Country Matters

Product Details

In this delightful memoir, at once hilarious, canny, and moving, Michael Korda does for Dutchess County, New York, what Frances Mayes did for Tuscany. This witty memoir reads like a novel, as it chronicles Korda's transformation from city slicker to full time resident of Dutchess County.

Korda tells the true tale of what country life is really like - from fried bologna sandwiches to the ups and downs of owning pigs, from the challenges of properly keeping horses, to the sad but true fact that all the locals are fully aware that he "don't know shit about septics." Sure to have listeners in stitches, this is an audiobook that will appeal to everyone who's ever dreamed of owning the perfect little escape up in the country.

• ISBN13: 9781587885914
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
• Notes:

Despite the fact that Michael Korda was city born and bred (and, as editor in chief of Simon & Schuster and a bestselling author, part of Manhattan's elite), when he decided it was time to put down roots, he wanted land, trees, and a place in a community with history. The house he bought with his wife, Margaret, in Pleasant Valley, two hours north of New York City, was built when George Washington was president. It came with two barns, 20 acres, a backhoe, a bush hog, a York rake, a dozer blade, a bluff, and a slightly deaf old man named Harold Roe. Since Korda couldn't handle a hammer (plumbing and heating problems in his past merely involved calling the building super and keeping a 20-dollar bill handy), Harold became a permanent fixture, wielding large equipment, destroying the flowers, and showing the couple everything they needed to know about the real country.

Pleasant Valley, it turned out, was on the "wrong" side of the Taconic Parkway. It was "red and black plaid hats with earflaps and insulated bib-front overalls country," as opposed to Ralph Lauren estates country. Despite the blue-collar atmosphere (or rather because of it), the Kordas have been there for two decades. Becoming locals hasn't been easy, however. Korda relishes the moments that mark him as an insider--hanging out at the local diner, buying a Harley-Davidson, and most importantly, buying pigs. Pig watching in a place like Pleasant Valley is a truly bonding experience, which Korda describes with his characteristic dry wit:

Pig watching is not something anybody does in a hurry, as we came to learn. You have to shift your trousers down a bit, loosen up your belt a notch or so, give your belly a little breathing room, light a cigarette if you're a smoker, and look at the pigs for a good long time. Then you sigh, nod your head, and say, "Them's nice pigs, them pigs." Then you look at them some more.

You get the idea. A natural raconteur, Korda makes the quirks of living in an old house and the quest for local status in an insular community highly entertaining, and he proves once again that, while he may not be handy with tools, he certainly knows his way around the written word. --Lesley Reed

Customer Reviews ::

How did Mr. Korda become an editor? - AY -
I suppose rich editors (did they really buy him a motorcycle for his 25th anniversary at S&S? No wonder books are so expensive!) don't need their own writing edited (run-on sentences, anybody?). Mr. Korda's ego would have been less damaged had he moved to the place he clearly thought he belonged - with the other "gentry" in a house with "a tennis court" and "a swimming pool" (how many times is this mentioned in the book?). At least Mr. Korda's ineptitude served to enrich the local economy. His will never truly be the "Korda farm". He never rightfully belonged in the country.

It's a misleading title and should not have been marketed as a "back-to-the-land" book with its Farmer's Almanac cover design. Judging by other reviews, it is clear that other readers felt the same way. Memoirs are a popular genre but usually the author has something interesting to tell. This does not. Don't read this unless you are a rich person looking for what you would like to call a country estate where you hire people to do everything and yourself don't know one end of a screwdriver from another. Maybe then you could relate.

This book is good - for toilet paper. Of course if you're a sucker who has Kindle then I guess you're SOL.

For an interesting book and relief from this terrible work, I suggest Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" or anything by John Seymour.