Helen Macdonald has just won the Samuel Johnson Prize, a VERY big deal. Nice to see prizes go to someone whose writing eminently deserves it, especially when her choice of subject is so quirky, even controversial, as falconry. It may say something about literary England– or nature loving England– that they would give a prize …
Tag: Books
Congratulations Paula! (and reluctant self- promotion)
Friend of the blog Paula Young Lee, writer and hunter, traveler, sometime resident of Paris France, Paris Maine, and Wellesley Mass, has won the Gold Medal for travel book from the Society of American Travel Writers for her book Deer Hunting in Paris. I bet it could as easily win one for hunting book, or …
Quote
“A great many rifles and shooting books have passed through my life since the day I purchased that first 7 X 57 40 years ago this month, and the lessons learned have been many. One was to hold onto rifles and books that continually prove not just practical but delightful, and get rid of those …
Shannon Hiatt, 1950- 2014
When Dr Jon Esposito– vet, pigeon expert, above all old friend, called this evening from El Paso, I had an odd apprehension, all too well confirmed in his first sentence: “Shannon just died– they found him in his pigeon loft, yesterday”. One the one hand, it was an appropriate way to go, almost comedically perfect …
Book Review #2
I have been promising a review of Paula Young Lee’s Deer Hunting in Paris for what seems like forever, and I apologize for taking so long. Part of it was thinking my way through to what I thought exactly or critically. I loved it and found it intensely quotable; on the other hand I found …
Book review # 1
Do you want to know what a real rancher thinks? There are some excellent novels by “ranchers and…”; that is, writers who come to ranching from something else. But if there is another first- rate writer who comes from three generations on the harsh plains of eastern Montana, I don’t know of him. John Moore …
Q Cover Redux
In the home stretch on the new edition of Q. For the cover, I still favor some variety of this photo (forgive quality of my amateur efforts; I am sure a designer could do wonders with my template). The publisher favors the old cover. Any last thoughts? Here are the mockups I attempted. The old …
Peter Matthiessen, RIP
Peter Mattthiessen has died at 86. the word had been out that he was not well, but he had been a figure on the horizon for all of us who write about nature for a lifetime, and like Patrick Leigh Fermor it seemed he might go on forever… I thought as a writer he could …
Pluvi is back!
And her new book is coming…
Two for the Books
From Joe Queenan’s bibliophile’s memoir One for the Books: “Great writers say things that are so beautiful, the act of repeating them makes life itself more beautiful.” “I love to pull my books down off the shelf and read striking passages to baffled dimwits who have turned up at my house.”