Search advanced search
 
Books
Search:
x dismiss this message

Did you know you can edit this page?

This Life Is in Your Hands
  • Rated 0 stars
Read This Life Is in Your Hands

This Life Is in Your Hands (2011) (edit title/settings)

One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone

by Melissa Coleman (Author) (edit contributors)

Share this book on:
see page history

Description edit see section history

Set on a rugged coastal homestead during the 1970s, This Life Is in Your Hands introduces a superb young writer driven by the need to uncover the truth of a childhood tragedy and connect anew with the beauty and vitality of the back-to-the-land ideal that shaped her early years. In the... read more

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit

Write a ridiculously simplified synopsis.

Popular Covers

Loading covers…

Choose your book’s cover

Quotes edit see section history

  • “Some lives are made of the hope that something not quite right might turn out right in the end.”
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • I know that madness is inside us all, but we each decide whether to make it comfortable, to give it a chair to sit in.
    Highlighted by 32 Kindle customers
  • “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,” Thoreau explained. “To front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life.”
    Highlighted by 28 Kindle customers
  • four hours a day of bread labor, four hours of intellectual pursuits, and four hours of social time. In other words, divide the day between hands, head, and heart. Hands: chopping wood, making food, woodworking, sewing. Head: reading, learning to play the dulcimer. Heart: caring for each other, talking and laughing together.
    Highlighted by 25 Kindle customers
  • I see now that beneath it all was a feeling I didn’t want to admit to myself. It felt like relief. Relief because for so long I was working to prevent just this from happening, the falling and falling apart, but when it actually happens, you realize that once spilled, your life never goes back in the same way. It isn’t supposed to. It’s only then that you know you are alive, and that despite the uncertainties, you will survive.
    Highlighted by 23 Kindle customers
  • Combine in a large skillet three sliced large yellow summer squash, 1/3 cup chopped celery, one finely grated onion, one finely chopped clove of garlic, two tablespoons oil, two tablespoons chopped parsley, one tablespoon honey, 1/2 teaspoon oregano and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and cook covered for 15 minutes or until squash is tender. Sprinkle with one tablespoon flour until liquid thickens and serve sprinkled with 1/4 cup sunflower seeds.
    Highlighted by 23 Kindle customers
  • Small drops, we see, like raindrops on stone, can eventually change the course of a river. These small forces, too, can change the path of a life.
    Highlighted by 22 Kindle customers
  • Only in looking back can you see a pattern in the threads of life, interwoven with the events that would tear them asunder, and within that pattern lies the knowledge I’m seeking—the secret of how to live.
    Highlighted by 22 Kindle customers
  • “Choose your enemies carefully,” Scott liked to say, “for you will become more like them than anyone else.”
    Highlighted by 19 Kindle customers
  • “Use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without,” was the homesteading adage, and it served them well.
    Highlighted by 18 Kindle customers
  • We live from minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day, and at each point we are a little different. If there is no change, this is the open door to death. Life is a progression. It is not a standing still. It is either a plus or a minus. —Scott Nearing
    Highlighted by 16 Kindle customers
Show all 11 quotes from this book

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Melissa Coleman (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Harper
Country: USA
Publication Date: 2011
ISBN: 9780061958328
Page Count: Add the page count.

Classification edit see section history

  • Library of Congress: CT275.C6857 A3 2011
  • Dewey: 974.13043092

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

  • Book Review from the New York Times: Melissa Coleman was born in 1969 to parents who were hippie pioneers. In 1968 they had moved to Cape Rosier, Me., to start an organic farm and devote every waking hour to its upkeep. They had gone there as protégés of Helen and Scott Nearing, whose books, most notably “Living the Good Life,” inspired a back-to-the-land movement predicated on hard work and strict discipline. Their goals reflected Thoreau’s determination “to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life.”

We’re hiding the errata, movie connections, books that influenced this book, books influenced by this book, books that cite this book and books cited by this book sections. If you would like to add content to them, you must first make them visible.

Linda

You were just viewing this book on Linda’s shelf.
(see review)

 

© 2006-2013 Shelfari | Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy | Copyright Policy

Close