracket.
I also very much enjoyed the multi-generational story of Frank's family and the way it was woven into the broader search for simple living. You know these are very real people -- with strengths and weaknesses -- as you follow the transition of the family business from parents to children.
Full of humor and honest reflection on one couples' search for the simple life, this book will give you a good read and provoke some deep thinking.
Rating:
Summary: A realistic journey
Review: I'm puzzled at some of the negative reviews. They seem a bit harsh, judging the path chosen by this couple in their book and the stories of others who have also chosen different interpretations of simple living. I'm also puzzled that one reader disliked their detailed descriptions of things such as remodeling their bathroom when isn't that what Thoreau did in "Walden Pond"? I believe this book gives encouragement for people to find their own way of simplicity and of not competing with the Joneses, while admitting how difficult it can be to go against the tide of spending. It gives me hope that my journey isn't as solitary as I sometimes think it is.
Rating: 
Summary: i'm afraid i didn't like the writing either
Review: maybe couples shouldn't write books together. i don't know if they were complimenting themselves, or more likely each other, but it got very tiresome. we all have to build up a certain degree of belief in ourselves, but it is not fun to read other people doing this. i thought the Goldstone's books (a couple who write about book-collecting) suffered from this, but this book really got on my nerves. i like the life they describe in the book, i just don't like all the ego that came with the description, it greatly distracted from the information. they also go on about how great their friends are, but they manage to make this annoying as well. i recommend your money or your life by dominguez & robin, or living the good life: how to live sanely & simply by the nearings instead of this book.
Rating:
Summary: An inspirational guide to taking charge of one's life
Review: Simple Living is the true story of Frank Levering and Wanda Urbanska, a couple whose constant craving for more of the trappings of materialism while living life in the fast lane encroached upon their sanity and well-being -- until they chose to revert to a simpler life running a family orchard on the Blue Ridge mountains. An inspirational guide to taking charge of one's life and prioritizing what truly matters, Simple Living is thoughtful and occasionally inspiring reading which is heartily commended to the attention of anyone feeling that there contemporary lifestyle is disadvantageous to their truly livingk and are looking for something better -- something simpler.
Rating:
Summary: Good idea, bad presentation
Review: The authors took a good idea and killed it with their overweening need to construct "well-tuned sentences." They are clearly more interested in how they say what they say than in the content of what they're saying. It sticks out like a sore thumb and is irritating.
Rating:
Summary: Simply Find a Better Book!
Review: The best thing I can say about this book is that at least I checked it out from the library, rather than buying it. The book is mostly personal anecdote (the authors' and stories of others whom they've met), which would be just fine if the authors weren't so self-absorbed that they couldn't draw conclusions, parallels, and sage advice from their experiences--as one would hope from authors who felt the need to communicate their wisdom to others. Consequently, the book reads more like a memoir without self-reflection. In one instance, the authors relate a several page biography about a doctor from Mississippi, then drop the story without even discussing what could be learned from him. Maybe it is a good thing the authors offer no advice, since I also take issue with what they call "simplicity." I won't critique that here, since simplicity means different things to different folks, but I will say that one of the dominant tenets of simplicity is living one's life in accordance to internal, rather than external, values. There are several examples in the book which indicate that simplicity means no more to the authors than "doing what 'simple' farm-folk do on an orchard" and being self-congratulatory about it. Moreover, I find their descriptive language loose and the prose uninviting in a way that is common of "professional" writers who use flowery language in an effort to seem erudite. Structurally, the book doesn't hang together very well and is often hard to follow. Most readers would find books by Elaine St. James, and "Your Money or Your Life" and its sequel "Getting a Life" much more interesting as primers in this topic area. These books contain both the wisdom AND the personal anecdotes to be beneficial to everyone.
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