Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: River Home : An Angler's Explorations by Jerry Dennis ISBN: 0-312-25415-6 Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin Pub. Date: 11 March, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: I LOVED it!
Comment: Perhaps it has to do with living in the Midwest or on Lake Michigan, but 'The River Home' hit home in more than one way. Jerry Dennis brings out all the humor, irony and mishaps that anglers experience. I just didn't know these things happened to others until I read about them! He breaks down the pleasures of life and fishing to the simplest forms. Can't wait to break out the fly rod in spring!
Rating: 5
Summary: Jerry Dennis elevates the personal essay to a new level.
Comment: "Big trout are greedy," writes Jerry Dennis in one of the nineteen essays and five short stories that make up this splendid collection.
And as a writer, Dennis is as greedy as a big trout. He feeds voraciously on the facts, observations, insights and conclusions which tell him that as a writer he is alive.
Both long-time fans of Dennis's work and newcomers alike will find "The River Home" to be a special treat. Those familiar with his early book of fishing essays, "A Place on the Water" as well as his two books of natural history, "It's Raining Frogs and Fishes" and "A Bird in the Waterfall" will be able to trace his growth as a writer. Those who aren't will be amazed at the style at which Dennis has arrived at this point in his career.
I'll leave the official pronouncement of "a classic form" to wiser and more experienced reviewers. But in this book, Jerry Dennis has elevated the typical "outdoor" essay, usually a mere recollection of adventures while hunting, fishing, camping, canoeing, or pursuing other outdoor activities. He has transcended the typical by blending in elements of "nature" writing: observation, research, speculation about the world in which the sportsman places himself. And for Dennis, this world is not merely part of the background; it is part of the fabric of the experience in which he wraps himself.
For example, in the initial essay, "Home Again," as easily as he'd don a favorite pair of worn blue jeans, he slips into a discussion of the geological impact of glaciers on the part of Michigan where he lives. And in "Big Troug in Condor Country" he takes time out from taking you trout fishing to explain the topography of the Rio Puelo Valley and the lives of the people there.
If you want comparisons, I'll offer: Dennis is like John McPhee in that he speaks with authority based on exhaustive research and experience; the facts have become his own. He is like Walt Whitman who! wrote, "What I shall assume you shall assume." In places Dennis speaks of "we" and you quickly learn to trust his conclusions.
Whitman also wrote: "Do I contradict myslf? Very well then I contradict myself (I am large, I contain multitudes)
Contradictions didn't bother Whitman and they don't bother Dennis. In one essay, with a simple pejorative, he dismisses Thoreau's advice that a person be content to explore a few acres in a lifetime. But in another, whose title itself is a quote from ol' Henry David, "Simplify, Simplify" he paraphrases: "I am determined to live life deliberately. I refuse to fritter my life away on details ..."
Then again, perhaps he's not contradicting himself. Perhaps he is just being picky.
In addition to being greedy, big trout can also be selective.
 |
Title: A Place on the Water : An Angler's Reflections on Home by Jerry Dennis ISBN: 0312141270 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 15 January, 1996 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
 |
Title: The Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas by Jerry Dennis ISBN: 0312251939 Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books Pub. Date: 21 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
 |
Title: It's Raining Frogs and Fishes : Four Seasons of Natural Phenomena and Oddities of the Sky by Jerry Dennis ISBN: 0060921951 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 04 August, 1993 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
 |
Title: From a Wooden Canoe: Reflections on Canoeing, Camping, and Classic Equipment by Jerry Dennis, Glenn Wolff ISBN: 031226738X Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin Pub. Date: 08 September, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
 |
Title: At the Grave of the Unknown Fisherman by John Gierach ISBN: 0743229924 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 02 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
