"Trauma" farming

Like David Mas Masumoto's "Wisdom of the Last Farmer," Brian Brett's "Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of Rural Life" both bemoans and celebrates farm life.

(The book gets its title from the nickname the Bretts give to their family homestead, Willowpond Farm on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia.)

It speaks to the challenges faced by independent farmers as well as the fleeting joys: "Rural living is an eccentric pursuit, in the same way that beauty is an eccentric pursuit."

Unlike Masumoto, however, who grows primarily grapes and peaches in California, Brett talks not only of fruits and vegetables. He also tends to a small selection of cows, chickens and pigs, and condemns, for example, the way in which most cattle these days wind up in feedlots before being "shipped to slaughterhouses that resemble medieval torture chambers, where they are sliced open and cleaned." The strong criticism is not surprising.

Fortunately, however, the author tempers his discussion with lighthearted passages on topics such as farm-fresh eggs: "A real egg is a lovely creation. I can tell what a chicken has been eating and how it's been raised when I break an egg on the frying pan."

He peppers it with humor, too: "How do you make a small fortune at farming? Start with a large fortune." In doing so, Brett makes the book a stretch more provocative than others and an altogether compelling read.

(A version of this review appears in Publishers Weekly.)