Dan Needles

My work book club chose this for our June read. I think people felt that we had done a lot of serious books and it was time to lighten up. This should do the trick. There are some very funny spots but there are also some pretty weighty topics too.

Walt Wingfield decides to abandon city life and his job as a high-powered stockbroker to pursue a simple life on a small farm in Persephone County. He is determined to farm the way people used to when this land was first broken. That means he is show more going to use horses to do the plowing, seeding, harvesting etc. It also means he is going to subsist on what he can earn from the farm. Pretty soon he discovers that farming is not as simple as he thought. His letters to the local newspaper talk about the challenges he faces from trying to get his pair of horses to actually pull equipment to keeping his chickens alive. He learns a lot as he goes along, mostly from his neighbours who are somewhat bemused by his efforts but do chip in to help when it becomes obvious Walt is flailing. As Walt is learning to farm he is also learning to romance the single woman on the next farm. And as the old rhyme goes "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby carriage."

There are seven years worth of letters from Wingfield Farm. Each year has been made into a play and those plays have been performed all over Canada. I've seen a few and they are very good. The actor, Rod Beattie, delivers the lines that Dan Needles wrote with the appropriate diction, expression and gestures. The whole time I was reading this book I was seeing Rod Beattie in my mind.

If you have seen the plays you will enjoy the book. And if you haven't seen the plays you will want to after you read this book. Neither will disappoint. show less

This was an enjoyable book. I received it from my Library Thing Santa, and haven't had a chance to read it before now. I thought it was an appropriate selection for me because I too live in the country like Dan Needles. I live in Alberta though, where he lives in Ontario, north of Toronto. Dan is an animal lover too. His farm has the whole gamut - sheep, chickens, dogs, cats, ducks (even a few wild ones), pigs and even a turkey or two. His skits describing country living are warm, funny and show more and totally enjoyable. I laughed out loud many times. This book truly celebrates the people who live in rural Canada. It made me realize again how lucky I am to live out here, and to experience the closeness of nature in all it's glorious beauty, even if it can be terrifying at times. show less