Here are 100 books that More Scenes from the Rural Life fans have personally recommended if you like
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Born in 1969 as the seventh of eight children to two Harlem-raised parents, I benefited from both the inner-city life of Queens, New York and childhood summers spent on a farm in rural upstate New York. Academic, professional, and physical accomplishments have punctuated my life. An adventurer by nature, I became the first African American to hike to the top of every mountain in the northeast US over 4,000' (115 of them) by September of 2000. At that time, less than 400 people had accomplished this feat; whereas thousands have scaled Mount Everest. My home city’s iconic landmarks create a psychological veil that blinds people to the vast open spaces that dominate New York State.
This well-researched book presents a balanced account of the true heroism performed by escaped slaves, church abolishionists, anti-slavery societies, and vigilance committees to free their fellow citizens. Myths related to tunnels, quilts, and yard statues are explained, as well as the legendary contributions of John Brown and Harriet Tubman. My life’s travels have unknowingly placed me on the path of the underground railroad countless times. From shopping with my family as a child in Ogdensburg where African Americans crossed the St. Lawrence River into Canada to have owned properties in Essex, Clinton, and Franklin Counties along the trails to liberation.
A historian investigates evidence for the existence of the Underground Railroad in upstate New York.
Because of its clandestine nature, much of the history of the Underground Railroad remains shrouded in secrecy—so much so that some historians have even doubted its importance. After decades of research, Tom Calarco recounts his experiences compiling evidence to give credence to the legend’s oral history in upstate New York.
As the Civil War loomed and politicians from the North and South debated the fate of slavery, brave New Yorkers risked their lives to help fugitive slaves escape bondage. Whites and Blacks alike worked together…
Do you freeze up when your characters drift into the bedroom? Are you puzzled about how much to say and how to say it? What to call the body parts that bring us so much pleasure and so much anguish?
If you’re writing a novel and there’s a sexual encounter…
Born in 1969 as the seventh of eight children to two Harlem-raised parents, I benefited from both the inner-city life of Queens, New York and childhood summers spent on a farm in rural upstate New York. Academic, professional, and physical accomplishments have punctuated my life. An adventurer by nature, I became the first African American to hike to the top of every mountain in the northeast US over 4,000' (115 of them) by September of 2000. At that time, less than 400 people had accomplished this feat; whereas thousands have scaled Mount Everest. My home city’s iconic landmarks create a psychological veil that blinds people to the vast open spaces that dominate New York State.
I first saw Amish people in New York during the mid-1970s while spending summers on my family’s abandoned dairy farm in St. Lawrence County. We (Jeffersons) arrived in 1972, and a Swartzentruber Amish community settled nearby in 1974. Although we overlapped with our simply living county neighbors for ten summers (my parents sold our farm in 1985), I knew very little about them. This book provides readers with a college-level education on the inception, migration, internal conflicts, socioeconomic and sociopolitical lives of the Amish.
In a book that highlights the existence and diversity of Amish communities in New York State, Karen M. Johnson-Weiner draws on twenty-five years of observation, participation, interviews, and archival research to emphasize the contribution of the Amish to the state's rich cultural heritage. While the Amish settlements in Pennsylvania and Ohio are internationally known, the Amish population in New York, the result of internal migration from those more established settlements, is more fragmentary and less visible to all but their nearest non-Amish neighbors. All of the Amish currently living in New York are post-World War II migrants from points to…
Born in 1969 as the seventh of eight children to two Harlem-raised parents, I benefited from both the inner-city life of Queens, New York and childhood summers spent on a farm in rural upstate New York. Academic, professional, and physical accomplishments have punctuated my life. An adventurer by nature, I became the first African American to hike to the top of every mountain in the northeast US over 4,000' (115 of them) by September of 2000. At that time, less than 400 people had accomplished this feat; whereas thousands have scaled Mount Everest. My home city’s iconic landmarks create a psychological veil that blinds people to the vast open spaces that dominate New York State.
Divergent, yet shockingly similar, life experiences are chronicled in Greenville and my own book. A poor white family from Long Island with eight children sent one son to live and work on a farm in the Catskill region during the 1950s. Harsh living conditions downstate with an alcoholic father and abusive mother were replaced upstate with a loving uncle, welcoming peers, and athletic success. Circumstances changed again dramatically, and the author tidies up the chaos that was his father’s life by visiting the farm 45 years later.
Inspired by a troubled family history, this “book of grace and dignity . . . will be around for a long, long time” (Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin).
In this “terrific” novel, award-winning author Dale Peck recounts the childhood of his father, Dale Peck Sr. (Jonathan Safran Foer). Raised in poverty with seven brothers and sisters in suburban Long Island, terrorized by an abusive mother, Dale Sr.’s life changes when his alcoholic father dumps him at his uncle’s dairy farm in upstate New York. There, he begins to thrive, finding real love and connection with his…
Do you freeze up when your characters drift into the bedroom? Are you puzzled about how much to say and how to say it? What to call the body parts that bring us so much pleasure and so much anguish?
If you’re writing a novel and there’s a sexual encounter…
Born in 1969 as the seventh of eight children to two Harlem-raised parents, I benefited from both the inner-city life of Queens, New York and childhood summers spent on a farm in rural upstate New York. Academic, professional, and physical accomplishments have punctuated my life. An adventurer by nature, I became the first African American to hike to the top of every mountain in the northeast US over 4,000' (115 of them) by September of 2000. At that time, less than 400 people had accomplished this feat; whereas thousands have scaled Mount Everest. My home city’s iconic landmarks create a psychological veil that blinds people to the vast open spaces that dominate New York State.
As books by academics are apt to be, this wonderfully rich account of the history of New York’s Finger Lakes region is replete with references, quotes, and poetic stories. Tall begins with the manner in which the Iroquois Confederacy was divided and driven out during the Revolutionary War, and progresses through the influences of Hobart and William Smith Colleges, a heavily guarded military base, and struggles with blight in Geneva, New York. “Place” is explored through the lenses of the natural environment, language, religion, psychology, racism, and more. Indeed, Tall’s approach to understanding the community she adopted can be replicated on lands all over the world.
Why does a particular landscape move us? What is it that attaches us to a particular place? Tall's From Where We Stand is an eloquent exploration of the connections we have with places-and the loss to us if there are no such connections. A typically rootless child of several American suburbs, Tall set out to make a true home for herself in the landscape that circumstance had brought her-the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York.
In a mosaic of personal anecdotes, historical sketches, and lyrical meditations, she interweaves her own story with the story of this place and its…
My love since childhood for the natural world made me use my art to speak for those who don't have a voice to fight back: the animals who are losing their habitat daily, the old-growth forests getting cut down, and the waters that are polluted mindlessly. When my partner and I adopted our puppy, Reynard, we were so obsessed with him that we decided to write and illustrate a book about his adventures, and naturally, it ended up also touching on different environmental topics. Our art endeavors also inspired us to begin a movement to stop a toxic sulfide mine from being built next to Lake Superior and the Porcupine Mountains in Michigan.
There are few books where animals get to tell their side of the story regarding habitat destruction due to human development.
I was truly moved by the resilience of these rabbits in their search for a new home, and the glimpses of their myths and culture were very entertaining. The illustrations were breathtaking and transported me into all the landscapes and scenes of the story. Even though it's a long book, I couldn't stop reading, so I finished it really fast!
It's because of tales like this one that we have the opportunity to expand our compassion for beings other than human.
Watership Down: The Graphic Novel captures Richard Adams's epic tale of courage, friendship, hope, and survival.
Spectacularly adapted by award-winning author James Sturm and gorgeously illustrated by bestselling artist Joe Sutphin.
'Every page of this adaptation is a loving tribute to Richard Adams's masterpiece' - Andrew Peterson, author of The Wingfeather Saga.
For more than 50 years, Watership Down has charmed readers across the world, and now this highly anticipated graphic novel adaptation is set to delight devoted readers and bring this beloved classic to a new generation.
'Every rabbit that stays behind is in great danger. We will welcome…
I’ve been fortunate enough to have had a different kind of life. I was brought up by two writers who took me to magical places, far away from cities, to meet magical people. I spent my childhood searching for horse chestnuts and looking for otters. I wasn’t interested in electronic games and loud music: I wanted instead to be out in nature, watching for wild things and listening to the song of birds. It comes back to Iona, to this tiny little island on the west coast of Scotland which I will feel always is my spiritual home. In that place, I have everything I need. Nothing that a big city can offer tempts. Ever.
This is a work of non-fiction, and it’s my very favourite in the world. On one level it’s about a man who leaves the world behind and goes to live in the most remote corner he can find to live with a pet otter. But it’s about a whole lot more than that. Gavin Maxwell brings to life the sound of the birds and the crashing of the waves; you can smell the seashore beyond the door of the house and you can walk out onto the beach to see the beauty in every direction. It’s a love song to the natural world, that’s what it is. And if it doesn’t leave you moved, then you’re harder than stone.
The classic account of otters in the Scottish highlands and the naturalist who cared for them there.
While touring the Iraqi marshes, Gavin Maxwell was captivated by an otter and became a devoted advocate of and spokesman for the species. Maxwell moved to a remote house in the Scottish highlands, co-habiting there with three otters and living an idyllic and isolated life at least for a while. Fate, fame, and fire conspired against this paradise, and it, too, came to an end, though the journey was filled with incident and wonder.
An extraordinarily evocative writer, Maxwell was also talented as…
As a born and bred Mainer, there are dozens of great books I could recommend set in the Pine Tree State. But the five I’ve curated capture, for me, the diversity of the Maine culture, from the long-gone loggers who made their living from the woods to the often-overlooked Indigenous communities to the mill towns struggling to survive. When a non-Mainer thinks of our state, what usually comes to mind are quaint coastal villages, lighthouses, lobster… And while those things are part of what makes Maine the place it is, there exists, both on and off the page, plenty of other experiences and histories to discover here.
In lyrical prose, Rich brings the reader into her real experience as a woman living in the Maine woods during the 1930s.
Rich’s narrative often reads like an adventure story—black bears, raging snowstorms—but some of my favorite scenes center around the endless daily chores necessary to a life in the wilderness. I also love Rich’s stories of the logging camps that surround her and her husband’s homestead.
Her riveting descriptions of the annual river drives, during which logs would be floated from the forest down to the lumber and paper mills, recall a way of life nearly unfathomable for those of us in the modern age. And if all that weren’t enough, Rich’s singular, humorous voice is simply a delight to read.
In her early thirties, Louise Dickinson Rich took to the woods of Maine with her husband. They found their livelihood and raised a family in the remote backcountry settlement of Middle Dam, in the Rangeley area. Rich made time after morning chores to write about their lives. We Took to the Woods is an adventure story, written with humor, but it also portrays a cherished dream awakened into full life. First published 1942.
My love and passion for embracing a cozy and romantic view of life is so strong that I built my entire business around it! I am a recipe developer, cookbook author, and content creator. My unique take on cooking and baking is by adding touches of fantasy, cottagecore, and history into my recipes and other creative work. This has led me to write all about living a more cozy lifestyle for the last 10 years! Romanticizing my life with the cottagecore aesthetic is how I find joy and comfort in a chaotic world, and I hope that can inspire others to embrace living their own magical lives!
Want to feel like a little kid again? This book, or any of the Brambly Hedge books by Jill Barklem, are the epitome of romanticizing your life!
I can remember reading the Brambly Hedge books as a child and falling in love with all of the beautiful scenes. These books present what so many people are craving right now, which is a cozy place to escape to.
As a child (and now) I loved the intricate interiors with historical details and the magical aspect of mice doing mundane tasks like baking or cleaning in little fluffy dresses. Now that I am older, I find that I really love reading these stories because they remind me to slow down and that it’s okay to stop for a moment to enjoy a cup of tea settled in by a warm fire.
Enter the beautiful world of Brambly Hedge with this exquisite treasury containing all eight of the much-loved, classic picture books.
Explore the natural world with the mice of Brambly Hedge, who made their first appearance in 1980 when the four seasonal stories were published. Ever since, readers have loved exploring the miniature world of the hedgerow and meeting the families that live there.
In this collection the mice have many adventures, but they always have time for fun and relaxation too. Whatever the season, and whether they are by the sea, in the hills, or simply at home by the…
There is something so magical about creating art and bringing an idea to life. As a writer and an art teacher, I love watching artists of any age find their own inspiration and joy in creating. I have used these books to launch all kinds of projects, from paintings to pottery, for every age and stage of artist. I hope you will find inspiration in these pages, too!
This is one of the most creative and magical books I’ve ever seen. Every time I share this book, I hear a gasp when I get halfway through it and flip it upside down to continue the story, upside down and backward. You have to see it to believe it! For older students, it’s a great way to introduce the tricky concept of negative space.
This book isn't just the STORY of a family’s round trip - it IS a round trip! Read forward and look at the sights, then flip the book over to see something different on the way back. The black-and-white illustrations for the trip into the city become something different when the book is turned upside down for the journey home. Clouds turn into puddles, fields of wheat turn into rain, lightning becomes mountain trails, and building lights morph into stars. "Round Trip" was featured on Reading Rainbow, the acclaimed PBS-TV series celebrating books and reading.
Understanding history is essential for understanding ourselves as human beings – for recognising where we’ve come from and why we live as we do. What I love about historical fiction is that it can take tumultuous times and show their effects on the individuals who lived through them. As a historical novelist, I try to bring history back to a tangible, human level. These short novels show that if a writer’s prose is fresh, witty, and moving, then historical novels don’t need to be enormous tomes to give us a new slant on the past and allow us to inhabit lives utterly different from our own.
This exquisite book tells the story of the one family in the remote Maesglasau valley in Wales, and the ferocious changes that the twentieth century brings to their traditional rural way of life.
Originally written in the Welsh language and beautifully translated into lyrical English, this is a poignant and unforgettable story. I love how the language is simple, but it delicately renders the lives of the family members, giving them dignity and beauty despite sorrow and hardships. It feels old-fashioned yet also timeless.
"The most fascinating and wonderful book" JAN MORRIS
"A restrained, lyrical tour de force" OWEN SHEERS
In the early years of the last century, Rebecca is born into a rural community in the Maesglasau valley in Wales; her family have been working the land for a thousand years, but the changes brought about by modernity threaten the survival of her language, and her family's way of life.
Rebecca's reflections on the century are delivered with haunting dignity and a simple intimacy, while her evocation of the changing seasons and a life that is so in tune with its surroundings is…
