Whether out of financial necessity or a resource-preserving environmental ethic, the idea of “living more with less” is everywhere these days.

It’s showing up in celebrity circles (Jamie Lee Curtis reportedly owns only one pair of jeans). It was the subject of a recent weeklong NBC Nightly News series called “Back to Basics.” And it is exemplified by the 30th anniversary reissue of the classic 1980 title Living More with Less by the late Doris Janzen Longacre, published on November 10 by Herald Press, the trade imprint of the Mennonite Publishing Network. The book sold nearly 115,000 copies in its first 30 years; Herald is starting with a 7,500-copy print run for the new edition.

The book was the follow-up to Longacre’s 1976 More-with-Less Cookbook; at close to 900,000 copies sold, including a 2006 anniversary reissue, that is Herald Press’s all-time bestseller. Longacre died of cancer at age 39 before finishing the first edition of Living More with Less.

A reader noticing the reissue on a store shelf might assume the title is new, the latest in the growing genre of green, sustainable, simple-living books. Valerie Weaver-Zercher, who edited the reissue, told RBL a seamless dialogue across the decades was part of her goal.

What sets the book apart is its foundation in the Mennonite ideal that people should live simply and frugally, not for feel-good personal gain or financial reasons but to engage with global poverty and take steps to alleviate it. The book’s royalties go to the Mennonite Central Committee, a global relief, development, and peace organization.

“That perspective deepens the integrity of [the author’s] words and the changes she is suggesting people make,” said Weaver-Zercher. Those changes, which 30 years later she calls “humbling,” cover areas from gardening and cooking to clothing and transportation.

Living More with Less also represents a resurgence of popular interest in books about Mennonite and Amish practices and ideals.

The bestselling memoir Mennonite in a Little Black Dress (Holt, 2009) by Rhoda Janzen (no relation to Longacre) and The Amish Cook’s Anniversary Book: 20 Years of Food, Family and Faith (Andrews McMeel, Aug.) by newspaper columnist Lovina Eichler reflect mainstream publishing houses seizing on that interest.

“Mennonites have never been a people that have forced their faith on others,” said Amy Gingerich, editorial director of Herald Press. “We lead and we live our Christian faith by example, through simple living and modeling peace and justice for all.”

Holly Lebowitz Rossi is a freelance writer in Arlington, Mass. Visit her online at http://hollyrossi.com.