Tom Montgomery Fate
Auteur van Cabin Fever: A Suburban Father's Search for the Wild
Over de Auteur
Tom Montgomery Fate is the author of five books, including Beyond the White Noise and Steady and Trembling. His essays have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Orion, and many other publications. He teaches creative writing at the College of DuPage in Illinois, where he lives with his toon meer family. His cabin is in south west Michigan. toon minder
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Cabin Fever: A Suburban Father's Search for the Wild door Tom Montgomery Fate
A lot of discussion and ties to Thoreau, making Walden and Thoreau's Journals more approachable since the author ties a lot of his experiences to Thoreau's. I found the author's life to be fascinating. His life and set up at the Michigan cabin was really fascinating and would love to have learned even more about what that place was like and what his family did there and how it all came to be.
Slow read, which is what works best for books like this. Makes you reflect on things going on in your own life.
As a general rule, I am not a huge fan of nature books. In fact, in general, nature is not really my thing. The times that I’ve tried to get into the outdoors generally end with a virulent case of poison ivy or hyperventilating halfway up a mountain. How I’m related to a barefoot-hiking Wonder Woman, I have no idea.
However, I do love the natural environments around the Midwest, from Lake Michigan, home of many a childhood adventure, to the Riverwalk through downtown Naperville. (I ran along the DuPage River today – and enjoyed it!) Luckily, I’m the audience for Cabin Fever: A Suburban Father's Search for the Wild ,* a pleasant surprise. Inspired by Thoreau, Fate is all about finding joy in the wilderness around you. “What most interests me here is the natural miracle of revision, of learning to see again,” he says. “I am looking less for a pure subject than for a moment of pure vision: to see what is in plain sight—a glimpse of the Wild in the ordinary. Wildness, as Thoreau demonstrates over and over, is not an undiscovered insect or island, but a quality of awareness, a way of seeing.”
Cabin Fever: A Suburban Father's Search for the Wild is a series of essays, with Thoreau’s work often as a jumping-off point for Fate to discuss what’s around him. There is a literal cabin in southwest Michigan, but thankfully this is not a book about a guy who has to leave behind everything in the suburbs to “find himself” in the woods. Instead it’s about balancing one’s family and work with a desire for communing with nature. It’s about finding as much joy in watching deer in the woods as lions on a safari. It turns out those are sentiments even I can understand.
If there’s one thing that caught me off guard about the book, it’s that nature is violent and often sad. A story about a family of cardinals does not end well. But other stories, like Fate’s determination to cut down trees in his front yard, were both very funny and resonant (if my husband never wields a chainsaw again, it will be too soon—for me). It’s refreshing to read a book featuring nature or the environment that doesn’t make you feel guilty, a la Silent Spring or is so pedantic you want to say “I get it already!” (Here’s looking at you, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder ).
The best way I can recommend this book is to say there’s someone in your life that will like it, even if you are not that person. I’m headed to Anderson’s tomorrow night to see what Fate has to say in person about this book. Future readings/signings are here.
*If requesting this book, make sure to make it clear that you want the book about the guy in the woods, not the book about the witch in West Virginia into light bondage. Yes, that happened.
www.elizabethsbooks.com… (meer)
However, I do love the natural environments around the Midwest, from Lake Michigan, home of many a childhood adventure, to the Riverwalk through downtown Naperville. (I ran along the DuPage River today – and enjoyed it!) Luckily, I’m the audience for Cabin Fever: A Suburban Father's Search for the Wild ,* a pleasant surprise. Inspired by Thoreau, Fate is all about finding joy in the wilderness around you. “What most interests me here is the natural miracle of revision, of learning to see again,” he says. “I am looking less for a pure subject than for a moment of pure vision: to see what is in plain sight—a glimpse of the Wild in the ordinary. Wildness, as Thoreau demonstrates over and over, is not an undiscovered insect or island, but a quality of awareness, a way of seeing.”
Cabin Fever: A Suburban Father's Search for the Wild is a series of essays, with Thoreau’s work often as a jumping-off point for Fate to discuss what’s around him. There is a literal cabin in southwest Michigan, but thankfully this is not a book about a guy who has to leave behind everything in the suburbs to “find himself” in the woods. Instead it’s about balancing one’s family and work with a desire for communing with nature. It’s about finding as much joy in watching deer in the woods as lions on a safari. It turns out those are sentiments even I can understand.
If there’s one thing that caught me off guard about the book, it’s that nature is violent and often sad. A story about a family of cardinals does not end well. But other stories, like Fate’s determination to cut down trees in his front yard, were both very funny and resonant (if my husband never wields a chainsaw again, it will be too soon—for me). It’s refreshing to read a book featuring nature or the environment that doesn’t make you feel guilty, a la Silent Spring or is so pedantic you want to say “I get it already!” (Here’s looking at you, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder ).
The best way I can recommend this book is to say there’s someone in your life that will like it, even if you are not that person. I’m headed to Anderson’s tomorrow night to see what Fate has to say in person about this book. Future readings/signings are here.
*If requesting this book, make sure to make it clear that you want the book about the guy in the woods, not the book about the witch in West Virginia into light bondage. Yes, that happened.
www.elizabethsbooks.com… (meer)
Statistieken
- Werken
- 2
- Leden
- 49
- Populariteit
- #320,875
- Waardering
- 3.4
- Besprekingen
- 3
- ISBNs
- 4