Michael Perry lives on a farm with his wife, two daughters, a vintage truck and an assortment of animals, which he writes about in Coop: A Year of Poultry, Pigs and Parenting. But he's not running a big professional farming operation.
“I think we're doing what a lot of folks are — getting a few chickens, getting a few pigs, just trying to raise more and more of our own food. And we're not at the cutting edge of this; you look at people like Barbara Kingsolver, Michael Pollan — these are the people who are really leading us.... I'm sort of writing about the rest of us, who are trying to figure out a way to incorporate these things into our day-to-day lives while probably, truth be told, paying the rent mostly through other efforts. But what's encouraging is that I'm seeing more and more of it. This idea that you have to be just a farmer or just a writer is kind of a new thing. If you look back a few decades, the plumber used to have a few chickens in the back yard. It's not about becoming a farmer; it's about incorporating those things into the rest of your life.” Alternately hilarious and tender, Perry’s account may just have you looking to get a few cluckers of your own.
One Bird's Choice, the choice coming when Iain Reid opts to move back home with his parents during a gap in employment. He wrote what he saw -- and got to know -- a year in the life of his family's farm and all its inhabitants, Choose your reading location for this book carefully as many times it will have you laughing out loud.
In Early Bird, a hilarious and insightful memoir twenty-five-year-old Rodney Rothman, burned out from his big-city life, decides to get a jumpstart on the golden years...four decades before his time. He retires and moves to South Florida and finds an elderly roommate. Rodney throws himself into the easy life, but soon finds that all the softball, shuffleboard, bingo, gambling cruises, canasta and tennis is, well, exhausting. After his newfound friends get over the oddity of a twenty-something retiree, he becomes one of them, though not without difficulty. He plays in a senior softball league and finds that most seventy-year-olds are far better athletes than he is. He plans a return to the stage for a reluctant ninety-two-year-old comedian. He finds himself the unwelcome muse and romantic interest of a seventy-seven-year-old femme fatale. And he becomes the last great hope of his shuffleboard team. But early retirement - the dream of so many - is not quite what he expected. Early Bird takes readers on a humorous, and often bittersweet, journey through the people and culture of retirement.
The Book Club meets in the afternoon on the last Tuesday of every month from September through April. February’s selection is An Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes in New England by Brock Clarke. All welcome!
Kniterary Thursday afternoons at 1:00 Bring your knitting project or other needlework project to the library and socialize with other crafters. Discuss what you are reading or what you would like to read while enjoying the company of others over a cup of tea. All welcome!
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