Tag Archives: localism

Short rounds: people and their places

Posted on April 29, 2025 by smellincoffee

In One No, Many Yeses, journalist and green activist Paul Kingsnorth detailed his journeys across the world, spending time with people who were actively resisting globalization — or rather, the disruptions that globalization caused in their local communities. Real England: … Continue reading →

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December 2024 In Review

Posted on December 31, 2024 by smellincoffee

Well, welcome to the end of another year. December began quietly here at Reading Freely, as I was preoccupied with a final project that I didn’t finish until December 10, though my month of research, writing, and designing culminated in … Continue reading →

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Short rounds: human scale and bad religion

Posted on January 27, 2024 by smellincoffee

This week I’ve been finishing two works of nonfiction: Kirkpatrick Sale’s Human Scale Revisited and Ross Douhat’s Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics.  Human Scale Revisited is, as its title implies, an update to Sale’s original Human … Continue reading →

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The Dirty Life

Posted on June 13, 2023 by smellincoffee

The Dirty Life: A Memoir of Farming, Food, and Love© 2011 Kristin Kimball287 pages When Kristin Kimball left her cozy confines in the big city to interview a passionate young farmer in the sticks, she had no idea her life … Continue reading →

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The World-Ending Fire

Posted on January 3, 2023 by smellincoffee

The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry© 2018 Wendell Berry and Paul Kingsnorth360 pages What a way to finish 2022, in reading this superb collection of Wendell Berry’s essays.  Berry has published no small amount of essay collections himself, and … Continue reading →

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The Little Way of Ruthie Leming

Posted on August 26, 2020 by smellincoffee

The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, A Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life © 2013 Rod Dreher 292 pages What is a meaningful life, but one lived in close connection with others?     Journalist Rod … Continue reading →

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A Plain Life

Posted on November 6, 2019 by smellincoffee

A Plain Life: Walking my Belief © 1998 Scott Savage 224 pages You have to be careful about working in a library. Sometimes books change your life.  Scott Savage and his wife were both librarians whose environmental interests put them … Continue reading →

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Dispatches from the Muckdog Gazette

Posted on October 25, 2018 by smellincoffee

Dispatches from the Muckdog Gazette: A Mostly Affectionate Account of a Small Town’s Fight to Survive© 2003 Bill Kauffman206 pages Bill Kauffman, as a kid, went places. Starting from a little town in upstate New York, he journeyed as far … Continue reading →

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Poetry Night at the Ballpark

Posted on February 3, 2018 by smellincoffee

Poetry Night at the Ballpark and Other Scenes from an Alternative America © 2015 Bill Kauffman 442 pages  “Lift up your hearts, friends – America ain’t dead yet.”  For thirty years, Bill Kauffman has been blowing raspberries at or haranguing … Continue reading →

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The Benedict Option

Posted on March 23, 2017 by smellincoffee

The Benedict Option © 2017 Rod Dreher 269 pages Christendom has fallen; long live Christendom.   In The Benedict Option, Rob Dreher argues that the Christian church in the United States is at a crisis point and must now think … Continue reading →

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