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Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese

Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese

Current price: $17.99
Publication Date: June 8th, 2010
Publisher:
Scribner
ISBN:
9781416561002
Pages:
272
Usually Ships in 1 to 5 Days

When writer Brad Kessler and his photographer wife leave successful Manhattan lives for the country to raise goats and make cheese, the adventure begins. And what an adventure it is. I loved this book!

Jackie Blem, Tattered Cover Bookstore, Denver, CO
July 2009 Indie Next List

Description

Goat Song is the story of a year in the life of a couple who abandoned their one-bedroom apartment in New York City to live on seventy-five acres in Vermont and raise Nubian goats. In poetic, reverent detail, Brad Kessler explores our ancient relationship to the land and our gradual alienation from the animals that feed us. His fascinating account traces his journey of choosing the goats and learning how to breed, milk, and care for them. As Kessler begins to live the life of a herder, he encounters the pastoral roots of so many aspects of Western culture—how our diet, our alphabet, our religions, poetry, and economy all grew out of a pastoralist setting, a life lived among hoofed animals.

About the Author

Brad Kessler’s novel Birds in Fall won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. His other books include Lick Creek and The Woodcutter’s Christmas. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, The Kenyon Review, and BOMB, as well as other publications. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, and the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  

Praise for Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese

“A wonderous little miracle of a book.”--Tom Ashbrook, National Public Radio

"Goat Song offers a meditation on the pastoral life…that will make an urbanite regret having missed the experience.”— The Wall Street Journal

"The writing is so beautiful you want to reread sentences to savor it."--San Francisco Chronicle

"A multi-layered, smart, erudite, and incredibly well written book."--Christian Science Monitor