From amazon.com...

Klinkenborg's third book (after Making Hay and The Last Fine Time) is a selection of columns originally appearing on the New York Times editorial page under the heading "A Rural Life." They document in vivid detail the daily challenges of life in the country, and on a farm in particular. Though the columns are drawn from seven years of writing, the book is organized into a single year-12 chapters starting in "January" and ending in "December"-and flits from topic to topic, relying on a few short passages of news or descriptions of holidays to mark the passage of time. Likewise, the author never sticks to one place for long, but ranges across the continent of the U.S. and glimpses events in dozens of country towns from Wyoming and New Hampshire to Minnesota and New Mexico. Some episodes are emblematic of contemporary American culture: a high school football game, President Clinton's dedication of Walden Pond, the disquiet in the days following September 11. Others are more intimate passages discussing the author's family and the solace he finds in keeping bees, stacking hay or simply turning earth. Though this highly personal chronicle lacks any narrative arc other than the changing of the seasons and the author's emotional reaction to them, nothing in the prose is accidental, and the deliberate, finely hewn sentences convey, above all else, the seriousness with which Klinkenborg takes the task of watching the world around him. A heady meditation on our relationship to nature, echoing the works of the transcendentalists Thoreau and Emerson, the writing is much closer to poetry than essay.

Apparently this book got very respectable reviews when it was originally released. When it came my way, I had purchased it at Hastings in the remainder stack, for about three dollars. I'll have to say that I wish I had kept my three dollars.

The Rural Life is a reflection of the writer's experiences living in the country. The book contains an essay a month with rather vivid details about the season, the countryside. I got as far as June.

I really enjoy books about "the country" or rural life. My preference, however, is a book that chronicles some of the interesting, colorful people that one meets in the country.

As far as Klinkenborg's The Rural Life--I found the book to be a total bore.

Arrived today, along with a new mailman! Kept book, had to give mailman back. Well, you can't have everything, I suppose.

Will read, pass to M, then release. Thank you!

This has been sitting around on our collective READ ME stack for far too long. Since today is a beautiful pre-summer day, and since I am in a reflective mood and don't want to clean the bathroom, I'll make space in my afternoon agenda to read it in earnest.

M. has been having troubles lately, not reading as much as she once did, so this has come back to me. Back in September she read the corresponding entry, and thought it fine enough to continue, and then things haven't really worked out that way since.

Good intentions and all that.

I hate to say it.. but snooze-a-roo. I could NOT get into this one a'tall. Maybe it picked up further down the line?

RELEASE NOTES:

In the Emergency Care waiting area.