A wonder-working landscape, appreciatively rendered.
A prepossessing journey through Wisconsin’s driftless area in search of fish—though not only fish—that’s as pleasurably meandering as any of the spring creeks found there.
In the southwest corner of Wisconsin lies the driftless area, where the glaciers, for reasons still not understood, failed to reach. Unlike the smoothed country surrounding it, the driftless area is punched, crumpled, and unleveled. Through it, a number of spring creeks run, lovely miniatures: immediate, vivid, intimate waters that Leeson (The Gift of Trout, 1996, etc.) makes it his job to get to know. And he does, acutely. The fish might have drawn him to these locales—to Jerusalem, Emerald, and Mariposa creeks, though the names are all changed to protect the innocent waterways—but it’s not long before Leeson enters into a discriminating rapport with the entire landscape: the clarity, steadiness, and quiet beauty of the water; the hummingbirds; the jewelweed and wild mint; the lay of the land. He gets to know the place by beating the bounds, discerning the areas of specific streams and their environs as they fit his personal notion of perfection, then ranging out, “riding to the hounds of possibility,” with fishing as the spur but not the real deal: The sense of place overrides the throwing of a line on water. Leeson chinks his story with bits and pieces of Midwest sociology and Wisconsin history, stories of his chums, and recountings of those particularly rare days on the streams that “transport us outside of ourselves and envelope us in a kind of perpetual present.” These aren’t the elite spring creeks of Pennsylvania, California, or Montana, but they well afford Leeson a chance to take his bearings and patrol the borders of his own sensibilities. They’ve made a humble transcendentalist memoir of a fly fisherman.
A wonder-working landscape, appreciatively rendered.Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 1-58574-554-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Lyons Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s...
Music journalist and musician Wald (Talking 'Bout Your Mama: The Dozens, Snaps, and the Deep Roots of Rap, 2014, etc.) focuses on one evening in music history to explain the evolution of contemporary music, especially folk, blues, and rock.
The date of that evening is July 25, 1965, at the Newport Folk Festival, where there was an unbelievably unexpected occurrence: singer/songwriter Bob Dylan, already a living legend in his early 20s, overriding the acoustic music that made him famous in favor of electronically based music, causing reactions ranging from adoration to intense resentment among other musicians, DJs, and record buyers. Dylan has told his own stories (those stories vary because that’s Dylan’s character), and plenty of other music journalists have explored the Dylan phenomenon. What sets Wald's book apart is his laser focus on that one date. The detailed recounting of what did and did not occur on stage and in the audience that night contains contradictory evidence sorted skillfully by the author. He offers a wealth of context; in fact, his account of Dylan's stage appearance does not arrive until 250 pages in. The author cites dozens of sources, well-known and otherwise, but the key storylines, other than Dylan, involve acoustic folk music guru Pete Seeger and the rich history of the Newport festival, a history that had created expectations smashed by Dylan. Furthermore, the appearances on the pages by other musicians—e.g., Joan Baez, the Weaver, Peter, Paul, and Mary, Dave Van Ronk, and Gordon Lightfoot—give the book enough of an expansive feel. Wald's personal knowledge seems encyclopedic, and his endnotes show how he ranged far beyond personal knowledge to produce the book.
An enjoyable slice of 20th-century music journalism almost certain to provide something for most readers, no matter one’s personal feelings about Dylan's music or persona.Pub Date: July 25, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-236668-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dey Street/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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