100 books like South of Somewhere

The Orchard is a mesmerizing story of one woman’s efforts to save her family farm in Depression-era Massachusetts. It is a glimmering and moving memoir of “Kitty” Robertson’s determination to save the small orchard she inherited from her father, the last thing that linked her family to their history. It is a story of struggle and determination, and she is a heroine who didn’t receive medals or accolades or fortune for accepting the bone-cold physical labor in winters, inherited debt, broken dreams. Somehow she is able to still see the beauty in the grit of farm life in a grim period, spring blossoms in the orchard, the green of summer, the kindness of neighbors as they help each other through challenge after challenge.

In the end, it is a narrative of redemption and victory and reminds me that the life of farming and writing is hard scrapple, but it is… show more.

Mary Oliver, as a poet and an essayist, writes with a lyric sword. Upstream is a collection of essays that reflect her willingness to lose herself in the mysteries and intricacies of the natural world. In this work, Oliver contemplates the joy of her work, her passionate eye for observation, her ability and responsibility to write and think about the flora and fauna, the flowers, the grass, the water, the sky, and how they connect us to the natural world, to each other, and to ourselves.

The sheer power of her writing and command of language has always drawn me in, what pushes me as a person, a farmer, and a writer to give into the “stream” of our consciousness, to stop and observe, but to also keep moving forward with the power of words and my experience of the world around me.

Wine writer, and now friend, Alice Feiring has often been controversial, but she has always been a champion of the kinds of wines I love, natural wines that are allowed to tell the story of where they are grown and the people who steward them. Her book Naked Wine came out in 2011, just a year after my first very small vintage of natural wines. In her own tale of making wine in Oregon and her journey tracing the roots of modern natural wine in France, Spain, and America rang so clearly for me from her stories of a wine made in a fixer-upper farmhouse in France replete with scorpions to a vineyard cum garden of Eden scented with mint and thyme in Spain, I realized I not only loved wines that told stories, but writers who tell the stories of wine and place.

This book, an icon of its… show more.

Pioneer Species is a book of poems by friend and farmer-poet Ross Thurber. A small vineyard I work with in southern Vermont, my own agricultural essay and investigation on a sense of place different than my own, is part of Ross’s Lilac Ridge Farm. Like Mary Oliver, Ross is intensely bound to the natural and cultivated world of his farm in which he lives and his poems capture a language that brings forward the light, the shadow, the fog, the till, the butterfly, the flower, the cow. I am constantly inspired by his poems to be out in my own fields and to contemplate and communicate my own place in them. A delicious collection about a deeply personal and lyrical view of farm life.

There just aren’t enough words to describe how perfectly satisfying this novel is. I started it and couldn’t put it down until the very delicious end.

Natalie and August butt heads from the moment they first meet, constantly throwing jabs at one another, neither giving an inch. When Natalie suggests a marriage of convenience benefiting each of them, she doesn’t anticipate the feelings that bombard her from the moment she says, “I do.”

There is nothing more delectable than a man in uniform and August is a Navy SEAL through and through, but has a heart of gold who wants to help and protect those he loves. When he realizes the depth of his feelings for Natalie, it is like an explosion that only a SEAL can navigate.

This is a heartwarming, emotional small-town romance with a wounded hero (Leo) and a gamer girl heroine (Hannah). Leo and Hannah meet through their online alter egos and I love the fact they were able to develop a beautiful friendship that’s free of the complications of real life (where Leo is afraid to leave his family’s winery and Hannah is in an abusive relationship). 

When their online and actual lives meet, Leo busts free of his comfort zone to help Hannah. Their love story is real, raw, and uplifting. They help each other grow, which left me feeling warm on the inside. The ensemble cast (primarily Leo’s family) is enchanting and funny. Hidden Miles is a perfect blend of emotion and humor.

Melanie Harlow is the goddess of small-town romance! Her Cloverleigh Farms series is a set of interconnected stand-alone that follows five sisters and their road to love at their family’s Michigan winery. I love seeing the strong female relationships develop and it made me wish I had sisters! Melanie Harlow also writes top-notch spice! I promise once you get into her books, you’ll be bingeing her entire backlist. It’s just that good.

"I love everything—the food and the wine and the olive groves and the grapevines..." That line from the book was the feeling that enveloped me as I read this story. There is warmth and tenderness, comfort and satisfaction, a place where people work hard and reap the rewards of their efforts.

The universal search for love is prominent in These Tangled Vines. Love of husband and wife, married lovers, mother and daughter, father and daughter, sibling to sibling. Everyone wants love. But how many of us find the perfect match?

I loved exploring the lushness of Tuscany and the delicious food, wine, and passion. Reading this story made me want to be there once again.

This bestselling book first came out long before my own global history of wine and it has gone through a number of editions as well as translations. It takes on the long history of wine ‘from Noah to Now’ in a readable, well-informed narrative – as we would expect of Hugh Johnson, who is one of the best-known English wine writers and authors. His richly illustrated book has global range and covers all the world’s wine-producing regions. It’s an excellent example of history written for a non-specialist readership and is probably the book that has done more than any other to bring history to the attention of wine lovers.

For a structured, academic book on wine this is a favorite for the easy diagrams and clear, concise ways of explaining the differences between wine styles and regions.

For people who learn best from images, this is a winning book. This book revolutionized wine education by creating something that is graphic rather than boring, difficult-to-remember academic text.

There are many other great structured wine books I could recommend for learning about wine, but the graphic style of this makes it the winner (and for the hardcore, there is a larger expanded hardcover Wine Folly Magnum version of this).