Product Description

When her thirty-year marriage broke up, Sue Hubbell found herself alone and broke on a small Ozarks farm. Keeping bees, she found solace in the natural world. She began to write, challenging herself to tell the absolute truth about her life and the things that she cared about. The result is one of the best-loved books ever written about life on the land, about a woman finding her way in middle age.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #159062 in Books
• Published on: 1999-04-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

From Publishers Weekly
An invasion of spring peepers, a young indigo bunting at song practice, a parade of caterpillarsthese are integral parts of Hubbell's environment. She lives alone on a 100-acre farm in the Ozarks, where she tends 200 beehives and produces honey on a commercial scale. In a series of exquisite vignettes she takes us into her world, and a life attuned to nature. Hubbell's busiest season is late summer, when she harvests the honey. Then she needs help for the backbreaking labor ("a strong young man who is not afraid of being stung"). She tells how she desensitizes her helper to bee stings; there is a vivid description of a day in the beeyard at harvest time. We meet her dogs and cats, her neighbors; travel with her when she sells the honey; share the pleasures of observing wildlife. Some of these delightful pieces have appeared in the "Hers" column of the New York Times and in Country Journal. Illustrations. First serial to Harper's.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
YA Hubbell, a former librarian and now a commercial beekeeper, lives on a peninsula between two rivers in the Ozark Mountains. Her quiet reflections are arranged by seasons, beginning and ending with the spring. Most of the short chapters include an attractive pen-and-ink sketch of the insect, plant, or little animal, etc., that is the major subject of the essay. Through a map of her farm and the lovely prose descriptions of the natural settings that she has had around her for the past 12 years, readers gain a pleasant picture of the countryside. This is a book for those who enjoy natural history and the questions that arise from it. Rain, snow, and mud; countless harbingers of each season; and Hubbell's bees and how they fare all make fascinating reading for anyone who appreciates the beauties and intricacies of the natural world.Mary Wadsworth Sucher, Baltimore County Reading Services
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Hubbell is a slight woman, fiftyish, a former librarian, and now a beekeeper, living alone on a 100-acre farm in the Missouri Ozarks. With an unsatisfactory marriage behind her, she is determined to be independent, even to the extent of keeping her old trucks in running order and felling trees in her woodlot. In a series of perceptive essays, she describes the world around her with a fresh and discerning eye, reveling in the natural beauty of her mountain home and its wildlife. With her active and inquiring mind she is constantly asking questions: Why do the sawfly caterpillers follow the leader? How do opposums learn to play possum? Her delightful, witty book will appeal to all those who are intrigued by the natural world. Evelyn G. Callaway, California Native Plant Soc., Ridgecrest
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Thoroughly enjoyable
From the minute I opened this book, I loved it. I love books about women who live in the country and master the land in which they live. This is a beautifully written book about Sue's long-term marriage that has ended and she lives in a cabin in the Ozark's. The book captures the spirit of the Ozarks with all its beauty and poverty. She focuses on her life during a single year period where she delicately outlines the seasons, her thoughts, her struggles and what it is like to live in the country. The book is well written, articulate and when the book ended I was left wanting more. I wish she would write a sequel. An excellent read.

What a beautiful book ...
Sue Hubbell's voice is true. She shares great sadness so matter-of-factly that whole years are communicated in short paragraphs. 'Lyrical' almost applies, but does not, which in this case is a beautiful thing.

I came upon this book belated, more than 20 years after it was published, in the discard bin at my library. That is a shame, because this book is a gift, both in the pleasure it provides the reader and the way it so effortlessly connects us to the natural world.

Half way through, I googled Sue Hubbell to see if some lucky man had found her, and sure enough, he had. I hope he deserves her and has made her blissfully happy.

Then I googled 'farms for sale' and 'dogs for adoption'. I will probably continue my urban life, but when I surrender to sweet dreams of farm and country, Sue Hubbell's voice will be telling the story.

Everyone should read this book. It's lovely, and at the end, you will know some Latin names for plants and animals you did not know before. (You may interrupt your spouse to ask if he knew that some snakes are so evolutionarily advanced they do not lay eggs but give live birth to their young.)

A relaxing and enjoyable read...3.5 stars
Sue Hubbell writes in a very easy to read fashion. I enjoyed this book. I thought it read like a diary, as it details the authors life in the Ozarks in Missouri on a daily basis. I grew up on 500 acres in the Ozark mountains and I found myself relating to many of her experiences.

In 'Living the Questions' the author literally takes time out to smell the roses and journals what she observes. She takes time to watch nature around her & notices how God made everything to work in conjunction with everything else. Usually, I find scientific talk dull, but Ms. Hubbell made it interesting. The drawings made it feel like a well-read personal nature journal. This is a book you will enjoy it's an easy take on life and nature.