Gardening in Sandy Soil: Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin A-169 (Storey Publishing Bulletin, a-169)

So what makes this book a gem? Well, for one thing it is a series of articles on a variety of topics, written by a lot of simple living folks on subjects that those seeking or living a simple life will really appreciate. One might even say its a great book to have next to your bedside so you can read something short, and encouraging before going to sleep.

Since the authors come from so many different backgrounds, the articles aren't always compatible. For example, several of the articles are extremely anti-technology, anti-electricity, anti-competition, anti-public school education, etc., whereas others espouse the use of some of these things in moderation.

To me, extremism in any direction is the antithesis of simplicity, which, after all, is what this book is supposed to be about. Still, the book is correctly subtitled "Essays on Making a Simple Life" - it is essays by different people, with different backgrounds and different beliefs about what constitutes a simple life. It is an educational read, not only about simplicity, but also about how certain groups view the rest of the world.

Savage and his friends claim that the techno life most of us lead is actually simpler than the lives they lead. In the techno life, we can do away with too much interaction with others. We separate ourselves with complications. We can live in virtual reality, paring down the complications (human beings) into abstracts. We can have friends around the world, although we might not know our neighbors names. We can amuse ourselves, filling our time with fantastic games, entertaining TV, music from around the world. What's wrong with that? It may be that life is so short, and we are spreading ourselves so thin, with all the possibilities at our finger tips, we may be missing real life completely.

They claim the simple life is actually the more complicated life, with all the mess and difficulties of living in a small community, having to rely on neighbors (who we might not even like) for help, raising our own foods, finding ways to entertain ourselves and our families that might involve planting, sewing, talking, writing, singing, and being in the moment (without the new agey spin to it).

Without lecturing, this collection of articles from The Plain Reader newspaper (subscribers are limited to 5,000 in order to keep it small and hand-made) motivates, illuminates and educates us.

Although the authors are generally Luddites, Quakers, Mennonites and other plain living folks, living sans TV, Nintendo, radio, daily newspapers, ownership of automobiles, etc., the articles are not judgmental of those of us still living in the consumer world. And let's be honest -- as much as we claim we want the simple life, here we are, you and I, writing and reading reviews, and buying books over the Internet! We're mentioned in the book, sympathetically.

In an interview with Jerry Mander, the Plain editor says, "..but I have never had anyone say to me, 'No, no get away from me. These issues aren't important to me. I like being a machine.' On the contrary, in every case where I've spoken heart-to-heart about my concerns, they've turned around and said, 'You know, I, too, have a real sense of unease about what I'm doing. I think I do watch too much television. I do feel controlled by it,' etc.

Now if I were to wag my finger at them, or organize activities to "wake them up," appealing to their minds, they would simply hold more tightly to their stake in the dominant culture. When I tell them my fears and failings, I've not had a single person fail to respond. And so I do believe this is how we're going to reach people. Our magazine reaches people by dissolving their fear, by encouraging others with what we're doing."

And so this book encourages us, with examples of what the plain folk, some once Bobos like thee and me, are doing. It almost pains me to read it, for I fall far short of the pure and simple thoughts in here. And yet there's hope -- I may not give up everything, but I can question, and make changes in how I live my life.

Mary Ann Laiser writes of The Media-Free Family; Bill Duesing has thoughts on "Leaving Money Behind; and Art Gish speaks of 'Food We Can Live With."

Even if you're not ready to leave it all behind, this is a wonderful book to read. So thought provoking, it may inspire you to question some of what you're doing, what you're allowing your children to do (I'm speaking to myself, here!) and how even small changes can be made. We bought one copy, but now we need more to pass along!

Can be read bit by bit, or at one sitting. Use a marker, or bookmarks. The woodcut illustrations by Mary Azarian are simple, but beautiful (better even than the cover.)

Average customer rating:

A wonderfully told classic!
Not as good as previous version
Great reading for kids
Little house on the Praire
Fabulous

Little House on the Prairie
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Manufacturer: HarperTrophy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0064400026

. . . the little girl who would grow up to write the Little House books. Pa Ingalls decides to sell the little log house, and the family sets out for Indian country! They travel from Wisconsin to Kansas and there, finally, Pa builds their little house on the prairie. Sometimes farm life is difficult, even dangerous, but Laura and the family are kept busy and are happy with the promise of their new life on the prairie.

Notable Children's Books of 1940 -- 1954 (ALA)
Horn Book Children's Classics 1976

The Great Plains are as rich and integral a part of American literature as they are of the North American landscape. In this volume the stories, poems, and essays that have described, celebrated, and defined the region evoke the world of the American prairie from the first recorded days of Native history to the realities of life on a present-day reservation, from the arrival of European explorers to the experience of early settlers, from the splendor of the vast and rolling grasslands to the devastation of the Dust Bowl. Several essays look to the future and explore changes that would embolden the people of the Plains to continue to call home this place they have learned to value in spite of its persistent challenges.

The infinite variety of the Great Plains landscape and its people unfolds in works by writers as diverse as Willa Cather, Loren Eiseley, Louise Erdrich (Ojibwe), Diane Glancy (Cherokee), Langston Hughes, Wes Jackson, Garrison Keillor, William Least Heat-Moon, Kathleen Norris, Wright Morris, Francis Parkman, O. E. Rölvaag, Mari Sandoz, William Stafford, Mark Twain, Douglas Unger, James Welch (Blackfeet), and Canadians Sharon Butala and Sinclair Ross. From tribal histories to the impressions of travelers today, from tales of isolation and nature’s furious storms to accounts of efforts to build communities, from flights of fancy to nuanced observations of the ecology of the grasslands, this comprehensive volume provides a history of the intricate relationships of land and people in the Great Plains.