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jess_mango's review
4.0
The Outermost House was originally published in 1928 and was written by a naturalist who built a small 2 room cottage in the dunes of Cape Cod near Eastham, MA. He spent a year living there observing the creatures around him...from birds to fish. We also hear of locals, the weather and Coast Guard rescues. This book was oddly calming. It made me appreciate nature even more.
BONUS FOR MY LOCAL FRIENDS: The author mentions a visit to the Herring Brook and Whitman Pond in Weymouth! Interesting bit of info and history Alewife fish who and born in and journey back to Weymouth.
BONUS FOR MY LOCAL FRIENDS: The author mentions a visit to the Herring Brook and Whitman Pond in Weymouth! Interesting bit of info and history Alewife fish who and born in and journey back to Weymouth.
mallory_amirian's review
informative
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
3.75
Content Warnings
Minor: Death
ofox9's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
duparker's review
4.0
Really enjoyed this review of living on the Cape. had the same feeling as a Sand County Almanac. The writing has a vintage air to it, & captured the rustic living and experiences the author experienced.
nekreader's review
2.0
Yawn. I know it's a classic, and I'd been meaning to read it for ages. There are some parts I really loved, like the author's description of his walk from one side of the Cape to the other and some of the shipwreck bits, but other parts were tedious dronings about birds or other aspects of shore life that neither drew me in nor inspired me in any way. The overall effect was one of an old fashioned diary, cataloging a year spent in solitude on a beach. I wanted it to be so much more than it was. A bit of a disappointment.
liberrydude's review
3.0
The modern Thoreau. Instead of Concord and Walden Pond Beston spends a year (1929) in the dunes of what’s now the Cape Cod National Seashore. I’d never heard of him until he was mentioned in another book discussing dark skies and our vanishing night.
He lives alone in a cabin he had built in the dunes. He goes into town for groceries and visits the nearby coast guard detachment, who reciprocated with visits while patrolling the beach. His writing is very descriptive, almost poetic. The music of the sea. The constellations of birds. He describes the murmuration of bird formations without using that word.
He comments on everything. There’s nothing to do but observe. He’s never bored. Birds and animals take up a good portion of the book. The natural world, the environment, the weather, and climate all get his scrutiny as well. There are musings on night and darkness and an ode to the sense of smell.
His year on the beach was by no means peaceful. There were many shipwrecks and deaths along the shore. He writes too about the operations, procedures, and equipment of the coast guard. We learn these men are called “surfmen.”
It’s hard to believe this book is so unknown and it’s a shame too. I much preferred it to Thoreau.
Some great quotes:
“Be the answer what it will, today’s civilization is full of people who have not the slightest notion of the character or the poetry of night, who have never even seen night. Yet to live thus, to know only artificial night, is as absurd and evil as to know only artificial day.”
“Do no dishonour to the earth lest you dishonour the spirit of man. Hold your hands out over the earth as over a flame. To all who love her, who open to her the doors of their veins, she gives of her strength, sustaining them with her own measureless tremor of dark life. Touch the earth, love the earth, honour the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places. For the gifts of life are the earth’s and they are given to all, and they are the songs of birds at daybreak, Orion and the Bear, and dawn seen over ocean from the beach.”
He lives alone in a cabin he had built in the dunes. He goes into town for groceries and visits the nearby coast guard detachment, who reciprocated with visits while patrolling the beach. His writing is very descriptive, almost poetic. The music of the sea. The constellations of birds. He describes the murmuration of bird formations without using that word.
He comments on everything. There’s nothing to do but observe. He’s never bored. Birds and animals take up a good portion of the book. The natural world, the environment, the weather, and climate all get his scrutiny as well. There are musings on night and darkness and an ode to the sense of smell.
His year on the beach was by no means peaceful. There were many shipwrecks and deaths along the shore. He writes too about the operations, procedures, and equipment of the coast guard. We learn these men are called “surfmen.”
It’s hard to believe this book is so unknown and it’s a shame too. I much preferred it to Thoreau.
Some great quotes:
“Be the answer what it will, today’s civilization is full of people who have not the slightest notion of the character or the poetry of night, who have never even seen night. Yet to live thus, to know only artificial night, is as absurd and evil as to know only artificial day.”
“Do no dishonour to the earth lest you dishonour the spirit of man. Hold your hands out over the earth as over a flame. To all who love her, who open to her the doors of their veins, she gives of her strength, sustaining them with her own measureless tremor of dark life. Touch the earth, love the earth, honour the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places. For the gifts of life are the earth’s and they are given to all, and they are the songs of birds at daybreak, Orion and the Bear, and dawn seen over ocean from the beach.”