A personal search for belonging, as well as a commentary on the rural small towns in the U.S.

In 2015 portrait photographer Robin de Puy (1986) travels across America on a motorcycle. During this trip, an intimate portrait emerges in text and image of both herself as of the persons portrayed. In Ely, Nevada she found Randy. He rode past - fast - but in the split second she saw him she knew: De Puy had to know who this boy was. She took his portrait, left the town a few days later, and that was it - at least, that's what it seemed at the time. Back in Amsterdam Randy popped into her mind from time to time - it was impossible to know this boy and leave it at that single image. She looked him up again at the end of 2016, and then again in February 2017, and once more in May 2017. She turns him inside out, looks at him, stares at him and he lets her. In the Bonnefantenmuseum, Robin de Puy is presenting this portrait of Randy in the form of an installation that comprises photos and film. Exhibition: Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, The Netherlands (26.01. - 13.05.2018).

This book documents a little-known aspect of the Jewish experience in America. It is a fascinating account of how a group of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany came to dominate cattle dealing in south central New York and maintain a Jewish identity even while residing in small towns and villages that are overwhelmingly Christian. The book pays particular attention to the unique role played by women in managing the transition to the United States, in helping their husbands accumulate capital, and in recreating a German Jewish community. Yet Levine goes further than her analysis of German Jewish refugees. She also argues that it is possible to explain the situations of other immigrant and ethnic groups using the structure/network/identity framework that arises from this research. According to Levine, situating the lives of immigrants and refugees within the larger context of economic and social change, but without losing sight of the significance of social networks and everyday life, shows how social structure, class, ethnicity, and gender interact to account for immigrant adaptation and mobility.

The hugely admired author of "The Last Fine Time" preserves and makes new the sights, smells, sounds, and poetry of country living. Klinkenborg reveals the beauty of the American landscape, not from a scenic overlook, but through a screened-in porch or from the window of a pickup driving down an empty highway in the teeth of an approaching storm.

Essays on rural life that not only address the many how-to questions that bedevil country dwellers, but also the larger direction that life is taking on this planet. Perrin, a transplanted New Yorker and now a "real" Vermonter, candidly admits his early mistakes while giving concrete advice on matters such as what to do with maple syrup (other than put it on your pancakes), how to use a peavey, and how to replace your rototiller with a garden animal.

These essays, all concerned with countryish things, range from intensely practical to mildly literary. Transplanted from New York fifteen years ago and now a real-life Vermont farmer, Noel Perrin candidly admits to hilarious early mistakes ("In Search of the Perfect Fence Post") while presenting down-to-earth advice on such rural necessities as "Sugaring on $15 a Year," "Raising Sheep," and "Making Butter in the Kitchen." But, as everyone who has read his essays in The New Yorker, Country Journal, and Vermont Life will confirm, not everything Perrin writes is strictly about the exigencies of country life. While one essay seems to discuss the use of wooden sap buckets, it really addresses the nature of illusion and reality as they coexist in rural places.