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A pair of memoirs about a woman starting her life over as a beekeeper in the Ozarks, from “a latter-day Henry Thoreau with a sense of the absurd” (Chicago Tribune). Taken together, the “steadily eloquent” national bestseller, A Country Year, and its follow-up, A Book of Bees, a New York Times Notable Book, offer a moving and fascinating chronicle of Sue Hubbell's seasonal second life as a commercial beekeeper (The Washington Post). Alone on a small Missouri farm after the end of a thirty-year marriage, Hubbell found a new love—of the winged, buzzing variety. Left with little but the commercial beekeeping and honey-producing business she started with her husband, Hubbell found solace in the natural world, as well as in writing about her experience. In evocative vignettes, she takes readers through the seasonal cycle of her life as a beekeeper, offering exquisitely rendered details of hives, harvests, and honey, while also reflecting on deeper questions. As the New York Times wrote: “The real masterwork that Sue Hubbell has created is her life.”

A “delightful, witty” memoir about starting over as a beekeeper in the Ozarks (Library Journal). Alone on a small Missouri farm after a thirty-year marriage, Sue Hubbell found a new love—of the winged, buzzing variety. Left with little but the commercial beekeeping and honey-producing business she started with her husband, Hubbell found solace in the natural world. Then she began to write, challenging herself to tell the absolute truth about her life and the things she cared about. Describing the ups and downs of beekeeping from one springtime to the next, A Country Year transports readers to a different, simpler place. In a series of exquisite vignettes, Hubbell reveals the joys of a life attuned to nature in this heartfelt memoir about life on the land, and of a woman finding her way in middle age. “Once in a while there comes along a book so calm, so honest, so beautiful that even the most jaded or cynical readers have to say thank you.... This is such a book” (The San Diego Union-Tribune).