We Took to the Woods Paperback – April 19, 2007

I was eight years old when Louise Dickinson Rich's thick book appeared, its jacket cover inviting me down a snowy path to a snug home in the pines. It was my first adult book; the fact that Mother was reading it at the same time gave the experience added zip.The book is not a biography, not even a memoir. Instead, in a very informal, conversational style, Rich answers key questions people have asked her about her life as a writer, a wife, and a mother deep in the far north woods of Maine. One question per chapter: "Aren't You Afraid? Don't You Get Bored? How Do You Make A Living?" Her answers are candid, funny, detailed, and enlightening.When, as a young bright college student, Louise had men breathe into her ear, "I NEED you!" she took the avowals with a few grains of salt. But when her husband Ralph comes racing into their snow-wrapped log house with blood dripping down his arm and bellows, "Louise, where ARE you? I need you, goddammit!"--she knows it's stark truth.Rich's backwoods life details an earlier time, of course (the late Thirties), but even in that time, her way of life was an anomaly. "Outsiders" thought her life must be quaint, or picturesque, or outlandish.Rich's no-nonsense approach sweeps these fantasies aside and shows us the reality of, say, making a week's worth of dinners out of three tins of chipped beef and a box of soda crackers. Or dealing with a sudden inflamed appendix when the snow has closed all roads to Outside, but the ice on the lake is too thin to drive across. Or why she enjoys being the preferred partner on the other end of a cross-cut saw. And how you make a satisfying community out of two other families, three heavy-drinking loggers, and a picturesque but comfort-loving sled-dog.I loved this book when I was eight, and again when I was in my twenties. Reading it for the third time now in my seventies (delighted that it was still available at amazon.com), I find it does more than "hold up" as a delightful read; it satisfies as thoroughly as one of Louise's long-simmered deer roasts must have done.

I read this book aloud to my husband. Our parents were the author's age and she is very good at describing life in the remote area of Maine where there were few roads, and though it was a hard life , it was rich and full! We should be so luck!

Am old boyhood friend put me onto this book. He became acquainted with the author many years ago and had visited the wild area in northern Maine about which the author writes. I bought a used hardcover copy in good condition, which came promptly.This is the true, fascinating, refreshingly candid, and humorous story about how Louise Dickinson became enamored of living way up in the sticks in northern Maine, married, moved there, raised a family in the early part of the 20th century, came to love their "rough life," and wrote about it.It was very isolated where the Riches lived. There were very few neighbors, and they looked out for one another. In the winter, supplies had to come in either by boat across a lake or by vehicle when the ice on the lake was thick enough. It was a precarious situation when for weeks supplies could not come in either way because of the thin ice. Her husband had to deliver her baby, born a little prematurely, during one of these inaccessible times.Louise Dickinson Rich wrote for a living, and it shows in this book, which is hard to put down. She tells you what was true about life way up in the Maine woods and what (despite what many outsiders think) was not true. Ingenuity was a key to surviving, and she shares a number of the innovations she and her husband came up with. It is all told with her engaging, dry Yankee sense of humor.Louise never (or almost never) looked back on her chosen life, but lived it and loved it to the full. She has written another book on her life in the northern wilds of Maine, which I have ordered and eagerly await.

I stumbled upon a first edition, complete with the map on the endpaper boards, cloth hardcover, black and white photographs throughout. What a delight. I did not know the writing of Louise D. Rich, and have since wanted more of it: her wit and practical view that seamlessly becomes poetic at just the right moments. Her life choices and determination to live simply in her cabin in the Maine woods with her husband: fascinating and strengthening. I loved so many passages in the book, but the one that I still laugh about and hve read aloud for gatherings of friends is where Louise is asked to cook for the neighboring lumber camp. The camp chief is excited about Louise's skills at the stove and so checks in regularly on her and before leaving sneakily moves ahead the hands on the clock, which Louise promptly moves back as soon as he leaves. This goes on and the tale, and Louise's telling of it, is hilarious in a way that is natural and reflects her heart for humor. Loved. A book I'll reread when things seem so hard and complicated, and that I will share with others needing the breath of simplicity and courage in everyday lives.

I found it interesting to read about a true life experience.

Rich is a very skillful writer and at time humorous. She loved living in the deep woods with her husband and two children even though she has no electricity and no running water. Yes, year round. I love how she organized the book breaking a lot of negative popular stereotypes. This was the first of her book writings and usually considered her best. Few libraries will have this 1942 book so I am glad I bought it. Was used like new. I have talked about it a lot since reading it. One of my all time favorites. She is so skillful.

A woman's story of her rustic life in the Maine woods. Very engaging.