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A “delightful, witty” memoir about starting over as a beekeeper in the Ozarks (Library Journal). Alone on a small Missouri farm after a thirty-year marriage, Sue Hubbell found a new love—of the winged, buzzing variety. Left with little but the commercial beekeeping and honey-producing business she started with her husband, Hubbell found solace in the natural world. Then she began to write, challenging herself to tell the absolute truth about her life and the things she cared about. Describing the ups and downs of beekeeping from one springtime to the next, A Country Year transports readers to a different, simpler place. In a series of exquisite vignettes, Hubbell reveals the joys of a life attuned to nature in this heartfelt memoir about life on the land, and of a woman finding her way in middle age. “Once in a while there comes along a book so calm, so honest, so beautiful that even the most jaded or cynical readers have to say thank you. . . . This is such a book” (The San Diego Union-Tribune).
'At last she reached the brow of the hill ? now the country opened out below her and she looked down into a wide and lovely valley ? Still patched with snow the little fields spread like a carpet below her and here and there a farmhouse with barns and golden ricks was clearly seen. Across the plain ran, straight as a ruler, a railway line and she saw a toy train puffing and crawling across the picture.'Malcolm Saville's classic 1946 novel is about eleven-year old Jane's discovery of nature and country life during a year spent convalescing on her uncle's farm, after having been dangerously ill in post-war London.This deeply-felt novel was written while Saville was extending his range as a writer, alongside his very successful Lone Pine adventure series, and nature anthologies for children. Inspired by the experiences of Saville's own god-daughter, this marvellous novel is full of the wonder of discovery, as well the happiness of regaining health, making friends, and learning to love the natural world.The novel is also a record of rural England eighty years ago, written by one of the great twentieth century English nature writers.The Introduction is written by Hazel Sheeky Bird of the University of Newcastle.The illustrations by Bernard Bowerman have been reproduced from the first edition.
* NOW WITH A NEW CHAPTER * 'A hugely enjoyable romp through the pleasures and pitfalls of setting up home in a foreign land.'- Guardian Given the opportunity of a new life in rural Jutland, Helen Russell discovered a startling statistic: Denmark, land of long dark winters, cured herring, Lego and pastries, was the happiest place on earth. Keen to know their secrets, Helen gave herself a year to uncover the formula for Danish happiness. From childcare, education, food and interior design to SAD and taxes, The Year of Living Danishly records a funny, poignant journey, showing us what the Danes get right, what they get wrong, and how we might all live a little more Danishly ourselves. In this new edition, six years on Helen reveals how her life and family have changed, and explores how Denmark, too – or her understanding of it – has shifted. It's a messy and flawed place, she concludes – but can still be a model for a better way of living.
A richly textured history of the resilience and adaptability of western Kansans to survive two major depressions and the epic Dust Bowl years--separated only by a brief "golden age" of war-related prosperity. Miner, known as the "dean of Kansas history," vividly relates the people's negotiation with the high plains environment, which happens to teach harsh lessons of mutability and perseverance better than most places.
Matthew Rice is a painter, author and architectural enthusiast; obsessive about birds, poultry, the countryside and is fantastic in the kitchen. His passion for nature and the countryside is reflected in this evocative undated yearbook. There is space to write notes or keep track of birthdays, anniversaries or when you planted the broad beans! Recording your 'country' year will keep the memories alive forever.
This is a record of one year of a nine-year project to create a garden on a scrubby rural plot within commuting distance of New York City. Two of Duck Hill's three acres belong to the horses, dogs, chickens, geese and other animals who appear in this journal, but the heart of the land - and of the book - is the garden; the white garden, the herb garden, the main garden, the hedges, the shrub roses, the nasturtium border and all the other plants and plans in Page Dickey's project.
The changing seasons make grandly visible not only nature's recurring miracle of life, death, and rebirth which enfolds and nurtures us all but also the special character of a particular region observed over time, its secret beauties and sudden terrors, the coursing life of the place itself. Jim Bones' magnificent photographic record of a year in the Texas Hill Country chronicles that sequence of natural details which mark the year's passing in a part of Texas many Texans have come to revere as a kind of heartland. Complementing the photographs, John Graves's essay on the region tells the history of the land and those who have lived on it, evoking both the special qualities of the Hill Country and the nature of man's kinship with his soil. Stretching to the north within the curve of the Balcones Escarpment, the Hill Country lies close to the center of the state, but something other than geography engenders the heartland aura. Its carved limestone cliffs, its scrubby eroded hills, its gushing springs and clear-flowing streams and its abundant wildlife hold strong appeal for Texans from more fertile but flatter land east and more spectacular but barren land west. Man's hand upon this earth has not always been gentle, but change has come slowly to the Hill Country. It is rough terrain, not rich enough in soil or minerals to have tempted much exploitation, and this, together with its remarkable varied natural beauty, explains its special power over the heart and mind. Finding unique patterns of the place in the seasonal changes of weather, water, and light, of the land, its plants and its animals, Bones' photographs capture those fleeting phenomena which define the permanent meaning and value of the natural world and reveal the singular charm of this small and relatively undisturbed part of it. His work eloquently affirms a truth too often forgotten in an increasingly mechanized and urban world--that in making peace with nature we make peace with ourselves. Most of the photographs were taken while Bones was resident fellow at Paisano, a 254-acre ranch along Barton Creek that belonged to J. Frank Dobie and now serves as a place where Southwestern artists and writers can live and work. The Dobie-Paisano Fellowship is offered annually by the Texas Institute of Letters and the University of Texas at Austin. A refugee from technical fields more concerned with exploiting than preserving nature.
'A brilliant, unlikely book' Spectator How can we celebrate, challenge and change our remarkable world? In 2012, the world arrived in London for the Olympics...and Ann Morgan went out to meet it. She read her way around all the globe's 196 independent countries (plus one extra), sampling one book from every nation. It wasn't easy. Many languages have next to nothing translated into English; there are tiny, tucked-away places where very little is written down; some governments don't like to let works of art escape their borders. Using Morgan's own quest as a starting point, Reading the World explores the vital questions of our time and how reading across borders might just help us answer them. 'Revelatory... While Morgan's research has a daunting range...there is a simple message- reading is a social activity, and we ought to share books across boundaries' Financial Times
