The Birdhouse Chronicles: Surviving the Joys of Country Life

Nominated for the Pushcart Editor’s Book Award

In The Birdhouse Chronicles, internationally bestselling author Cathleen Miller offers a funny and wise account of how she and her husband abandon their San Francisco advertising careers to make a radical new life for themselves in a one-hundred-year-old Pennsylvania farmhouse located in the middle of an Amish cornpatch. Part memoir, part nature writing, and part old-house-restoration journal, this wonderfully humorous narrative brings home all the humor, exhilaration, and disappointment of pursuing a “simpler” life in the country. In her sassy, self-deprecating style, Cathleen Miller puts a fresh, authentic spin on the classic country memoir and surprises us with many unique twists. Sometimes wry, and sometimes full of awe, her observations about her neighbors and other locals infuse this true story with rich texture. Through it all we witness the blow-by-blow process as she and her husband refurbish their woefully dilapidated country house.

“If you can't slow down long enough to enjoy a book that gives an admirably realistic view of what your new, simpler, more meaningful life may be like, how will you survive the joys of country living once you get there?”

— The Wall Street Journal

“A light, breezy read, this chronicle of culture clashes and life changes keeps your attention to the bittersweet end.”

— Pittsburgh Magazine

“An absorbing account of their Pennsylvania sojourn.”

— The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Witty and observant.”

— The San Jose Mercury