Chasing the Amish Dream: My Life as a Young Amish Bachelor

The Plainspoken Series

by Loren Beachy

Enter into rollicking tales of life in an Indiana Amish community from young Amish schoolteacher and auctioneer Loren Beachy.

Chasing the Amish Dream brims with stories of old-fashioned box socials, smart-alecky students, pranks involving pink duct tape and black pepper, Amish girls who manage to be late for church twice in one day, and one man’s ill-fated plan to fight drowsiness by jogging beside his horse and buggy.

With the witty warmth of small-town storytellers like Garrison Keillor and Jan Karon, Beachy invites readers into his life as a creative, wise, and wisecracking Old Order Amish schoolteacher.

Based on real experiences, Beachy is a happy member of the Old Order Amish church and enjoys fast horses, strong coffee, and hot peppers.

Book 1 of the Plainspoken series. Amish books by Amish authors.

Genres: Amish, Nonfiction

150 pages, Paperback

First published October 21, 2014

Reviews

[Katie Sauder]

I enjoyed this book because of the similarities I recognized to my Old Order River Brethren culture and church. These are likely Older Order practices. Examples include the three hour church service, segregated seating, a bishop, several ministers and deacons to each church community, a focus on community and love for the church body, the argument between the preference or disdain for harmonious singing or just the melody in church. Growing up in a family of school teachers I enjoyed hearing about a bit of Amish school life. Hearing about the drama plays reminded me of many fun skits from my school days. Beachy is a witty writer and I enjoyed his sarcasm.

[Abram Martin]

While lighthearted and somewhat humorous. I give it three stars because it was shallow and bland . I would have liked to hear more on why he chooses to stay Amish, for example ...

[Miriam]

This is a QUICK read. I started it during takeoff and finished well before my flight landed. Before we dive into what this book is, we should discuss what it isn’t.

This is not a deeply literary work. There’s no character journey or discernible timeline/plot and the writing is more juvenile than the what we normally see in autobiographies.

It IS an incredibly tangible book that flashes through scenes of our narrator’s life. He is honest about his character and personal opportunities for growth, and he is real in his portrayal of his Amish community’s sense of togetherness. After putting this book down, I’m left with a lot of respect for Loren Beachy.

The writing reminded me of different autobiographical short stories I wrote in middle/high school—what I found funny and adventurous then, the author writes as funny and adventurous now. It speaks volumes of the community and its intentional separation from the “English” world. Which is, really, the reason we pick up books like this—for a behind-the-scenes look at another culture.

[Kristina]

"Like a living patchwork quilt, each individual is connected to the pieces around him. Those pieces are connected to another ring beyond the first. When one piece, one soul, rejoices, the entire quilt rejoices. When one person suffers, the whole quilt suffers, and each piece reaches out toward the sufferer, doing what it can to ease the pain, to smooth the path." If only all of us in our own communities could remember this, and strive to live like this, what a different world we'd live in.

[Katy Lovejoy]

I've never really been interested in the Amish but this wasn't that bad

[Teresa]

The author of this book, Loren Beachy, is an Amish school teacher and an auctioneer, I didn't even know that any Amish are auctioneers. This is not your typical Amish book, it is a collection of true, very short stories told by Beachy. It is a quick read.

I learned a few things that I didn't know about the Amish from this book. Some of the things I learned are that the Amish like to travel, they like auctions, they are very competitive, and they really like to play sports (baseball, basketball, volleyball), they are very witty and like to play pranks on each other. Beachy's group of friends enjoyed traveling by train, camping, hiking and canoeing.

At the end of the book, Beachy answered some questions that people have about the Amish and this is very interesting and informative.

[Jalisa]

This book was a quick read that I finished in one afternoon. It consists of lots of short (and often humorous) stories. Most of the stories were very entertaining and I think they were mostly accurate in describing the Amish lifestyle. However I did have one problem - the book mostly is about fun and good times. It doesn't really describe the day to day life of the Amish. But I still enjoyed the book and it kept me entertained

[Christy]

An Old Order Amish man tells tales of his community.