I love audiobooks. I'm listening to a really good one right now, called The Daily Coyote. It's a very simple story, about a woman who fell in love with the wilds of Wyoming, and decided, sight unseen, to move to a town of 300. She ended up with a coyote pup to raise, and started a blog sending photos of the coyote to people every day. (Hence the name of the book.)
Her prose is luminous and graceful, and since I'm frequently listening to the story unfold as I drive to and from work, up and down I-25 in rush hour traffic, I look at the snowcapped Rockies to the west, and daydream about what it might be like to do something that gutsy -- just up and move to the middle of nowhere.
Things that stick out to me are: the luxury of curling up in front of a roaring fire with your cat, dog, and coyote, on a blizzarding winter day, with nothing else to do except... be. She also figures out how to teach English to Koreans in Korea from her home computer -- I mean, what a perfect idea for supporting yourself living in the middle of nowhere.
With the craziness of the economy lately, I really wonder how many people will be smart enough to just "drop off the grid" and recalibrate their lives to something like this. (Sure, it's a fantasy for me -- I cannot imagine that I could do the same thing successfully, city girl that I am, but one does enjoy the daydream.)
