Potluck: Community on the Edge of Wilderness

I just finished reading Potluck, and I must say I found it absolutely phenomenal. It mesmerized me from the beginningto the end. The easy and delicious way Spagna describes Stehekin, and the hills and valleys in and around it, is soenticingly captivating. Her love for the place and her community reveals itself in enchanting details page after pagewithout a pause. It's to her credit that I can almost picture the place and the community that inhabits it. Stehekinis a character in Potluck, and Spagna's intense love for it is felt throughout the book. Potluck seems more like a colorfulpainting than a collection of essays. It kept me turning the pages not only because of the richness of the languageand the metaphors Spagna uses, but also because of the humor that almost seems to smirk behind many of hersentences. The essays in the beginning of the book loop back to Spagna's paradise in an interesting way.At the end of the book, I felt a real urge to go see Stehekin and meet its unique community.The Fall Line, the essay in which Spagna describes her relationship with Laurie, is so powerful and touching ...especially the limning of the relationship as it begins to take shape so naturally, so gently and so compellingly. This essayleft me almost breathless as I followed Spagna and Laurie's deep feelings for each other and expression of those feelingsin weighted silence. Reading this essay was like reading a long beautiful poem.I have read "Now Go Home" and "Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus," Spagna's other two books, and I have read many of heressays. I have never felt disappointed with her work. She is definitely one to watch for among the present day promising writers.

So good. It gives you a view of life in a tiny town out in the woods... literally! Stehekin is an unbelievable town to imagine nowadays! And learning how this small, rural town accepts two homosexual woman... is wonderful. Such a great story about how the people of the town interact and help each other.Beautifully written. So unusual and different. I have to be honest; I would recommend any book written by Anna Maria Spagna. She writes with complete honesty and a lovely prose that keeps it from feeling like she's lecturing you. And her books are always about subjects that are unusual or rare and fascinating. You feel like a more informed person for reading them; but also highly entertained and moved by the reads. I highly recommend this book.

Potluck is hands down a beautiful book. Of all the things to admire in it, I think I admire Spagna's voice the most. Her's is a straightforward voice of everyday cadences, yet also supple and strong. It carries the reader like a lean-muscled, free-running stream whose depth-trill murmurs the truth of what it means to be claimed by a landscape and a community.This is the voice you want for company when the bees buzz and the hammock sways -- and when the windows rattle and the last lightening strike was far too close.

I just couldn't "stay" with this book long enough to get involved with it. The long, drawn out descriptions of one home cooked dish after another didn't even make me hungry for more. The characters were not interesting to me, and after reading other readers reviews, I have to believe it was MY problem. Nevertheless, I just couldn't get thru it -try as I might, time after time after time.....

Food, wilderness and community are the themes of this book...subjects I am particularly interested in right now. Quick delivery, too. Thank you!

Stehekin resident Ana Maria Spagna writes perceptively and generously about the ties that bind communities: people to people, people to place, self to story. Also serving as a memoir of her travels near and far, Potluck celebrates the ordinary rituals that define our lives.

Potluck is a feast! The reader is both nourished and enlightened by this remote community in the North Cascades of Washington state. With a broad range of residents, crammed into a narrow mountain valley, Spagna, a resident herself, is able to stay partial to all. Whether sweet, or, sour, she tastes and lets the reader devour a place, from hors d'oeuvres to dessert, from easy-to-fix recipes to spoiled food. Death is expressed bluntly, bravely and with all the emotion of a fancy ten course meal. Bring your dish to potluck and sample it all!

I look forward to lots more re-readings so I can get all of the juicy bits this Potluck offers about community, place, and home. Spagna braids the rich threads of her life as well as LIFE into masterful, moving, thought-provoking essays. Potluck is a treasure.