The Hardscrabble Chronicles

This is the kind of book that more people in America need to read. I vastly enjoyed it for what it was, a chronicle of a town and of a woman's life and her experiences living in this wonderful town. My only problem with the book is that I wanted more stories! Perhaps the Hardscrabble of Ms. Morrow's book no longer exists in today's world (which is a shame), but it represents a place a good many of us are searching for - a community that cares, people who aren't just cardboard cut-outs, values that stay true. I found the book to be funny, endearing, and sometimes quite poignant. Life in Hardscrabble is memorable, not always easy, but worthwhile. I often wish to find a Hardscrabble of my own in this mobile, disconnected world of ours. But if I can't find it in reality, then at least I was able to pretend it existed by immersing myself in Ms. Morrow's writing, which was lovely, to say the least. I very much recommend this book.

I had the pleasure of reading an advance copy of the book, and I was amazed at how eloquently my aunt had portrayed her life in the hinterlands. This is definetly a book for all types of people. As a interesting fact, Humphrey Bogart is my aunt's father's (my grandfather's) first cousin. This was a wonderful book.

If you're looking for alot of urban excitement in your reading, this is not the book for you. If you're looking for depth and serenity for a good read in front of a fire on a winter's night, this IS the book for you. I found this in the library and decided to try it, in front of the fire on a winter's night of course, and actually enjoyed it more than I expected to. This will go in my list of good books read and I will seek out other titles by this author. This is a good, quiet read - enjoy!

One of the funniest and most poignant renditions of country life I have every read. Morrow had me laughing and crying and I couldn't put the book down. This reminds me in style of A Year in Provence -but I think there was more meat to the writing in Hardscrabble. I can't wait for the next book - this is a great writer!

Laurie Bogart Morrow will delight you with her lively stories of the eccentric people and wonderful animals that inhabit 'Hardscrabble', a tiny New England village where she and her husband, Kip, moved to 30 years ago. Born into wealth and priviledge, they decide to abandon their cosmopolitan lives in New York and settle into a 'gently deteriorating' New England farmhouse, complete with a cracked furnace, an ancient Magee Oxford wood burning cookstove in the kitchen and near gale force winds whipping through the house. You'll delight in the stories of Laurie as the local town gossip columnist, Doris Almy and her spiteful pomeranian Little 'Daw-ree', George Allard and his dog, the legend of Big Boy, the Rev. Davidson, Jeffrey Hilton and Mary Marsh, Clem Lovell, Mert Grant, Tilt Tilton, Harold Gilpin, the magnificient Jet of Huntress Bridge....and the adorable Cairn Terrier Varmint, "the little dog with the big heart," to name just a few. Read about the local misadventures during hunting and fishing season, Old Home Week, the annual fishing derby and Bill Plover's hilarious funeral. For those who enjoy driving the beautiful backroads of New England and want to find this real life village, read "How to Get Here" at the beginning of her book...you'll laugh until your sides hurt! Then get out your map and plan a trip back into time to a place that actually exists just down the road apiece..."I loved this book because it reminds me of the stories of James Heriott, filled with interesting, eccentric and very funny people and their beloved animals, only with a wonderfully American/New England flavor.Readers will be impatiently awaiting the second book in Laurie Bogart Morrow's Hardscrabble Series...