The Long-Legged House [Paperback]

Wendell Berry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2003

First published in 1969 and out of print for more than twenty-five years, The Long-Legged House was award-winner Wendell Berry’s first collection of essays, the inaugural work introducing many of the central issues that have occupied him over the course of his career. Three essays at the heart of this volume—“The Rise,” “The Long-Legged House,” and “A Native Hill”—are essays of homecoming and memoir, as the writer finds his home place, his native ground, his place on earth. As he later wrote, “What I stand for is what I stand on,” and here we see him beginning the acts of rediscovery and resettling. This volume contains original contents, with only slight revisions as might be desired. It gives readers the opportunity to read the work of this remarkable cultural critic and agrarian, and to delight in the prose of one of America’s greatest stylists.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[B]efore people can live in harmony with their communities, or their spouses, or their topsoil, they need to be at peace with themselves, and that is Berry's main concern. We need to live in real places, not in the generalized lobbies that modern houses often are. We need to be at home in our bodies, too--not in the 'useless, weak' husks that we drag daily to the fluorescently cheerful 'health club, ' but a body that each day knows the 'elemental pleasures of eating and drinking and resting, of being dry while it is raining, of getting dry after getting wet, of getting warm after getting cold, of cooling off after getting hot.' Of being tired at sundown and at life's end feeling a great weariness ... like the lesser weariness that comes with day's end--a weariness that had been earned and was therefore accepted."

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint (December 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593760132
• ISBN-13: 978-1593760137
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #697,728 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well written, September 17, 2010

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Music Lover (Eau Claire, WI) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Long-Legged House (Paperback)

I bought this book specifically to read one particular chapter recommended by another author. It was worth it.