Gene Everlasting: A Contrary Farmer's Thoughts on Living Forever
In a prolific career stretching back to the early 1970s,  Logsdon has penned hundreds of farm and garden articles, four novels, and nearly two dozen nonfiction books on topics ranging from cutting wood to managing manure.  Now entering his ninth decade, Logsdon turns his attention here to his own, and everyone else’s, unavoidable demise.  In 21  contemplative and often trenchantly witty essays, the author ruminates over a wide variety of religious and materialistic ideas about death and finds the greatest comfort in the notion that, when his body returns to the soil,  it will provide sustenance for new life.  Logsdon praises the contemporary trend toward burials in biodegradable caskets and takes a jaundiced view of beliefs in a blissful, never-ending afterlife.  Related pieces review his mother’s last week of life, the reasons people commit suicide, and an “immortal” herbicide-resistant weed.  While his legion of fans may pale at the thought that Logsdon has just written his swan song, his recent remission from cancer offers hope that his writing days are far from over. --Carl Hays