Recollected Essays, 1965-1980

by Wendell Berry

These eleven essays, selected by the author from five previous collections, provide us with a single volume tracing Mr. Berry's desire "to make myself responsibly at home in this world and in my native and chosen place." Essays are drawn from The Long-Legged House, The Hidden Wound, The Unforeseen Wilderness, A Continuous Harmony, and The Unsettling of America. A new essay, "The Making of a Marginal Farm," forms the coda, unifying "what I value most in the the life and health of the earth, the peacefulness of human communities and households."

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Agriculture, Nature

340 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Wendell Berry was a conservationist, farmer, essayist, novelist, professor of English and poet. Closely identified with rural Kentucky, Berry developed many of his agrarian themes in the early essays of The Gift of Good Land (1981) and The Unsettling of America (1977). His attention to the culture and economy of rural communities is also found in the novels and stories of Port William, such as A Place on Earth (1967), Jayber Crow (2000), and That Distant Land (2004).

Berry was an elected member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, a recipient of the National Humanities Medal and the Jefferson Lecturer for 2012. He was also a 2013 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and, from 2014 to his death, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Berry was named the recipient of the 2013 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. On January 28, 2015, he became the first living writer to be inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame.

abridged from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Diane Barnes]

I read these leisurely and enjoyed it immensely.

[Tom Quinn]

So out of the course of a long and meandering conversation with fellow Goodreader Tyler V. came the recommendation to pick up something by Mr. Wendell Berry, Kentucky's famed poet-slash-environmental-activist and well-decorated author of some renown. It is pretty far outside my wheelhouse, being primarily a science-fiction fan myself and more prone to picking books about the grand sweeping concepts that make us all the same and not especially fond of regional authors who focus on the particulars of one specific place. I grew up in Chicago and resented the many, many units my public schools taught on Carl Sandburg, to say nothing of the dreadful "Cowboy Poetry" lessons my ex used to have to teach after we moved to Wickenburg, AZ. So left to my own devices I would have never come across Berry's work. But nonetheless I checked out two titles of his from my university library, one of poetry and one of prose. After all, if we're not taking other readers up on their recommendations then we're not getting the full benefit of this site, let alone that of the powerful force of literature as a means of human interconnection.

I was immediately taken with Berry's quiet wisdom. It didn't seem forced, it didn't seem patronizing, it just seemed like he had come to a kind of serenity in his time spent in Nature and was happy. Not smug, not tickled with himself, but simply unhurried and calm and genuinely at ease. Just the first pages conveyed his character, and it is the character that older folks seemed so preoccupied with me building in my youth: the character that comes from doing hard work, from experiencing things for yourself, from observing and taking in the richness of life. I was surprised, and delighted. Even the very long essays included do not grow tiresome, though they are best read in more than one sitting.

5 stars out of 5.

[Conrad]

Good collection of thought-provoking essays by the author. They make you stop, look around and think hard about what we are doing to this land of ours: how we are neglecting, abusing and exploiting the natural resources that we should be carefully husbanding as a legacy to our children's children. Berry's call to live in harmony with the land may not be feasible for the majority of people living in urban centers, but surely we can do a better job in many small ways. One of his quotes sticks in my mind (I paraphrase) - just because we have abundantly doesn't mean we should consume abundantly.

[reed]

would be five stars but The Body and the Earth is one of the most boring things i’ve ever read

[Wayne]

Wendell Berry is my go-to writer, more now than ever. Poet and essayist, conservationist, cultural philosopher, farmer, and teacher. Having moved home to reconnect with the hills and land on a 30-acre hobby farm, I find that Berry's thoughtful writing guides my thinking on sustainability, land stewardship, culture, values, literacy, and, ultimately - 'being'. A national treasure, I recommend everything he writes...

[Ariadne]

Não foi exatamente o ensaio que li. Na verdade, não foi nenhum destes. Á falta de opção para selecionar aqui no goodreads vais isto e prontos.
Why Im not going to but a computer, depois de uns meses, - porque esqueci-me de vir cá escrever sobre - é algo como um protesto á evolução, e genuinamente concordo com muita coisa, achei giro haver perguntas feitas á publicação do ensaio incluídas no livro, e as respostas do autor. E também o facto de eu não saber que era um ensaio e ponderar o porquê de haver uma secção de perguntas ao mesmo. Entre salvar o planeta, feminismos e tecnologia, acho que o ensaio - mesmo com os hottakes mais polémicos - é bastante pertinente.

Ficou-me muito presente na memória que o objeto mais funcional, ergonómico, fácil de transportar, e acessivel para escrita é o lápis, e não um computador.
Não há nada de mais prático do que um lápis, e mesmo assim tenho um iPad para tirar apontamentos nas aulas. Silly

[Frank]

Some of the best from Wendell! Excerpts from Unsettling of America are obviously great, but I really enjoyed the selections from The Unforeseen Wilderness, which is about the Red River Gorge in Kentucky. That gorge was slated to be flooded by a dam, and Wendell wrote this to draw awareness to the place and the issue--and won, the river is now protected as a Wild & Scenic River and the area is popular for rock climbing and other recreational uses.

[Diane]

What impressed me the most was the essay—The Body and the Earth. Berry discusses how our body is connected to the earth and how progress of mankind has divided us. Anyone called a “nature lover” can understand and be totally connected with Berry and his writings

[Daniel Ham]

Excellent collection of essays. I especially enjoyed “The Long-legged House” and “The Making of a Marginal Farm”. Sometimes I’d catch myself disagreeing with Berry, then remember that the essay was written in the 70s. Many of his words are both prophetic and a window into a not-distant past.

[Caryn]

What an attractive mind Wendell has. I thoroughly enjoyed these essays.

[Lukas Evan]

Now I feel bad that I don't farm.

[Jamie]

A scattershot collection of some of Berry's writing. Some essays are great, others I skipped after reading a few pages. I haven't ready anything else from Berry, but I have to believe there are better and more worthwhile selections of his work than this one. This was the one that was available from the library, so it's the one I read. But I want to revisit his other work, especially the environmentally/agriculturally focused writing.

[Keith]

Wendell Berry is a fantastic essayist and a major thinker in the modern environmental movement as well as a precursor to the recent 'food movement' or whatever one wants to call it, organic, local, sustainable eating... all of which comes from agriculture, which is a pre-eminent concern of Berry's, though not his sole concern.

[Lora]

As I wrote at the time: "Although it was slow going in spots, this collection of essays (by Kentucky farmer/writer Wendell Berry) had something for everyone. [...] Berry's overall theme is connecting deeply and responsibly to one's particular place, to preserve the environment and community."

[Wayne Stone]

read this book...

"A path is little more than a habit that comes with knowledge of a place."

[Mark]

I can only hope to live a life deeply-influenced by what Wendell Berry has to say.

[Jen]

A good overview of Berry's early writing. Discipline and Hope is a must read.