Kim Williams' Book of Uncommon Sense: A Practical Guide with 10 Rules for Nearly Everything.

by Kim Williams

Hardcover

Published March 1, 1986

Reviews

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book on a bookshelf in an old trailer on an old farm where I lived and worked for part of a year. It had its sleeve removed, so I just noticed a tattered, gray-brown spine with “Kim Williams’ Book of Uncommon Sense” printed in silver that was crammed between books about crop rotations and cattle grazing. I took it down and flipped to the middle, and noticed immediately that Kim Williams wrote like no other woman I’d read before. She writes with such conviction and authority and spirit that I had to flip to the beginning and hear all she had to say. And I was completely transformed. The overwhelming message of the book is simply: LIVE LIFE. She says it in so many ways. She makes the case that living indoors, not going out in the world, is the surest path to poor health and dissatisfaction. GO OUT INTO THE WORLD, she says. Nothing is going to happen to you if you sit at home and “knit” (oh, the 80s - before TV streaming and the behemoth video game industry came onto the scene and allowed a person to live a seemingly full life totally indoors and outside of real human interaction) Her message is so simple and yet so unusual. Is the answer to achieving happiness really just about getting involved in your community and not being a homebody? Certainly not for everyone, especially considering Williams is, at the time, a wife at about retirement age with a lot of time to spare and a great community surrounding her. Most people cannot live life like she does. But, damn. Anyone who reads this book will be inspired to take their life by the horns and say, screw the people with opinions about how i should live my life. I WILL LIVE my life. It might look different from Kim Williams’ life, but everyone would benefit from taking a small bit of her confidence and zest for life. I wish desperately to have been alive when she had a segment on NPR. I just want to hear her voice, though I haven’t found any recordings.

[Harron68 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost nobody has heard of her, but for oldsters who long ago listened to the NPR news shows, her voice and "natural foods" and outdoorsy commentaries were always a cute nudge to watch our health. The book is mostly tips of self-help, written in a breezy, Motherly way.
Her death in her 60s brought an end to her bit of fame and doubts of living the natural health foods lifestyle for some of us. This book helps recreate the person and the sometimes smart and sometimes downright quirky advice. As she used to close her comments with, "I'm Kim Williams in Missoula, Montana." She was a true original.