Nonfiction November – Week 4
This week’s link-up is hosted by Julz at JulzReads. The prompt for this week’s Nonfiction November entry is expertise.
It’s probably no surprise to anyone that I’m choosing to be the expert on moving-and-starting-over a new life in the country.
1. Country Matters: The Pleasures and Tribulations of Moving from a Big City to an Old Country Farmhouse by Michael Korda
From Amazon: “With his inimitable sense of humor and storytelling talent, New York Times bestselling author Michael Korda brings us this charming, hilarious, self-deprecating memoir of a city couple’s new life in the country.
At once entertaining, canny, and moving, Country Matters does for Dutchess County, New York, what Under the Tuscan Sun did for Tuscany. This witty memoir, replete with Korda’s own line drawings, reads like a novel, as it chronicles the author’s transformation from city slicker to full-time country gentleman, complete with tractors, horses, and a leaking roof.”
2. From Stone Orchard: a Collection of Memories by Timothy Findley
From Amazon: “As they say, if only the walls could talk …
The walls have never talked so eloquently or endearingly as they do in From Stone Orchard, a collection of Timothy Findley’s Harrowsmith columns – revised and expanded – plus new writings, all on life at a 19th-century farm just outside of Cannington, Ontario. Here are tales of the farm’s past, both distant and recent: the comic coincidences leading to the naming of the swimming pool, and why Margaret Laurence would never dip her toe in it. Or the night dinner party guests went outside in the twilight, dressed like royalty, to watch a herd of majestic deer pass through the gardens.”
3. Heading Home: On Starting a New Life in a Country Place by Lawrence Scanlan
From Amazon: What harassed and harried city-dweller has not dreamed of escaping to a quiet place in the country? With his wife, Scanlan moved from the city of Kingston to a 19th Century frame house on the Napanee River in the village of Camden East, Ontario (pop. 250).
Heading Home plots their transition from city to country, with its challenges and comic twists. The book’s twelve chapters, each devoted to one month, chronicle a year in the life of the village. Scanlan points to a wide range of data and interviews dozens of people who have opted out of city life–all to show that a major demographic shift is underway.
As lyrical as it is practical, Heading Home shows the way to a new life beyond the freeways and high-rises. Heading Home is the perfect book for all who have lived in the city but who yearn to start over–in a country place.
I could add to this list, but these three provide enough of a foundation for you to know if the country life is really for you.
P.S. The links are affiliate links so I will receive a small percentage of any purchase you make after clicking through from this blog
I haven’t read nearly as much on this subject as you, but think I would enjoy all of these. My favorite city-to-country tale is The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers
by Josh Kilmer-Purcell,
You’ll find Bucolic Plague in my Nonfiction November Week 5 post next week, JoAnn> 🙂
Lovely topic! For a not-so-rosy look at life in the country, I just re-read The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald. She masks it with humor, but she had a pretty difficult life on a chicken farm in the Olympic Mountains after she married at age eighteen. I also recommend Idyll Banter by Chris Bohjahlian, from his newspaper columns about life in a Vermont village.
Oh – both of these sound good, Lory! I’m putting them on my TBR list but I’m sorry that I’ve already written my post for week 5. 🙁
What a great topic! I love that it’s pretty specific and that it connects to your life 🙂
Thank, Katie! I’ve been seeing so many diverse topics from this prompt that I thought mine was a little predictable.
Nice, and so personal. I’m never quite sure whether I live in the country or the city. PEI is so rural overall, but then I am in the ‘city’ on PEI. I think I get the best of both worlds.
Country is certainly never far away on PEI, Raider girl. A few years ago, we visited friends who were living in Monatgue. They had grown up in North Rustico and took us on a tour of the countryside. It seems we saw most of the island – and it’s all beautiful.
Lovely post Debbie … and just perfect for me. I love other people moving to the country and asking me to visit! I can’t imagine ever doing it myself but staying with people who have is such a treat. Let’s me dream for a little while, before the reality of the way I like to live my life (not to mentions my general laziness) sets in again.
And country people so often like to have compnay from the city (as long aa they don’t complain about the quiet), so it works out well, Sue. 🙂
This is a unique and interesting topic. Thank you for the suggestions. I have lived in both the country and the city. In the country we did the whole chicken and rabbit thing when our kids were young and everything. The country years were really something. Of course the plowing and the upkeep was endless. They both have their advantages. Personally, I am more comfortable in the country, but there are conveniences in the city. Currently we live in a small town, which is nice.
I would love to read one of the books that you suggested.
There a coule of things I miss about the city, Toady, and many things are more convenient there. A small town seems to be a lovely compromise!
I love this topic. Even though I live in a town, not a city, I still dream of rural living (even of farm living). One of my favourite books about moving from city life to full-on farm life is The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball.
Ooh – another book to reserve, Naomi! I never tire of reading about this, even though we don’t farm. Thanks for the suggestion!