The Plain Reader: Essays on Making a Simple Life
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The Plain Reader: Essays on Making a Simple LifeBy: Scott Savage 
Lowest New Price: $5.99List Price: $19.00 Description: "If information highways are the wave of the future then I will build information country roads on which the traveller can reach the truth faster by going slower. . . ." On these same country roads, far from the intrusions of modern technology, the Amish, Quakers, and other "plain folk" live their unencumbered lives, close to the land, in peaceful, smoothly-run communities. The thought-provoking, often challenging essays in The Plain Reader are written by men and women who rarely speak outside the borders of their local townships, and provide us with unique perspectives on life stripped down to necessity. Originally published in Plain Magazine, these pieces are sure to inspire reflection. Reading about a garden cooperative in Connecticut, the raising of a home with only plaster and straw in hand, a fascinating trip to New York City through Amish eyes, compels each of us wonder: Can I too survive without television or that high-tech appliance cluttering my kitchen counter? Am I just a cog in the wheel of the global economy? Is isolation from one another and from the earth the simple destiny of humankind? Each rich, personal essay in this provocative collection offers solace, wisdom, joy, and quiet space for contemplation. Description: From Scott Savage, editor of the Luddite, Quaker, and Amish magazine The Plain Reader, comes an illuminating anthology of the same name. In essays sure to enlighten and inspire even the most urban and technologically-reliant readers, the writers collected here offer a window into a pared-down life, as they search for (and find) a sense of home, intimacy, and community through the act of simplification. Discussing everything from creating a community through shared labor on a farm to reconnecting with children through home schooling and the purging of radios and televisions to using midwives in place of obstetricians and medical technology, these essays offer alternatives to corporate and electronic America, while resisting the urge to proselytize. Written with heart, thought, and good intention, The Plain Reader may very well be the late 20th century's multi-voiced answer to Henry David Thoreau's Walden. --Kera Bolonik Publisher: Ballantine Books Release Date: 1998-05-05 --> Find out more about "The Plain Reader: Essays on Making a Simple Life" at Amazon.com or Order Now |
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