und in a stranger's rucksack tells of self-sufficient communities growing from the ruins of a global recession. In unfinished Mojave Desert housing tracts and foreclosure ghost towns on the raw edges of the chaotic cities of the West, people have gathered to grow their own food, school their own children and learn how to live without surveillance and serfdom. Encouraged by an enigmatic wanderer known as "B," the communities thrive as more people are discarded by an indifferent system. But this quiet revolution and its simple rituals cannot stay unnoticed for long, because the teachings of "B" threaten an entire structure of power and wealth dependent upon most of humanity struggling for basic survival. First published in the Great Recession, this inspiring novel by Desert Oracle's Ken Layne is a handbook for how to proceed.