See you in a hundred years....

Dorothy knows I have latent country tendencies so she passed on a book to me that she just finished. See You in a Hundred Years: Four Seasons in Forgotten America by Logan Ward. I think this is my favorite genre...and now that I reflect back to the early days at PPL, I believe it was always the favorite. I remember we could choose books off the shelf in Acquisitions and we would read them and then write short reviews. Branch librarians then would gather in Ms. Donaldson's (?) office once a month and all around the table would be stacks of books. Then each would pitch the books sharing what they loved about it (or not!) I always grabbed the homesteading books as well as the home arts...some things never change.

Logan and Heather Ward and their young son Luther decided to escape from the urban life in Manhattan with all its stress and liveliness to retreat to a life committed to 1900...no indoor plumbing, wood stoves for cooking their meals and warming their homes...determined to live off the land for one year. Logan's story is filled with the challenges and joys of their daily lives as farmers in the Shenandoah Valley. These city slickers have much to learn as they begin to learn the old ways... chickens, goats, a workhorse named Belle all bring challenges...as do the weather and their integration into the social fabric of the town in which they live.

Very fun book...especially for those of us to long for a different way of living!

Mary Ann
p.s. Refers to Horses, mules and ponies and how to keep them. 1859.
The House behind the cedars by Charles Waddell.
Carla Emery's Encyclopedia of Country Living.

pp.227
"Those who don't care about the past are disoriented, he says, showing little regard for the land, for humanity for themselves...The past may be easy to forget, but it is not dead. It lives in us all. The point is not to return to another time but to enrich the experience of our own time. By respecting the past, we can live a more meaningful present--and future. ...This project is not about escape. It's about exploring those inalienable realities facing humanity since the dawn of time--food, water, nature, community. It about finding our place in the continuum of history."

Bel Canto

My current read is Bel Canto by Ann Patchett - it's been on my "to read" list for a while, but am just getting to it while on a brief trip to Charleston to visit friends. It's a wonderful book, but I'm wishing I were reading it with a long stretch of time to read without disruption. Picking it up and putting it down between sightseeing juants is a challenge!



Recently finished the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - delightful and probably would have been a better choice for a travel read.



Count me as an Ann Lamott fan....she has a way of speaking to our innermost thoughts, doesn't she? And in the somewhat spiritual vein I recommend To Bless the Space Between Us, by John O'Donohue - wonderful, poetic blessings for all of lifes occasions from a former priest who recently died much too soon. It's on my bedside table and I have been dipping into it every day.

Next on your list (with your new "old friend") could be Plan B, also by
ann Lamott. I really like her too. Such a mix of people she knows, and her
life isn't perfect! Years ago I actually heard her speak in Medford. Isn't
that strange?

Submitted by Amy Kinard

Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott

During our wonderful PPL Pals reunion this summer, Mary Ann gave me Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies. It took me a while to get around to reading it, but it has been a quietly delightful companion these past couple of weeks while I have been in recovery from surgery. I had never read Lamott, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. She felt like an old friend---full of the quirks and quests, uncertainties and certainties, wry & delightful observations about a variety of life experiences like we have all dealt with through the years.
Thanks for the introduction! love, Jan