Thirty years ago, the celebrated American writer Edward Hoagland, in his early fifties and already with a dozen acclaimed books under his belt, decided to have, instead of a mid-life crisis, a mid-life adventure. Pencil and notebook at the ready, Hoagland lit out to explore and write about one of the last truly wild territories remaining on the face of the earth: Alaska. From the Arctic Ocean to the Kenai Peninsula, and the backstreet bars of Anchorage to the Yukon River, Hoagland traveled the "real" Alaska from top to bottom. En route, he chronicled the lives of an astonishing and unforgettable array of prospectors, trappers, millionaire freebooters, drifters, oilmen, Inuits, and a remarkably kind and capable frontier nurse named Linda. In his foreword, novelist Howard Frank Mosher describes Edward Hoagland's Alaska travel memoir as "the best book ever written about America's last best place." In the tradition of Twain's "Life on the Mississippi" and Jonathon Rabin's "Old Glory", with a beautiful love story at its heart, this is an American masterwork by a writer hailed by the "Washington Post" as "the Thoreau of our times." Praise for Edward Hoagland: "America's most intelligent and wide-ranging essayist-naturalist". (Philip Roth). "Edward Hoagland is excitingly smart." (Annie Dillard). "Hoagland's writing is second to no one's". (Robert Stone). "Hoagland is our wild world's literary virtuoso". (Annie Proulx).
| ISBN | 1611455030 | | Pages | 208 | | ISBN13 | 9781611455038
(What's this?) | | Weight (grammes) | 363 | | Publisher | Skyhorse Publishing | | Published in | New York | | Imprint | Arcade Publishing | | Height (mm) | 230 | | Format | Hardback | | Width (mm) | 152 | | Publication date | 07 Jun 2012 | | Spine width (mm) | 25 | | DEWEY | 917.980451 | | Academic level | General | | DEWEY edition | DC23 | |
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Hoagland inserts historical facts about the towns and cities he visited, and he provides plenty of appealing natural descriptions of a wondrous landscape. A pleasing combination of personal essays and reflections, a love story and a naturalist's view of one of the last unspoiled lands. --Kirkus Reviews
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