Happy Friday! This week, Public Services Librarian Kelly Clever wants to tell us about the audiobook she's been listening to recently: A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (And Some Bears) by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling.
This book sat on my Audible wishlist for a year or so before I finally decided to give it a listen. I don't remember howI first heard of it, but I do remember that the title made me laugh. In 2004, a group of libertarian-minded people identified the small town of Grafton, New Hampshire, as the perfect location for a libertarian society. They spread word of their plan through websites and message boards, and soon liberty-lovers from around the nation began moving there with the intent to vote out the existing local government and to install no government at all in its place.
Unfortunately for the libertarian colonizers, however, Grafton was already home to an impressive population of particularly bold black bears. The bear situation was not improved by the sudden influx of people living in the woods and disposing of their garbage in any manner they chose.
The book is filled with memorable characters, both human and ursine. In the audio version, the narrator's deadpan delivery adds to the drama and hilarity. We meet a woman known as Doughnut Lady who began feeding doughnuts to the bears several times a day. We learn about an eccentric preacher from decades gone by who built a towering outdoor pulpit to preach above the treetops. My personal favorite anecdote so far is about an old farmer and her guard-llama, who gave one cow-hunting black bear the butt-kicking of its life.
I expect this book would be enjoyable for people from any political orientation who appreciate oddball history and dry humor. And bears.
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