A Country Year: Living the Questions

Rating:
Summary: A COUNTRY YEAR
Review: This book was an inspiration to me before I moved to the Ozarks. The frankness in which Sue Hubbell writes is very much the way she is in real life. I have had the pleasure of meeting Sue since I lived in the same small town as she did. It saddens me that she has since moved away and her cabin has been torn down and the land reverted back to nature. A small piece of history has left the area and is hidden in the woods forever. I miss her and her lifestyle. As far as her voice being monotonous, I was thrilled to see the audio book on sale since she is such a good story teller. I will buy that selection for my own mother who moved to this area 10 years ago and is a real country woman.

Rating:
Summary: Natures + Ozarks Enjoyment
Review: This is a good book, and I agree with the generally positive comments made by the previous reviewers. But I would also like to add that what I actually enjoyed most was the author's keen observations about the Ozark people -- shrewdly funny. I married a Missourian with roots in the Ozarks, and having spent some time there now, I can hear their words, their voices, their sense of humor, and their stories, through Ms. Hubbell's own voice. (In fact, I find it almost hard to believe that I'm not actually listening to my husband's relatives at their social gatherings!)

Rating:
Summary: Slow moving but beautiful... just like a country day
Review: This is a slow book, but following Sue Hubbel through her days was a gift. As one rater laments, "much of the book is just a reflection of life on a small bee farm"... which is precisely what I loved about it. Like much of agriculture, horticulture, and allied disciplines, beekeeping is hard and complicated while at the same time being a model of simplicity. This I learned watching my father, a commercial beekeeper. I am thankful to Sue Hubbel for writing about that life and the beauty of coutry living without attempting to romanticize it.

Rating:
Summary: brilliant
Review: unique, well-written -- poignant, humorous -- subtle, yet compelling. read it! give it to every woman you know. it's unique and so very lovely. ostensibly about bee-keeping, but really about life.

Rating:
Summary: A quiet, thoughtful, and often very funny book
Review: When Sue Hubbell's long-term marriage fell apart, and she found herself in mid-life living alone as a beekeeper on a farm in the Ozarks. Her book is ostensibly set within a single year, but that's only the framework for the series of essays that form a beautiful chronicle of the seasons of one's life, the seasons of nature, the seasons of tame and wild animals, and the seasons of living on a farm.
Her inquiring mind constantly asks "Why?" questions, and the essays are her attempts to answer them. She's a former librarian, so she's articulate, academic, intellectual - but also quietly hilarious, such as her description of trying to think like a chicken in order to coax her hens to sleep inside the coop instead of perched on the trees.
Buy a copy for yourself, and buy one for your best woman friend who is heading into her middle years and may also be Living the Questions.