Way Home

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Why does he do this? He recites a number of ecological and socio-cultural reasons, but the most critical reasons are ones of existential meaning: I think it was fairly obvious early on that this is a course of action open only to a few people, who are willing to uproot themselves and make a lot of sacrifices, and who don't have too many ties or responsibilities to anyone else. I have a mortgage and kids to raise, so it's pretty obvious that I couldn't do what the author did - and I'm not sure I'd want to, either. I think he was a bit extreme in what he did, and in places comes across as a bit preachy and judgemental. Clearly that's the reaction a lot of people have to his work. I found it interesting that he wrote an entire book using paper and a pencil, but I thought he had a rather unnecessary crisis of conscience over his need to use a computer to type it up for publication. I'm currently writing this on an Alphasmart, a very simple tool for getting text into electronic form, so there's ways and means of doing lots of things more simply, if you have a bit of imagination. At the end, having typed the manuscript himself so that it does get published (though swearing that he will one day write with his own pen, ink and paper that he will create himself aka quill, ink-cap-mushrooms, birch polypores and dryad’s saddle fungus), the author reminisces whether he’ll continue to live like this and mentions that he isn’t done exploring human beings, their depths and layers and how he feels we are all cloaked in from the moment we are born and he would like to see people without the masks and "ambition, plastic and comfort." My only question is how will he ever do that if he continues to isolate himself from the rest of the world? Imagine, a bearded man in a moorish Irish land whom you may meet if you go there and he may meet you if he has the time! Besides, he’s still in love with Kristy. Well, I don’t aim to insult/offend people within the first sentence of my review but I think I would not be overexaggerating if I said that about 80% of the modern, first world population – at the very least counting 70-80% of Europe- would NOT at all be able to follow in Mark Boyle’s footsteps. I am not fully cut out for that either, no matter how much I would like to be. Kudos, Mark- you’re my new hero! Boyle's life is a compromise - it has to be. He has given up a lot, but undoubtedly gained a lot, too. I didn't find him overly preachy - mostly I found him confused, conflicted, mournful, and a little lost as to how to connect with a society that had clearly thrown in the towel on his way of life. He may be right, though, that there will come a time when we will be forced - by our own mistakes and ignorance - to return to this way of life. Our plundering of the Earth can only last so long. And I sometimes feel myself growing frantic with my own reliance on abstract entities, corporations, and foreign governments.

The Wild Way Home by Sophie Kirtley | Waterstones The Wild Way Home by Sophie Kirtley | Waterstones

There's a radical honesty in the way Boyle presents what he's doing: he doesn't pretend to have a fully coherent, publicity-friendly philosophy that works as a manifesto for everyone; he's doing what feels right to him according to his own personal definitions and experience. I liked this very much and found it enormously refreshing, as it's like talking to a real person, who hasn't tried to perfect everything to present to the world, someone not academic in mindset, whom you wouldn't usually meet as the narrator of a creative non-fiction book. (I had thought that, in the book he might use clear definitions of types of technology, perhaps based around the 1970s appropriate tech movement, but instead he rejects the define-your-terms scholarliness for the same man-in-the-street, or man-in-the-field haphazard usage from his columns.) It feels like hearing someone from the offline, non-media world. (As it should, after he spent so much time offline to write the thing!) From one perspective, the book could have done with more editing to polish the style and reduce repetition; on the other hand, its unvarnished, home-made feel is part of the appeal.Summary: A narrative of a year without modern technology, and what it is like to live more directly and in rhythm with the immediate world of the author's smallholding and community. It's thought provoking tale about homelessness, preconceptions and society's priorities. I recommend this book for readers nine and older. A reader's world should involve more than sports stats, wizard schools and wimpy kids. Boyle was going to have to grow and catch his own food, collect his own firewood, build and repair anything that he needed around the home and collecting water from the stream. Washing is done by hand, he catches his own food and lives frugally off the land. It was a simple life, but tough as everything that you do means that you get to live another day. He had almost no money or and his only income was from his writing. Even that was problematic as all correspondence was going to be by letter so arranging anything could take several days and more often weeks. He had consciously made the decision to completely avoid all forms of technology and was a totally committed eco-warrior. This is a very dark but very engaging book for children, particularly in Year 4 and 5. Written in blank verse, it suits not only introducing children to poetry but also touches on a range of issues that can be used across the curriculum, particularly in PSHE. The book engages all levels of reader, from advanced readers who can infer plenty of meaning from the books sometimes tragic content, to less able readers who can infer meaning and engage with its dazzling, edgy illustrations.

Way Home - Reading Australia

All his neighbors are really old people (fifty to eighty year olds). No one has children living in. Yet: There is something in Boyle's philosophy of the anti-human. He even wonders, quite seriously, if it is ethical or even useful for him to spend his time writing. For such a clear and concise writer, he seems to see no innate value in the arts - comparing the 'wasted time of writing' with the 'real work' of fishing, logging, gardening, etc. Dan Jarvis is an MP and a Mayor, but this is not a book about politics. This is a book about service and family – specifically his time serving in the elite Parachute Regiment, and the tragic death of his wife Caroline. Also, I don’t know what the use is of cutting down trees (beech and birch) just to warm up your place (no word on how he controls wood from disease, termite) and reading paper-books, instead of ebooks because the tree loss is huge in both cases and makes his work against nature as opposed to pro-nature. Or whether he plants new trees each spring (he planted new trees in 2013 before moving in the farmhouse).My wife and I have a Nature’s Head composting toilet in our Oliver travel trailer. And because we live in the trailer full-time the toilet requires at the very least bi-monthly maintenance. When that day comes I remove the two screws holding the toilet down to the floor and carry the entire contraption outside. I generally just dump the contents in varying parts of our forest floor to allow the coco coir to continue decomposing the accumulated mass. After wiping down the toilet I refill it with coco-coir, adding two one-gallon bags of expanded fresh coco coir to the toilet, mixing in some pine pellets and a bit of natural bug-deterrent. The exercise is not something I detest nor is it gross and disgusting. It makes me feel closer to the earth and more responsible for its stewardship. Flushing gallons of fresh water down the drain every day is something we no longer participate in. There’s a real sense of isolation and frog-in-the-well mentality. I would have gone nuts like Nicholson in ‘Shining’ (and I suspect the author is on his way there too - or he’s extremely brave). On the journey home, the duo walks past a pampered feline in a window. As Shane gazes in, he says, "[T]hat cat's a loser. Eats fancy mince, no kidding. Heaps of it....Disgusting. And get that collar. What a joke!" They see an auto showroom, lights shining brightly on red Jags. Wrong color, Shane claims as he fights off a sense of awe. Students are to complete a venn diagram in which on one side they write the characteristics of Shane’s home (where is it, what is it like, colours, decorations etc.) and on the other side of the circle, students make notes on their own home. For the part of the circles which overlap, students are to write the similarities that exist regarding their home and that of Shane’s. Where is home for you?

Way Home by Libby Hathorn | Goodreads

From the title, you may have guessed that the author wrote this entire book in longhand using pencil and paper! Mark Boyle left the business world, built a cabin in rural Ireland, and disconnected from technology. I half expected to be preached at, but instead this is an honest account of his ongoing struggle with how far he can realize his goal. For example, he had an internal debate about putting a patch on his rubber tire on his bicycle, knowing that rubber comes from a great distance, and wondered whether he would be more true to himself if he abandoned his bicycle and walked instead. (He did patch the tire).The people are the most interesting aspect of this book but there’s not enough about them. I wanted to know more about Kirsty. But not enough to finish this. A third of the way through I decided not to continue because frankly I have lots more books to read sent I’m not struggling on with this Can you find out about different types of snakes? What type might have wrapped itself around Claire in the story? The author is either not a fan of music or prefers birdsongs (by thrush, goldfinch, bullfinch and magpie). He didn’t learn the tin whistle like his girlfriend Kristy told him to and he has to take her to a pub for her to tap dance to ‘electronic’ music. The Way Home does, though, introduce readers to the old Irish writers of Blasket Island, an isolated West Coast community where old customs and a DIY spirit persisted into the 20th century whilst mainland Ireland gradually became more incorporated into industrial society, and where - this sounds rather like Iceland - an unusually high number of the small population were gifted storytellers. I especially hope to read something by Peig Sayers, and I never would have heard of her were it not for this book. There are lots of characters from different stories in the book, e.g. the big, bad wolf, the woodcutter, gigantic giant. Can you think of other books that they appear in?

On the way home - Books Alive! Read Aloud book for kids On the way home - Books Alive! Read Aloud book for kids

The book is peppered with the history of an Irish island community decimated by globalization and industrialization, clearly a community Boyle views as some sort of lost Eden. The lessons are clear: We live in an inhuman age. We make money to buy the things that keep us lonely, dependent, and addicted. We have very few skills and we long for authentic, immediate closeness, but instead find hollow substitutes in online forums. I think he's right - I know he is.Have a class debate around the proverb ‘home is where the heart is’. What does this mean? How is this true for Shane? Is this true for the students? What are some texts (picture books, films, stories, etc.) in which this is true?