Rutland Free Library

The Town that Food Saved: How One Community Found Vitality in Local Food, by Ben Hewitt (2010) – In 2009, amid the double dip economic recession, the small town of Hardwick, Vermont was adding jobs in a handful of businesses practicing sustainable agriculture and promoting local foods. This much I already knew from following Hardwick in the media during that time. What I liked about this book is that it gave a voice to some of the folks that the media reporting left out: operators of a mobile slaughtering unit, back to the land anarchists, and aging farmers from another era. A lot has been written about Hardwick’s successes since then, but this book serves as an introduction and playbook to community economic development in the region. (EG)

338.1974 HEW or try the library catalog

Just as I Thought, by Grace Paley (1998) – A sampler collection of autobiographical essays and articles by a longtime poet and activist who died in Thetford, Vermont in 2007. While the pieces themselves do not form a linear biography, together they chronicle Grace’s life placed in the context of the larger social movements. “The Illegal Days” describes abortion before Roe v. Wade, “Report from North Vietnam” brings us to a war zone and inspires courage, and further essays in the book describe acts of organized resistance to the Gulf War and for womens’ rights. An inspiring read from an articulate woman who never wavered from the politics of speaking truth to power. (EG)

Call Number is B Paley or try the library catalog

The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love, by Kristin Kimball (2010) – I expected a predictable romantic comedy story about a city girl who meets a farmer and leaves behind her old life behind for the life of a farm wife. I did not expect to laugh out loud but I did. When she gets into details about Amish auctions, rat infestations, dysentery, and various states of decomposition, I knew it was the real deal. Among several titles in recent years where the author leaves city life behind, this one rings of authenticity in describing the challenges of farm life and marriage. (EG)

630.92 KIM or try the library catalog

Walking to Gatlinburg: a Novel by Howard Frank Mosher (2010)
A Civil War odyssey in the tradition of Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain and Robert Olmstead’s Coal Black Horse, Mosher’s latest (after On Kingdom Mountain), about a Vermont teenager’s harrowing journey south to find his missing-in-action brother, is old-fashioned in the best sense of the word. Seventeen-year-old Morgan Kinneson goes in search of his older brother, Pilgrim, a Union soldier reported MIA at Gettysburg. But first, Morgan accidentally causes the death of a runaway slave he was leading to safety in Canada. In the course of tracking down his missing brother, Morgan is pursued by slave catchers, accompanies an elephant on an Erie Canal showboat, visits the battlefield at Gettysburg, meets an escaped slave who turns out to be the dead slave’s granddaughter, and gets wounded during a mountain feud before learning of Pilgrim’s fate. Complicating matters is a rune stone the dead slave left to Morgan, which could compromise the security of the Underground Railroad if the slave catchers get their hands on it. The story of Morgan’s rite-of-passage through an American arcadia despoiled by war and slavery is an engrossing tale with mass appeal.  (Booklist)

Find it in the catalog or under call number: FIC MOSHER