09/04/2026
We are mourning the loss of Wendell Berry.
Poet, novelist, essayist, farmer, conservationist, and one of the great voices for a life rooted in place, Berry died this week at the age of 92.
His work has been deeply important to us at Summer Beam Books. So important, in fact, that we keep a shelf dedicated to his books.
For decades, Berry asked us to reconsider what makes a good life. He wrote about our responsibility to the land and to one another; the dignity of useful work; the importance of small farms and local economies; the consequences of endless consumption; and the necessity of knowing, loving, and caring for a particular place.
He reminded us that stewardship is not an abstract idea. It is something practiced… in the way we farm, build, eat, work, repair, make, gather, and care for our communities.
Perhaps most importantly, he resisted the idea that bigger, faster, newer, and more efficient necessarily mean better. His writing continually returned us to limits, affection, craftsmanship, neighborliness, and the enduring value of things worth caring for.
If we were to choose one book from our Wendell Berry shelf to begin with, it would be The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry.
This collection brings together some of the ideas that Berry spent a lifetime exploring: our relationship to the land, the health of our communities, the meaning and dignity of work, the importance of local economies, and the responsibility we have to care for the places that sustain us.
Despite the word “agrarian” in the title, these essays are about much more than farming. They ask larger questions about how we choose to live, and what happens when we lose our connection to land, place, community, and one another.
Those questions feel as urgent now as ever.
Berry’s ideas have helped shape the philosophy behind Summer Beam Books and the books we choose to put on our shelves. We are profoundly grateful for the lifetime of poems, essays, stories, questions, and wisdom he leaves behind.
If you have never read Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace is a beautiful place to begin. And if you have read him, we would love to hear which of his books, essays, or poems has stayed with you.
Wendell Berry
1934–2026
A good life. A remarkable body of work. And a great deal left for the rest of us to carry.
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Gathering twenty essays that offer an agrarian alternative to our dominant urban culture, The Art of the Commonplace is Wendell Berry "speaking with calm and sanity out of the wilderness" (The Washington Post Book World) Grouped around five themes--an agrarian critique of culture, agrarian fundament...
