The Ladies of Low Arvie - Living the Farming Dream (Book) - 7/25/2010 1:26:02 PM
I've just received this email from Annis Pratt:
Dear Linda: I don't usually plunge into things this precipitously, but couldn't sleep last night and finished your book and posted this on Amazon.com.
I am still trying to figure out how to post a review at Author's Den, and if you know how feel free to cut and paste this.
You might look under "back to the land" in Wikepedia to see an outline of this genre I'm mentioning. There might be some good places to market your book through The Good Earth Catalogue, which spearheaded the movement and, I believe, is still in existence. I know there is something like this kind of writing in England as I used to get (I believe the title was) Country Living.
cordially,
Annis Pratt
Review of Linda Watson, The Ladies of Low Arvie: Living the Farming Dream (iUniverse, 2005) by Annis Pratt
Linda Watson’s book about what it was like to take up cattle raising in Scotland is well written and compellingly narrated, drawing you right into the practical issues and frequent crises of starting a whole new way of life in middle age. I started it one afternoon and couldn’t put it down until the last calf of their first season had been safely brought into the world around midnight, Detroit time.
The “back to the land” genre of telling what it is like to take up country life has been popular in America since Betty MacDonald wrote about moving from city to farm in The Egg and I (1947), followed in 1951 by Helen and Scott Nearing’s Living the Good Life, about the simple self-sufficiency they sought on a farm in Vermont. The counter culture of the 1960s and 1970s engendered a plethora of back to the earth writing, and our current emphasis on environmentalism and voluntary simplicity keeps the genre popular.
Some of us who are urban types like to sit around in our supermarket provided homes and read these books because they take us into worlds and lives we admire but have no desire to emulate; others,who are possessed of similar dreams, read them as a way of gauging the difficulties and pondering the possibilities of throwing a whole way of life out the window to undertake another.
Both will enjoy Linda Watson’s The Ladies of Low Arvie because she fills it with practical details but never mires her reader down in them and because, though exceedingly modest of the fact, hers is a story of admirable pluck and courage.
The Ladies of Low Arvie - Living the Farming Dream (Book) - 6/27/2010 8:29:41 AM
I enjoyed reading and reviewing The Ladies of Low Arvie very much.
I like Writer Watson’s command of language and while the narrative is at times humorous it clearly delineates what all farmers know; life and death and everything in between is part of the tale of all life.
While the reader does not need to be a farmer to find him/herself drawn into the narrative, I do suspect farming folk in particular will laugh, nod their heads knowingly or tsk in sympathy as Watson fills her work with the descriptive expressions needed to bring the words alive in this slice of life memoir.
I find Linda Watson’s The Ladies of Low Arvie: Living the Farming Dream highly readable, most entertaining and well worth the read. I recommend The Ladies of Low Arvie for high school and all other library shelves, it will appeal in particular to the farming community as well as the public at large, and is sure to be a delight to all who enjoy memoir filled with light hearted, joyous writing.
Intro - The Ladies of Low Arvie (Article) - 8/26/2010 3:25:01 AM
This brings me there - to that dream I dream too
Until reality wonders if mine will ever come true.
This reignites my yearning for almst the same thing. But my yearn is laced with a gladness that you got yours - that dreams really can come true.
Letter from reviewer mj (Article) - 7/5/2010 8:10:22 PM
enjoyed reading, heh, I think Ladies will have great appeal to many folks, and especially to the farmers in the crowd!!
m
Natural History at Low Arvie 1 (Article) - 6/8/2010 5:40:03 PM
It sounds lovely, Linda. I'm looking forward to reading your books, I've been following your blogs for the last month.
Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
Beauty (Poetry) - 3/4/2011 10:32:59 AM
Very nice, Linda!
Years ago I used to work on a farm near Steubenville, Ohio. Loved every minute of it.
rege
Beauty (Poetry) - 2/10/2011 12:12:58 PM
'Love this Linda, it makes me winsome for my Aunt and and Uncle's farm in upper New York State once again.Maybe I should look into one of my own?? Thank you dearly, Mary
