Monday, December 9, 2024

Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman

 

Cabin is a warmly funny, well told story by Patrick Hutchison about his acquisition and rebuilding of a tiny off-grid cabin in the Washington state forest. Released 3rd Dec 2024 by Macmillan on their St. Martin's Press imprint, it's 304 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links throughout. 

This is a charmingly written book, full of the sort of dreams and aspirations and honest soul searching most of us went through in our late 20s. He finds and fixates on a broken down cabin in the woods and, like Thoreau 170 years before, sets himself to fixing it and maybe finding his purpose in the process. Unlike his philosophical muse, there's a conspicuous absence of mother and sisters providing home cooked meals in his "solitude" and there are a few hair-raising situations before Hutchison gets to where he's going. Unlike Thoreau, however, he doesn't pretend to try to live full time at the shack in the woods, and much of the content is him doing the necessary drudge work in-office to afford to fix up the place in fits and starts over a 6 year period (during which he also acquires the skills along the way). 

The unabridged audiobook format has a run time of 8 hours and 31 minutes and is read by the author himself. Sound and production quality are excellent throughout the read.

Four stars. It's an honestly told, well written book, and definitely worth a winter-time cozy read. It would be a good choice for public or secondary school library acquisition, gift giving, or for readers who enjoy contemplative nature oriented reads.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

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