One Bird's Choice: A Year in the Life of an Overeducated, Underemployed Twenty-Something Who Moves Back Home

by Iain Reid

• ISBN10: 0887842836
• ISBN13: 9780887842832
• Publish Date: 29 May 2011 (first published 1 January 2011)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: House of Anansi Press
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 264
• Language: English

Reviews

[Kait ✨]

I really enjoyed the premise of this book—mostly because, at the ripe old age of 23, I’m ready to move to the country and run a hobby farm. It appealed to me for the same reason that I loved books like [b:The Woefield Poultry Collective|10366979|The Woefield Poultry Collective|Susan Juby|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1333418645s/10366979.jpg|13626687], [b:Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of Rural Life|6457711|Trauma Farm A Rebel History of Rural Life|Brian Brett|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328759811s/6457711.jpg|6648068], and [b:Barnheart: The Incurable Longing for a Farm of One's Own|11347255|Barnheart The Incurable Longing for a Farm of One's Own|Jenna Woginrich|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1331527416s/11347255.jpg|16276559]. (I’d recommend this to you if you enjoyed these books, and vice versa.) To me there is something compelling about a quiet life on the farm or rural countryside. Reid describes it a bit in this comment from his father:

“Now, without getting into a lecture here,” he says, topping up our glasses, “in his poem ‘The Prelude,’ Wordsworth talks about what he calls spots of time. These are moments for everybody when they can get a sense of things, actually see into the life of things.” Dad fills his own glass last. He rests the empty bottle carefully beside his seat and grabs another handful of nuts. “Look out there,” he says, motioning to the rolling fields in front of us. “I think I know what he means.”

I think this easiness, the tranquility one can feel in solitude or quiet companionship away from the city, is one of the things that makes these types of memoirs so attractive to modern readers. It’s not an experience one often has in Toronto, for instance.

While it was an enjoyable read, there was something missing for me. I think it was that I didn’t find Iain Reid to be a particularly interesting character/person and was infuriated by his lack of drive. I can understand being in a rough spot and moving back to your parents’—I’m not judging that and in fact would not be surprised if I end up moving back into my parents’ house at some point. But Reid is 27, and I confess I can’t really understand what he did for all that time between graduating university and moving back home that left him with no marketable skills for a job or career. This was something that constantly niggled at the back of my mind and spoiled my enjoyment of the book a little bit.

That being said, I did like One Bird’s Choice. Reid’s parents are very funny and very entertaining, and they made the book for me. The anecdote about Reid teaching his mother to use a computer made me laugh a lot; while my mom is completely proficient using computers, it did remind me of my grandmother a little bit. The stories about the farm’s animals are cute and make living on a farm seem like the best idea ever (to me, anyway). The book is structured around the four seasons, and it’s interesting to see the “cycle of life” play out on a hobby farm. There’s a charming quirkiness to this book that I think many books about farming have—perhaps that’s part of why they’re so popular.

Overall, a very funny and pleasant read, but lacking something from Reid himself as a character.