Life is a miracle

I purchased Wendell Berry's "Life is a miracle" when it came out in 2000. The book had little appeal to me then; it struck me as being a bit Luddite in theme. I put it down after the first chapter. 

I picked it back up about two weeks ago and haven't been able to put it down. My favorite passage in it so far has been this:

When a metaphor is construed as an equation, it is out of control; when it is construed as an identity, it is preposterous. If we are to assume that our language means anything at all, then the world is not a machine, and neither is an organism. A machine, to state only the greatest and most obvious difference, is a human artifact, and a world or an organism is not. (page 46).

The only problem I have with it is that I've not read E. O. Wilson's "Consilience", and reading a critique of something without reading the critiqued article seems a bit Philistine.