The Egg and I

Loved the movie but wanted to read the book to find out more. Really enjoyed it and it is so different than the movie. But still enjoy watching the movie. I found out she she wrote 2 more books and then there was a book on her life that I purchased too. She had a hard life but still wrote some funny stuff. Great author and found out how life was early in the 1940’s and 50’s. Very interesting

This book defies description. I just finished a modern-day book about a woman on a chicken farm, and she had a rough life, but her life was child's play compared with MacDonald's experiences. So many reviewers have stated that they got belly laughs from every page. Apparently they aren't easily disturbed by the bizarre. I tend to be the type of person who doesn't find child neglect, heavy drinking, and all types of unsanitary habits to be laugh-out-loud funny although, grant you, I did laugh aloud in places. When Betty and her husband Bob are invited to the home of a new acquaintance who was starved for some "culture" as she puts it, I cracked up. Just don't invite me for wine and fruitcake--my stomach would rebel--sorry to say. Ma and Pa Kettle are over-the-top weird and Ma did crack me up at times.This is the type of book which will make you count your blessings. If you live in a house with electricity and tap water, you're ahead of the game. If you have a spouse who talks with you and doesn't treat you like a farm hand, thank the Lord again. If you never get so starved for company that you have to hobnob with the wild, the drunken, and the boorish, put it in your gratitude journal.This is an amazing book which covers a lot of territory and has many details which were tedious for me. The backwoods logging "industry" for example, unbelievably dangerous and crazy, and also too much for this reader. Many details she provided about all types of operations were more than I needed to know. The characters, however, are priceless. I could have read an entire book of stories about Ma and Pa Kettle or the Hicks or the lady with the wine and the fruitcake. Also, her weather descriptions are priceless. When it's dark and stormy and winter is just beginning, you'll understand why she feels so incredibly isolated.I think MacDonald gives us the impression of incredibly hard work with very few rewards. It's not Little House on the Prairie. Her husband's no Michael Landon! This book is worth reading because it will make you feel grateful for the modern conveniences we take for granted and for some of the more evolved men in the world.

I really loved this book. Very easy and entertaining to read. I have been to that area many times and have seen "The Egg and I Road" and that is what made me buy this book. I really liked the style of writing and felt that I was there with her given the descriptions of the area. I didn't find it to have rude language. Given the times and what the author had to endure I would have said worse!

I loved Betty MacDonald's way of describing things. For example, her is her description of the town they moved near, a town that had been unstrategically placed and became not the profitable, bustling center of commerce, but instead, a remnant of hope: "Poor little Town never recovered from the blow. She pulled down her blinds, pulled up her welcome mat and gave herself over to sorrow. Her main street became a dreary thing of empty buildings, pocked by falling bricks and tenanted only by rats and the wind . . . She wore her massive courthouse like an enormous brooch on a delicate bosom and the faded and peeling wedding houses grew clumsy and heavy with shrubbery and disappointment."With descriptions like this, the book was a delight to read. So why not four or five stars? Her descriptions of her neighbors were harsh and acerbic, with little sympathy or empathy. At times, I felt very sorry for the people she was describing. While the descriptions were funny at times, they were funny in the cruel way of a middle school Queen Bee whispering to her court of followers. So this took away from the overall book. It was, perhaps, a product of her times, but not one I could more stars to.

Betty MacDonald did not have a particularly good opinion of the local Native American population in her small part of the world and she wasn't shy about putting her thoughts on paper. However, if we slashed everything written before 1950 that is considered politically incorrect by somebody we wouldn't have any idea why anything happened or have any history to learn from.The Egg and I is a wonderfully written and often humorous book. It sold one million copies which was huge in the mid 1940's. Reading between the lines you can glean a bit of the tension that existed between Betty MacDonald and her husband, but you aren't given any inkling that Bob was a heavy drinker which is supposed to be one of the reasons for their later divorce. Actually, it seems, that most everyone seemed to have an affinity for the local moonshine.Betty MacDonald wrote three more autobiographical books. I haven't read them yet, but I definitely will. She also wrote Piggle Wiggle books. Unfortunately, she died at the age of 50. I can't help wondering what other wonderful books she might have written if she had lived longer.

Colourful creative descriptions of characters, life running a chicken farm .. her writing is unique and lightly amusing all the way through.

There is nothing as cozy as a piece of candy and a book" Mrs P.Wiggle - this book just match this quote. Lovely summer reading

Just enjoyable love stories about how others live and the community that supports them. A good light hearted warm story.

A very funny book from the first half of the 20th century. Written partly as a protest against fashionable books praising the return to the simple life, living in the backwoods with no running water and other amenities, this tells of the author's life on a chicken farm in Washington State, and her weird neighbours, bush fires, moonshine etc. My only objection was to the author's scathing treatment of Native Americans, but this has to be understood in the context of her time of writing. It is a very enjoyable, laugh-out-loud read.

The book is a classic. I remember reading it at school (back in the 60's) and found it real fun at the time. I wanted to read it again for the descriptions of life on the North Pacific Coast. The comparison between Spring's arrival in Butte (Montana) and the Olympic Mountains is so short and so devastatingly precise. I got my wife to read it. We'll be visiting th Olympic Mountain and Butte next Summer.