What do you think?
Rate this book
Idyll Banter: Weekly Excursions to a Very Small Town
Years ago, Chris Bohjalian and his wife traded their Brooklyn co-op for a century-old Victorian house in Lincoln, Vermont (population 975). Bohjalian, a bestselling novelist, began chronicling life in that gloriously quirky little village with a wide variety of magazine essays and his newspaper column, “Idyll Banter.” These pieces, written over the course of twelve years, are honest, funny, and deeply affecting reflections on the unique idiosyncrasies of small-town life (annual outhouse races) and the universal experiences (our hunger for neighborliness) that unite us all.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
146 people are currently reading
994 people want to read
About the author
Chris Bohjalian
45 books13k followersChris Bohjalian is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 25 books. His 25th book, THE JACKAL’S MISTRESS, is now on sale. He writes literary fiction, historical fiction, thrillers, and (on occasion) ghost stories. His goal is never to write the same book twice. He has published somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.5 million words.
His work has been translated into 35 languages and become three movies (MIDWIVES, SECRETS OF EDEN, and PAST THE BLEACHERS) and an Emmy-winning TV series (THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT). He has two other novels in development for TV series as well.
He is also a playwright, including THE CLUB in 2024; MIDWIVES in 2020; and GROUNDED (now WINGSPAN) in 2018.
His books have been chosen as Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Hartford Courant, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Bookpage, and Salon.
His awards include the Walter Cerf Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts; the Sarah Josefa Hale Award; the ANCA Freedom Award for his work educating Americans about the Armenian Genocide; the ANCA Arts and Letters Award for THE SANDCASTLE GIRLS, as well as the Saint Mesrob Mashdots Medal; the New England Society Book Award for THE NIGHT STRANGERS; the New England Book Award; Russia’s Soglasie (Concord) Award for THE SANDCASTLE GIRLS; a Boston Public Library Literary Light; a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for TRANS-SISTER RADIO; a Best Lifestyle Column for “Idyll Banter” from the Vermont Press Association; and the Anahid Literary Award. His short story, SLOT MACHINE FEVER DREAMS was a finalist for Best Short Story from the International Thriller Writers Association and the audio production was an Audie Finalist. His novel, MIDWVES was a selection of Oprah’s Book Club, and his novel, HOUR OF THE WITCH, was a Barnes & Noble Book Club pick. He is a Fellow of the Vermont Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He has written for a wide variety of magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, Reader’s Digest, and The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. He was a weekly columnist in Vermont for The Burlington Free Press from 1992 through 2015.
Chris graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude from Amherst College. He has been awarded Honorary Degrees as well from Amherst, Champlain College, and Castleton University.
He lives in Vermont with his wife, the photographer Victoria Blewer.
His work has been translated into 35 languages and become three movies (MIDWIVES, SECRETS OF EDEN, and PAST THE BLEACHERS) and an Emmy-winning TV series (THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT). He has two other novels in development for TV series as well.
He is also a playwright, including THE CLUB in 2024; MIDWIVES in 2020; and GROUNDED (now WINGSPAN) in 2018.
His books have been chosen as Best Books of the Year by the Washington Post, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Hartford Courant, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Bookpage, and Salon.
His awards include the Walter Cerf Medal for Outstanding Achievement in the Arts; the Sarah Josefa Hale Award; the ANCA Freedom Award for his work educating Americans about the Armenian Genocide; the ANCA Arts and Letters Award for THE SANDCASTLE GIRLS, as well as the Saint Mesrob Mashdots Medal; the New England Society Book Award for THE NIGHT STRANGERS; the New England Book Award; Russia’s Soglasie (Concord) Award for THE SANDCASTLE GIRLS; a Boston Public Library Literary Light; a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for TRANS-SISTER RADIO; a Best Lifestyle Column for “Idyll Banter” from the Vermont Press Association; and the Anahid Literary Award. His short story, SLOT MACHINE FEVER DREAMS was a finalist for Best Short Story from the International Thriller Writers Association and the audio production was an Audie Finalist. His novel, MIDWVES was a selection of Oprah’s Book Club, and his novel, HOUR OF THE WITCH, was a Barnes & Noble Book Club pick. He is a Fellow of the Vermont Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He has written for a wide variety of magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, Reader’s Digest, and The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine. He was a weekly columnist in Vermont for The Burlington Free Press from 1992 through 2015.
Chris graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude from Amherst College. He has been awarded Honorary Degrees as well from Amherst, Champlain College, and Castleton University.
He lives in Vermont with his wife, the photographer Victoria Blewer.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 101 reviews
October 24, 2022
If you're of a certain age, you'll remember that somewhat silly 1960s sitcom "Green Acres," in which a newly married couple leaves New York City for the wilds of a rural farm. Hilarity ensues.
In the case of this marvelous book of essays by novelist Chris Bohjalian, it's a similar story but in real life.
In 1986, after a scary incident of being "cab-napped" in New York City, Bohjalian and his wife traded their Brooklyn loft apartment and fancy jobs—he as an advertising executive and she as a bond trader on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center—and bought an old house in Lincoln, Vermont. Population: 975. Life- and soul-changing events ensue.
While Bohjalian went on to live and write in that old house, penning bestseller after bestseller, including "Midwives," "The Light in Ruins," and "The Flight Attendant" to name only a very few, he also wrote a weekly column for the Sunday edition of The Burlington Free Press about life in Lincoln. "Idyll Banter" is a collection of those columns, written between 1989 and 2003.
We learn why the dairy cows have left, the difficulty of locating the backyard septic tank, the foolproof way to encourage people to vote in person, the beauty of a Vermont autumn, how a community reacts when its library is flooded and its only church burns down, and the patriotism of children on the day after Memorial Day. We learn the most important lessons about life.
Each essay sparkles with wit, wisdom, humor, and love. Some are quite funny—the classic fish-out-of-water story—while others are poignant and filled with life-truths. A few are sad. (Yes, reader, there were some tears shed.) But linking them all together is the sense and wonder of community. Even if you adore the big city, you might just want to vacation in Lincoln, Vermont to see what all the fuss is about.
In the case of this marvelous book of essays by novelist Chris Bohjalian, it's a similar story but in real life.
In 1986, after a scary incident of being "cab-napped" in New York City, Bohjalian and his wife traded their Brooklyn loft apartment and fancy jobs—he as an advertising executive and she as a bond trader on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center—and bought an old house in Lincoln, Vermont. Population: 975. Life- and soul-changing events ensue.
While Bohjalian went on to live and write in that old house, penning bestseller after bestseller, including "Midwives," "The Light in Ruins," and "The Flight Attendant" to name only a very few, he also wrote a weekly column for the Sunday edition of The Burlington Free Press about life in Lincoln. "Idyll Banter" is a collection of those columns, written between 1989 and 2003.
We learn why the dairy cows have left, the difficulty of locating the backyard septic tank, the foolproof way to encourage people to vote in person, the beauty of a Vermont autumn, how a community reacts when its library is flooded and its only church burns down, and the patriotism of children on the day after Memorial Day. We learn the most important lessons about life.
Each essay sparkles with wit, wisdom, humor, and love. Some are quite funny—the classic fish-out-of-water story—while others are poignant and filled with life-truths. A few are sad. (Yes, reader, there were some tears shed.) But linking them all together is the sense and wonder of community. Even if you adore the big city, you might just want to vacation in Lincoln, Vermont to see what all the fuss is about.
January 5, 2025
I've never read a Chris Bohjalian book despite having 4 on my tbr and enterin a contest to win another, so when I happened upon a book of his essays written for a local newspaper in his rural Vermont community, I thought that it was a great chance to finally read something by him.
I love a story set in a rural environment and Bohjalian did not disappoint me. He really made the setting come to life and I enjoyed his perspective and his wry humor.
I'm hoping that this finally compels me to read one of the novels, I have on hand.
I love a story set in a rural environment and Bohjalian did not disappoint me. He really made the setting come to life and I enjoyed his perspective and his wry humor.
I'm hoping that this finally compels me to read one of the novels, I have on hand.
January 1, 2025
One of my favorite writers. A fun, different read. Now i want to move to a small town in Vermont
May 30, 2019
Although I have read only one of Chris Bohjalian’s novels—The Sandcastle Girls—I had an idea that this compilation of newspaper columns would be right up my alley. I was right.
Bohjalian and his wife left Brooklyn in the mid-1980s for a small town—a very small town—in Vermont, and wrote the pieces collected here over a dozen years or so. With such titles as “Now That the Cows Are Gone”, “Dead Bat Duty Draws the Line”, and “A Family’s Farewell to Tiger”, it’s easy to imagine that this is just another bunch of those fish out of water/”city slicker moves to the country” stories; that assumption would be dead wrong.
With his crystal-clear prose Bohjalian certainly has that stereotype covered, but these frequently humorous short works describes the beauty of nature in New England, small-town priorities, and—obviously, given the titles that I mentioned—the place of animals in country life. (Incidentally, Tiger is not, as you might think, a cat, but a horse; this tear-inducing tribute must be read to be appreciated.)
Even more striking to me, however, is the consistent theme of absolute humanity and goodness of people that runs through most of this book; some of Bohjalian’s fellow townspeople who grace this book are simply kind. Over the past few years, I have become rather sour on the human race; Chris Bohjalian has done the impossible—he has restored my faith in it and caused me to rethink Linus Van Pelt’s remark, “I love mankind. It’s people I can’t stand.”
Bohjalian and his wife left Brooklyn in the mid-1980s for a small town—a very small town—in Vermont, and wrote the pieces collected here over a dozen years or so. With such titles as “Now That the Cows Are Gone”, “Dead Bat Duty Draws the Line”, and “A Family’s Farewell to Tiger”, it’s easy to imagine that this is just another bunch of those fish out of water/”city slicker moves to the country” stories; that assumption would be dead wrong.
With his crystal-clear prose Bohjalian certainly has that stereotype covered, but these frequently humorous short works describes the beauty of nature in New England, small-town priorities, and—obviously, given the titles that I mentioned—the place of animals in country life. (Incidentally, Tiger is not, as you might think, a cat, but a horse; this tear-inducing tribute must be read to be appreciated.)
Even more striking to me, however, is the consistent theme of absolute humanity and goodness of people that runs through most of this book; some of Bohjalian’s fellow townspeople who grace this book are simply kind. Over the past few years, I have become rather sour on the human race; Chris Bohjalian has done the impossible—he has restored my faith in it and caused me to rethink Linus Van Pelt’s remark, “I love mankind. It’s people I can’t stand.”
August 15, 2013
This is not an especially quick read - mostly due to the fact that it's a compilation of articles that Bohjalian has written in a Vermont newspaper over the years. So while there is some story line, it's not as though you can't put the book down because you need to know what will happen to the main character.
I would describe this book as quiet and gentle. It helped to provide insight into an author that I've read quite a bit of over the past year and a half. While he says his books are all fiction, you can see clear instances in his articles where he's pulled real facts from his town and placed them into his books. You can also tell how much he loves his town and his life and why they consistently play such a large role in his books.
I'm glad I read this but I look forward to getting back into some fiction now.
I would describe this book as quiet and gentle. It helped to provide insight into an author that I've read quite a bit of over the past year and a half. While he says his books are all fiction, you can see clear instances in his articles where he's pulled real facts from his town and placed them into his books. You can also tell how much he loves his town and his life and why they consistently play such a large role in his books.
I'm glad I read this but I look forward to getting back into some fiction now.
January 29, 2015
I am a native Vermonter and am compiling a very similar book about Costa Rica, and I wanted to see how Bohjalian described my home state. Bohjalian has earned a mythic reputation in Vermont and around the world, and although I was less interested in his many novels, this collection has intrigued me for years.
Unlike Bohjalian, I was born and raised in the Green Mountain State and come from a very different demographic. Instead of the New York "flatlander" who moves to Vermont to begin a new life, I grew up as the child of that generation. When Bohjalian moved to Lincoln in the early 1980s, he saw an opportunity to blend the traditional farmers with the influx of urban escapists, and he seems to have succeeded. I appreciated his humility in the face of centuries-old rural families, but I particularly admire his skepticism: He repeatedly notes that the face of Vermont changed rapidly in a few short years, largely due to arrivals like him. Those people (like my parents) often came with pure intentions and have merged gradually into New England culture. Bohjalian is upbeat, but he recognizes many of Vermont's problems. He does not, to my mind, romanticize the hardscrabble lives that many Vermonters live.
That said, Bohjalian's tone is often neurotic, hyperbolic and twee, like a deep-country Dave Barry. He makes absurd comparisons for comic effect, which indicates that the anecdotes aren't really all that funny to begin with. It's a style, and a popular one, that has become worn over time. Many of his topics are of the aw-shucks variety, with tired Boomer references and a shiny life lesson at the end. If Bohjalian were to describe what I'm talking about, he'd probably say something like, "The perspicacious prose nevertheless forced an occasional groan, and as if to reverse the process of boiling maple syrup, he often starts sugary and ends up with sap."
Still, his introduction is wonderful, and his essay about a child with Down's syndrome is both earnest and beautifully observed. (Even if the message is basically just "teens with special needs are people too.") Eighteen years after I left Middlebury for Pennsylvania, I feel that I understand where he's coming from better than I ever could have as a 17-year-old. I will not be modeling my on work on his, but I enjoyed the excursions.
Unlike Bohjalian, I was born and raised in the Green Mountain State and come from a very different demographic. Instead of the New York "flatlander" who moves to Vermont to begin a new life, I grew up as the child of that generation. When Bohjalian moved to Lincoln in the early 1980s, he saw an opportunity to blend the traditional farmers with the influx of urban escapists, and he seems to have succeeded. I appreciated his humility in the face of centuries-old rural families, but I particularly admire his skepticism: He repeatedly notes that the face of Vermont changed rapidly in a few short years, largely due to arrivals like him. Those people (like my parents) often came with pure intentions and have merged gradually into New England culture. Bohjalian is upbeat, but he recognizes many of Vermont's problems. He does not, to my mind, romanticize the hardscrabble lives that many Vermonters live.
That said, Bohjalian's tone is often neurotic, hyperbolic and twee, like a deep-country Dave Barry. He makes absurd comparisons for comic effect, which indicates that the anecdotes aren't really all that funny to begin with. It's a style, and a popular one, that has become worn over time. Many of his topics are of the aw-shucks variety, with tired Boomer references and a shiny life lesson at the end. If Bohjalian were to describe what I'm talking about, he'd probably say something like, "The perspicacious prose nevertheless forced an occasional groan, and as if to reverse the process of boiling maple syrup, he often starts sugary and ends up with sap."
Still, his introduction is wonderful, and his essay about a child with Down's syndrome is both earnest and beautifully observed. (Even if the message is basically just "teens with special needs are people too.") Eighteen years after I left Middlebury for Pennsylvania, I feel that I understand where he's coming from better than I ever could have as a 17-year-old. I will not be modeling my on work on his, but I enjoyed the excursions.
May 23, 2018
Chris Bohjalian is one of my favorite authors so that fact that he wrote it is enough to sell me on a book. Idyll Banter: Weekly Excursions to a Very Small Town is somewhat different from his other novels - it is a collection of essays, written originally for his small Vermont town's newspaper. And the CD version is read by Bohjalian himself.
The Bohjalian family move to Lincoln VT, a town of fewer than 1,000 people, from Brooklyn NY. This collection of vignettes (and one short story) display his appreciation for his town and its inhabitants. And, for a reader of his novels, there are bits and pieces - interesting incidents - which may have been appearances in one or another of his novels.
It is always interesting to hear what an "outsider" thinks about our small New England towns. And it is especially nice to hear his opinions expressed with love and appreciation.
For anyone who has enjoyed Bill Bryson's books - especially his accounts of small American towns, and his own New Hampshire town in particular - Idyll Banter would undoubtedly prove enjoyable. And for fans of Idyll Banter, Brysons's The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America might be a good next read.
The Bohjalian family move to Lincoln VT, a town of fewer than 1,000 people, from Brooklyn NY. This collection of vignettes (and one short story) display his appreciation for his town and its inhabitants. And, for a reader of his novels, there are bits and pieces - interesting incidents - which may have been appearances in one or another of his novels.
It is always interesting to hear what an "outsider" thinks about our small New England towns. And it is especially nice to hear his opinions expressed with love and appreciation.
For anyone who has enjoyed Bill Bryson's books - especially his accounts of small American towns, and his own New Hampshire town in particular - Idyll Banter would undoubtedly prove enjoyable. And for fans of Idyll Banter, Brysons's The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America might be a good next read.
December 13, 2024
We know Chris is an empath and a wonderful author as known from his works of fiction. These short, personal, biographical vignettes give us insights into his home life. They are witty and funny, introspective and full of commentary. I enjoyed the insights. (*I listened to Chris read his own work. He has a good reading voice, too.) This book catches a segment in time of when Chris was living with his wife and daughter in Vermont. They have since moved back to New York City.
August 11, 2013
This book is a series of columns that the author wrote for the Burlington Free Press and The Boston Globe. About his transplanted life from New York City to Lincoln, Vermont. I thoroughly enjoyed it & think anyone from a small town could relate to a lot of these columns. My favorite column is "Why the Green Mountains Turn Red"!
February 9, 2010
Enchanting glimpse into the magic of small-town life:)
January 24, 2025
Is a name change in order?
I wouldn't name a book "Idyll Banter." It implies that the author's home is idyllic, which is crap. The author does a fine job of enumerating the advantages of small town living, but it's not perfect or anything close.
And who knows how to spell or pronounce "idyll"? Would potential readers ask for the book or find it in the card catalog? Probably they found it on Amazon Kindle and I'm worrying about nothing.
I'd have named it "Like Lichen on an Old Tree. Because It Grows on You." This explains why I've never worked in publishing.
I'd describe it as "pleasant reading" but sometimes it's much more than that and sometimes it deals with subjects that are far from pleasant. When newspapers were scarce and few people could read, rural folks could remain ignorant of national and international disasters. Now they get the news on their cell phones before it's happened.
The author grew up in a New York suburb and his wife in Manhattan. In the mid-1980's, they moved to Lincoln. Moving to New England is what NYC residents do. They bought a very old house and had a child, protecting themselves from ever having any spare time or money. The author writes a weekly column for a Burlington, VT newspaper.
I like his whimsical humor. He brags that he and his wife are "proudly downwardly mobile." Neither grew up in poverty, so why would they need to strive for upward mobility? How many vehicles can you drive and how many bathrooms can you use?
He claims to have written the worse first novel in the history of literature. It does sound lousy. He took his kid to DisneyWorld and discovered that the scariest ride there is called "Dad's Empty Wallet."If you've ever been to that fetid hell-hole in Orlando, you'll agree.
He does have a Dave Barryish vibe and reading about Vermont is more fun than reading about Florida, which Barry claims is the BEST. STATE. EVER. (Can you tell I live in Florida, not Vermont?)
The best chapter is the first, which tells the history of Lincoln and the recent changes. The natives were still reeling from an influx of Back-to-the-earthers in the 1970's when the author and his wife landed. First hippies, then yuppies. What next, God?
I liked his stories of his family, especially his Armenian grandfather who sent for a bride (sight-unseen!) from the Old Country. It was a marriage of two strangers, but it lasted for decades and they never ran out of things to talk about. Today people live together and have children before marrying. Then they divorce two years later.
His stories about 911 are particularly sad because his wife worked in the Towers before they relocated to Vermont. They knew many of the people who died.
Many of the chapters are amusing stories of every-day life. Others are profound and touching. It's a hard book to sum up, but I enjoyed it. I'm boring my family by telling them about it. What higher praise can there be?
I wouldn't name a book "Idyll Banter." It implies that the author's home is idyllic, which is crap. The author does a fine job of enumerating the advantages of small town living, but it's not perfect or anything close.
And who knows how to spell or pronounce "idyll"? Would potential readers ask for the book or find it in the card catalog? Probably they found it on Amazon Kindle and I'm worrying about nothing.
I'd have named it "Like Lichen on an Old Tree. Because It Grows on You." This explains why I've never worked in publishing.
I'd describe it as "pleasant reading" but sometimes it's much more than that and sometimes it deals with subjects that are far from pleasant. When newspapers were scarce and few people could read, rural folks could remain ignorant of national and international disasters. Now they get the news on their cell phones before it's happened.
The author grew up in a New York suburb and his wife in Manhattan. In the mid-1980's, they moved to Lincoln. Moving to New England is what NYC residents do. They bought a very old house and had a child, protecting themselves from ever having any spare time or money. The author writes a weekly column for a Burlington, VT newspaper.
I like his whimsical humor. He brags that he and his wife are "proudly downwardly mobile." Neither grew up in poverty, so why would they need to strive for upward mobility? How many vehicles can you drive and how many bathrooms can you use?
He claims to have written the worse first novel in the history of literature. It does sound lousy. He took his kid to DisneyWorld and discovered that the scariest ride there is called "Dad's Empty Wallet."If you've ever been to that fetid hell-hole in Orlando, you'll agree.
He does have a Dave Barryish vibe and reading about Vermont is more fun than reading about Florida, which Barry claims is the BEST. STATE. EVER. (Can you tell I live in Florida, not Vermont?)
The best chapter is the first, which tells the history of Lincoln and the recent changes. The natives were still reeling from an influx of Back-to-the-earthers in the 1970's when the author and his wife landed. First hippies, then yuppies. What next, God?
I liked his stories of his family, especially his Armenian grandfather who sent for a bride (sight-unseen!) from the Old Country. It was a marriage of two strangers, but it lasted for decades and they never ran out of things to talk about. Today people live together and have children before marrying. Then they divorce two years later.
His stories about 911 are particularly sad because his wife worked in the Towers before they relocated to Vermont. They knew many of the people who died.
Many of the chapters are amusing stories of every-day life. Others are profound and touching. It's a hard book to sum up, but I enjoyed it. I'm boring my family by telling them about it. What higher praise can there be?
August 1, 2018
I originally checked this book out from our local public library. The essays were so delightful I decided to buy a copy of the book so I could share it with my husband and friends. I have read some of Chris Bohjalian's fiction in the past, loving some and hating others. I may have to revisit some of his books and give him a second chance.
March 6, 2025
A New Yorker turned Vermonter's essays about adapting to life in a small country town. I always enjoyed his columns in The Burlington Free Press and really enjoyed his book "Midwives." This collection was wonderful. Funny, moving, and warm. I didn't really enjoy the narration (his cadence is very predictable), but it was easy to get past that on the strength of the essays.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 4, 2025
Bohjalian now lives in Burlington VT but the stories in this book reflect his life in a small VT town near Bristol named Lincoln. I know these towns because my college friend not only grew up in Lincoln but is spending her retirement years there. Since I visited several times in the 1960s and then just a few years ago, I could picture some of the situations he wrote about. AND, believe it or not, the house he bought in town belonged to my friend's uncle. Small world and all that. Needless to say, I really had fun with this book.
I've read a number of his novels; Among them are Midwives, The Flight Attendant, The Sleepwalker. But the two that really stood out for me were Trans-Sister Radio (about transgender people all the way back in 2000) and The Sandcastle Girls, which was heartbreaking and marvelous.
I've read a number of his novels; Among them are Midwives, The Flight Attendant, The Sleepwalker. But the two that really stood out for me were Trans-Sister Radio (about transgender people all the way back in 2000) and The Sandcastle Girls, which was heartbreaking and marvelous.
December 27, 2018
Being a Bohjalian fan made reading this collection of short essays easier to read. His descriptions of what it is like to live in a very small town are heart warming, largely innocent observations of the neighbors. Back to a full length story by him next, and more adventure.
July 17, 2020
A book filled with short charming and often funny essays about life in Vermont, family, youth and adulthood, and the lessons we can all learn from everyday occurrences and encounters. Perfect reading for these difficult times of COVID-19.
May 6, 2021
I am sad that Chris's septic tank adventures ended as a result of my finishing the book - they made me laugh out loud multiple times! As a transplant to VT who has called this place home for 16 years, this was a wonderfully comforting collection of pieces.
December 27, 2024
Chris Bohjalian is one of my favorite authors, and this was a treat because it gave me an insight into his life. It is also a wonderful book of short essays (articles for a newspaper) that sum up the heart of America no matter where you live.
March 2, 2025
Great read!
This is a charming book. I grew up in a small town and this book brought back many good memories. I highly recommend it for it's humor,it's insights, and it's downright enjoyability.
This is a charming book. I grew up in a small town and this book brought back many good memories. I highly recommend it for it's humor,it's insights, and it's downright enjoyability.
November 25, 2018
A light easy read. Made me laugh out loud. Sharing his humanity with everyone, life in a small town.
April 9, 2019
I could not get into this book - too folksy for me.
September 5, 2019
Lincoln, Vermont represents life in small town America. If you are from a small town, you’ll be able to resonate with this book. If not it is still a most comforting and enjoyable read.
November 23, 2019
Essays originally written for a weekly newspaper column after Bohjalian and his wife moved from Manhattan to Lincoln, Vermont.
May 13, 2020
My most favorite book EVER!
October 8, 2020
I thought I would enjoy this more than I did. The stories at the end, especially the last one, made up for a somewhat weak start.
February 27, 2021
This was a surprise. I thought it was fiction but turned out to be a commentary on small town life in Vermont. I enjoyed it.
July 19, 2021
Fun, short essays. Great bathroom book.
November 1, 2021
Very interesting reading. Makes Lincoln, VT seem like the only place to live. However, the descriptions of 3' snow makes it untenable for me although i wish I had visited before I got too old.
January 15, 2024
Small town memoir by a favorite author .. sort of like visiting friends whose art and antiques each have a slice of life story ..
Displaying 1 - 30 of 101 reviews