GREAT READS

See You in a Hundred Years

Logan Ward.

For everyone who thinks life would have been better a hundred years ago, Manhattan executive Logan Ward does more than talk about it, he does it.  He and his family were trying to be green in their New York City high-rise, but finally they caved and shifted house and home to rural Virginia in a year-long experiment to try living as if it were a century ago.  Off went the power connection to the house, in went the wood-burning stove, and then there was the outhouse.... No car, but horse and buggy.  No refrigerator, but a garden in which to grow the year's food and can and preserve it.  No heat except what came from the stove and how to set up running water without a formal plumbing system?  Most of us would have thrown in the towel after a few weeks of this, but the family stuck it out, and it proves to be a revealing, humbling, honest story. The family was able to discover the kinship of neighbors and a resilience in themselves that they never dreamed they had.  Going back a hundred years proved to have  more rough spots than smooth, yet still, more heart than havoc.  An eye-opening and inspiring story, all true.

Recommended by Betsy Schroeder