Field Notes

Reflections on country life on Canada's eastern coast: "Gentle humor and prose as clear and lilting as the song of the hermit thrush at dusk." —Deborah Carr, author of Sanctuary: The Story of Naturalist Mary Majka

Sara Jewell has lived at eighteen different addresses—but there was one that remained constant: Pugwash Point Road in rural Nova Scotia. She was nine years old the first time her family vacationed in the small fishing village about an hour from the New Brunswick border, and the red soil stained her heart. Life, as it's wont to do, eventually took Jewell away from the east coast. But when her marriage and big-city life started to crumble, she wanted only one thing: a fresh start in Pugwash.

Field Notes includes forty-one essays on the differences, both subtle and drastic, between city life and country living. From curious neighbors and unpredictable weather to the reality of roadkill and the wonders of wildlife, award-winning narrative journalist Sara Jewell strikes the perfect balance between honest self-examination and humorous observation—in a delightful memoir accented with original drawings by Joanna Close.


"A born storyteller . . . her sharp-witted but kind-hearted portraits of country people, places, and customs make for a remarkable first book." —Harry Thurston, author of A Place Between the Tides and the Deer Yard