Verlyn Klinkenborg

Counsels aspiring writers on how to move past conventional understandings about creativity, writer's block, and other literary challenges to develop a greater understanding of how thinking, noticing, and learning are integral parts of the writing process.

Several Short Sentences About Writing

By turns, an elegy, a celebration, and a social history, The Last Fine Time is a tour de force of lyrical style. Verlyn Klinkenborg chronicles the life of a family-owned restaurant in Buffalo, New York, from its days as a prewar Polish tavern to its reincarnation as George & Eddie's, a swank nightspot serving highballs and French-fried shrimp to a generation of optimistic and prosperous Americans. In the inevitable dimming of the neon sign outside the restaurant, we see both the passing of an old world way of life and the end to the postwar exuberance that was Eddie Wenzek's "last fine time."

The Last Fine Time

The former member of the New York Times editorial board offers a collection of essays that illuminate the beauty of the American landscape. With an eloquence unmatched by any other living writer, Verlyn Klinkenborg observes the juncture at which our lives and the natural world intersect. His yearlong meditation on the rigors and wonders of country life—encompassing memories of his family’s Iowa homestead, time spent in the wide-open spaces of the American West, and his experiences on the small farm in upstate New York where he lives with his wife—abounds with various pleasures for the readers as it indelibly records and elaborates the everyday beauty of the world we inhabit. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Book Sense 76 Pick “Captivating, subtle, and splendid . . . . Klinkenborg really is a Thoreau for today . . . . Nonfiction storytelling at its highest: unflaggingly lovely, with scope, profundity, and power achieved through a mastering of the delicate.” —Kirkus Reviews “In a voice reminiscent of E. B. White, Klinkenborg paints a picture of a fading world in colors that are solid and authentic. His joy is evident throughout.” —Los Angeles Times “Arresting, even profound, forcing us to look at the world in a new way.” —Chicago Tribune

The Rural Life

Timothy, a tortoise who lives in the garden of eighteenth-century curate Gilbert White, speaks out on his life in the garden, his nine-day adventure outside the gate, his observations of the curious habits and habitations of humans, and the natural world around him. Reprint.

Timothy, Or Notes of an Abject Reptile

Timothy, a watchful and eloquent tortoise, has spent 40 years living in the Hampshire village of Selborne. Whilst the village is the occasional subject for the study of his host, Gilbert White, Timothy is also inclined to study. This book portrays the world of man and beast, as seen from beneath Timothy's shell.

Notes of an English Country Tortoise

Timothy's Book

Pierpont Morgan Library

Herbert Cahoon

19th-century British culture in the autograph hand. Original manuscripts of Scott, Coleridge, Austen, Yeats, Joyce, etc. Commentary.

British Literary Manuscripts: From 1800 to 1914

This photographic chronicle explores a modern country that honors the past, respects the land, and celebrates its inhabitants, both animal and human. 60 photos. 128 p.

Straight West

From the wonders of alfalfa, the "miracle plant," to barbed wire, dances at VFW halls, and the myriad difficulties of operating tractors and siderakes, renowned author Verlyn Klinkenborg paints a stunning and memorable portrait of American family farms and the fascinating characters who work them. MAKING HAY gives us an unforgettable glimpse of everyday life on the family farms of northwestern Iowa, southwestern Minnesota, and Montana's Big Hole Valley. In beautiful, deceptively simple prose touched with humor and affection, Klinkenborg evokes a way of life at risk, and weaves an unforgettable story of the richness of rural living.

Making Hay

Verlyn Klinkenborg's regular column, The Rural Life, is one of the most read and beloved in the New York Times. Since 1997, he has written eloquently on every aspect, large and small, of life on his upstate New York farm, including his animals, the weather and landscape, and the trials and rewards of physical labor, as well as broader issues about agriculture and land use behind farming today. Klinkenborg's pieces are admired as much for their poetic writing as for their insight: peonies are "the sheepdog of flowers," dry snow "tumbles off the angled end of the plow-blade as if each crystal were completely independent, almost charged with static electricity," and land is most valuable "for its silence,its freedom from language."

Verlyn Klinkenborg

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