One Man's Meat

Can E.B. White be my grandfather? Regardless of his consent, I'm going to start quoting this book in conversation with, "As my grandfather used to say..."I LOVE every moment, every passage, every single sarcastic and well-written tale in this manuscript. From the old-timey chapters on the cost to raise his chickens to his government-supplied limestone allotment (from President Roosevelt!), this book takes the reader back to the simple country life of WWII-era America as seen by a man who, by his own admission, has no business living that life. But, lest we believe his passages are only intelligent quips and observations like those of a modern comedian, the underbelly is still the era in which he tells his tales. In no chapter is this more beautifully apparent than in "The Wave of the Future". He starts the chapter explaining his construction of a boat, the Flounder. He's sure to point out how he prepared himself for the build... "by asking a man how to build a boat and he told me." But soon, he falls into a diatribe about a book he read called "The Wave of the Future" by Anne Lindbergh. In the book, Mrs. Lindbergh argues a point (which the benefit of history deems ridiculous) that the fascist forces are manipulating a new wave of engaging society. A point which our boy EB finds absurd. Saying, "The forces are always the same--on the people's side frustration, disaffection; on the leader's side control of hysteria, perversion of information, abandonment of principle. There is nothing new in it and nothing good in it..." Sounds like good advice, perhaps even for today... in America?Well, as my grandfather used to say, "I don't know. It is something for every man to study over, with the help of his God and his conscience." I cannot recommend this book enough. I will continue to keep it at my bedside and read an essay here and there, because, these words are little nuggets of inspiring brilliance.

After reading THE ESSAYS OF E.B. WHITE, I had to purchase this other collection of White's essays, written between 1938 and 1943, after White and his family pulled up stakes from New York apartment life to a saltwater farm in Maine and first published in 1942 with ten fewer essays, starting with White talking about packing up his New York life. If you think there is culture shock today when moving from city to country or coast to coast, imagine it in an age when radio is the biggest thing in technology, going from a modern furnished city apartment to the country with no electricity, no central heat, and animals to care for. The seminal ideas that would later see light in CHARLOTTE'S WEB can be found here, plus the juxtaposition of ordinary farm chores (sick animals, extricating oneself from the snow, obtaining enough wood to keep warm) against the upheavals of events in Europe, and finally war itself, where White finds himself cutting marsh hay one day, helping to conduct blackout drills the next.I continued to be amused by the way White's pre-war commentary has parallels today, including a diatribe about television (as seen at the 1939 World's Fair) which sounds just like modern complaints about the internet! Plus ça change, plus c'est la même indeed! In each essay his gift for just the right word, just the right phrase is evident again and again, whether he's discussing the fragility of turkeys or the World's Fair or lambing season or a bond rally. Just paging through this book to recollect some of the essays makes me want to sit down right now and read it again. E.B. White was an American treasure. Find this book, or the ESSAYS. You won't regret it.

I read this book of essays to the point of its falling apart.Tho written in the late 30’s and early 40’s the humor and pithiness are timeless, yet somehow calming for for this day and age.

Lots of good common sense diisplaeyed in understated self deprecating phrases. Still pertinent some 75 years after it was written. The essay debunking Anne Morrow Lindbergh's America first proposal I found particularly compelling and timely. Lots here in nostalgia for those of us lucky enough to have grown up on a farm during the WWII days of the 1940's. I was so blessed.

Excellent condition early edition of our favorite EB White. Very very well packed and arrived quickly in condtion as promised. Pleased.

E. B. White's essays are sweet and courageous. It's a rare and wonderful combination. They are also, to use that severely abused word, poignant, which means, painfully affecting the feelings. Consider the opening line to the essay, World War I: "I keep forgetting that soldiers are so young." He wrote that line in 1939. I think of that every day in the context of Iraq and Afghanistan.One Man's Meat, first published in 1942, is the companion volume to the Essays of E. B. White. Both books include his classic, Once More to the Lake, an essay about taking his own son to the lake that made such an impression on him when he was taken there by his own father. There is minimal overlap between the two books.In 1940 he lamented the effects of the automobile on community life: "Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car." This book also includes the best thing I have ever read about poetry. Poems must be short, he said, because, "Poetry is intensity, and nothing is intense for long."One of the things that struck me most in this group of essays was his statement about writers, since I am one. He wrote: "In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty." I love this man.I could rant on for hours about the joy of reading this book, but it's better that you spend your time reading his work instead of mine.

This is a collection of articles written between 1939 and 1942 by a journalist in America who has moved to the country to run a small farm. The author weaves together his everyday experiences with America's entry into the 2nd world war, using the apparently trivial to reflect upon political and philosophical ideas. The style is very readable, concise and precise.

A delightful book: gentle, warm and thoughtful, the distillation of a good life, well spent.

Interesting