Barn Raising

An Amish community gathers to erect a barn in one day, and finishes in time for the owner's cows to be milked there that very evening.

From bestselling authors in the Amish genre come three sweet stories centered around Amish traditions and the possibility of romance. Building a Dream by Amy Clipston Though they’ve known each other a long time, Kathryn and Anthony have finally decided to try becoming more than friends—but they are devastated when Kathryn’s father won’t allow them to date. He wants his daughter to marry a man with a more respectable job than building gazebos for Englishers. But when Kathryn’s father’s dairy barn burns down during a thunderstorm, Anthony is the one to arrange a barn raising. Will Kathryn’s father realize he has misjudged Anthony? To Raise a Home by Kelly Irvin A year after the wildfires, life has returned to normal for the West Kootenai Amish community. Evan Eicher, son of Deacon Tobias Eicher, has done his best to move on too. Helping his neighbors and friends rebuild has helped soothe a heart broken when Delilah Mast—the woman he loves but never had the courage to approach—moved with her family back to Kansas. At his father’s urging he courts Anna Burkholder, a sweet woman who adores him. But when Delilah moves back to teach school, Evan must wrestle with feelings he’s tried so hard to put in the past. And an accident at a barn raising will force Anna, Delilah, and Evan to face the truth about their hearts. Love’s Solid Foundation by Kathleen Fuller Devon Bontrager only returned to his old hometown to make good on a past misdeed. He hadn’t counted on reconnecting with Nettie Yoder, especially since she strung along his younger twin brothers some years ago. Nettie knows she’s made some mistakes in the past, but she’s determined to be an asset to her community from now on. But just as she’s making headway, her family’s barn burns to the ground. Why does it seem like God is punishing her family when she’s finally starting to turn her life around? Can she convince Devon that she has changed? Can Devon trust the woman who broke his brothers’ hearts? Three sweet contemporary Amish romances Stand-alone novella collection Book length: 80,000 words Includes discussion questions for book clubs

“In today’s ego-techno-centred world, Robert Somerville’s . . . Barn Club approach is a way forward that utilizes local traditions, local materials, and local hands to create a built environment that is more harmonious with the natural world and of course more beautiful.”—Jack A. Sobon, architect, timber framer, and author of Hand Hewn “Somerville knows more about wooden barn construction than almost anyone alive.”—The Telegraph Natural history meets traditional hand craft in this celebration of the elm tree and community spirit. When renowned craftsman Robert Somerville moved to Hertfordshire in southern England, he discovered an unexpected landscape rich with wildlife and elm trees. Nestled within London’s commuter belt, this wooded farmland inspired Somerville, a lifelong woodworker, to revive the ancient tradition of hand-raising barns. Barn Club follows the building of Carley Barn over the course of one year. Volunteers from all walks of life joined Barn Club, inspired to learn this ancient skill of building elm barns by hand, at its own quiet pace and in the company of others, while using timber from the local woods. The tale of the elm tree in its landscape is central to Barn Club. Its natural history, historic importance, and remarkable survival make for a fascinating story. This is a tale of forgotten trees, a local landscape, and an ancient craft. This book includes sixteen pages of color photographs, and black and white line drawings of techniques and traditional timber frame barns feature throughout. Perfect for fans of Norwegian Wood and The Hidden Life of Trees.

Principles and Persons contains twenty-one new essays addressed to themes drawn from the work of the late Derek Parfit. Topics include the nature of reasons and duties, the rationality of our attitudes to time, and the question of personal identity.

Thomas Jefferson envisioned a nation of citizens deeply involved in public life. Today Americans are lamenting the erosion of his ideal. What happened in the intervening centuries? Daniel Kemmis argues that our loss of capacity for public life (which impedes our ability to resolve crucial issues) parallels our loss of a sense of place. A renewed sense of inhabitation, he maintains —of community rooted in place and of people dwelling in that place in a practiced way—can shape politics into a more cooperative and more humanly satisfying enterprise, producing better people, better communities, and better places. The author emphasizes the importance of place by analyzing problems and possibilities of public life in a particular place— those northern states whose settlement marked the end of the old frontier. National efforts to “keep citizens apart” by encouraging them to develop open country and rely upon impersonal, procedural methods for public problems have bred stalemate, frustration, and alienation. As alternatives he suggests how western patterns of inhabitation might engender a more cooperative, face-to-face practice of public life. Community and the Politics of Place also examines our ambivalence about the relationship between cities and rural areas and about the role of corporations in public life. The book offers new insight into the relationship between politics and economics and addresses the question of whether the nation-state is an appropriate entity for the practice of either discipline. The author draws upon the growing literature of civic republicanism for both a language and a vantage point from which to address problems in American public life, but he criticizes that literature for its failure to consider place. Though its focus on a single region lends concreteness to its discussions, Community and the Politics of Place promotes a better understanding of the quality of public life today in all regions of the United States.