This Blessed Earth

A Year in the Life of an American Family Farm

By: Ted Genoways

Narrated by: Christopher Solimene

Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins

Publisher's summary

The family farm lies at the heart of our national identity, and yet its future is in peril. Rick Hammond grew up on a farm, and for 40 years he has raised cattle and crops on his wife's fifth-generation homestead in Nebraska, in hopes of passing it on to their four children. But as the handoff nears, their small family farm - and their entire way of life - are under siege.

Beyond the threat posed by rising corporate ownership of land and livestock, the Hammonds are confronted by encroaching pipelines, groundwater depletion, climate change, the fickle demands of the marketplace, and shifting trade policies.

Following the Hammonds from harvest to harvest, Ted Genoways explores the rapidly changing world of small, traditional farming operations. He creates a vivid and nuanced portrait of a radically new landscape and one family's fight to preserve their legacy and the life they love.

©2017 Ted Genoways (P)2017 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Informative insight into agricultural policies

Overall a good narrative on Family Farming. Narrator sounded like a robot. learned a lot.

Good Read, Bad Audio

As a fourth generation Nebraska farmer, I appreciated the information presented and the story of a family with whom I can identify. Many July evenings while my husband was still in the field, I sat on the porch of our 1920s farm house looking up at the southwest sky, praying the hail didn't come or worse, a tornado. One storm, one worm, one tariff can wipe out months of hard work and the investment of life savings. The story the author conveys could in many ways be my own family; the history of corporate and government involvement in agriculture concurs with my own research and understanding.

Unfortunately, the narrator is dreadful. I finally tried turning up the play speed to help, but it still resembled a first grader reading Dick and Jane--no expression, long "A"s, mispronunciations (Kearney, Beatrice, hay mow to cite a few). I highly recommend the book, but not the Audible edition.

Very interesting.

learned much about farmimg and the struggles that go with it. It is desperate times for farmers in Nebraska.

The book is good if you can get past the narration

I am typically very tolerant of narration, but in this case Alexa could put more heart into the narration. I saw the other reviews, and figured it couldn't be that bad, because I've seen those comments many times before. The narrator reads like he is reading a long series of statements rather than a flowing book with sentences and paragraphs.

I learned a lot about farming and ranching in Nebraska, and the struggles a farmer in the Midwest goes through on a daily and annual basis.

love the book, narrator might not be the best fit

great book, I just wish it would have been narrated by someone with a different cadence to their voice. some of this material can be very new to city readers and the narration interfered with me fully absorbing it a bit I think. I imagine the narrator does great with other subjects/writing styles, this just didn't seem like a 100% good fit for them.

An eye-opening look into the realities of farming today

I appreciated the historical narrative woven into this experience of life for a modern multi-generational farm family. Important information for anyone who eats, drinks, or breathes. The narration was challenging (odd pauses, emphases, and pronunciations) and I wondered multiple times if it was done using reading software instead of recorded by a person. I read the paper copy when I could and filled in with the audiobook.

A real lesson in modern farming

Learned more than I expected about the work of farming. Daunting. The reader did not impress me much—mispronounced names.

Narration is horrible

This seems to be read without comprehension, which ruins the intonation and cadence of sentences and therefore makes it hard to follow or enjoy.

What was the producer thinking?

The narrator mispronounces words and puts emphases on the wrong words and always pronounces the article a as a long a. It’s so bad I couldn’t get past the first chapter because I struggled to parse every sentence. I regret purchasing the audio book. Now I need to buy the Kindle to read it for my book club meeting.

Narrator might as well be a computer

I am about 20% through and not sure I can finish. this Narrator is miserable. If interested, I would recommend the Kindle version.