false 23194 2 When David James Duncan was growing up in suburban Portland, Oregon, he had no river to call his own, so he would routinely create one by flooding his mother's garden with a hose. He would then revel in his creation until he received the inevitable scolding. The poor kid couldn't help himself: "Running water ... felt as necessary to me as food, sleep, parents, and air," he explains. In time, he exchanged his nozzle for a fly rod and went in search of grander gardens, eventually developing an "interior coho compass" which he has traveled by ever since. <p> As any reader of <I>The River Why</I> knows, Duncan is a master of the art of writing about fishing--which is also to say life, since the two for him are indelibly linked. But these essays deal with far more than leaky waders and rising trout. Part memoir, part activist treatise, <I>My Story As Told by Water</I> is Duncan's love song to wild places and the creatures which inhabit them. The book's highlight is his powerfully convincing essay "A Prayer for the Salmon's Second Coming," in which he argues that saving salmon is crucial to both man and fish alike: "A 'modern Northwest' that cannot support salmon is unlikely to support 'modern Northwesterners' for long," he writes. In this elegant demand for the removal of four Snake River dams (out of 221 on the Snake/Columbia system), Duncan declares the wild salmon "a holiness, a divine gift," a role model rather than a resource: "Salmon are a light darting not just through water, but through the human mind and heart. Salmon help shield us from fear of death by showing us how to follow our course without fear, and how to give ourselves for the sake of things greater than ourselves." <p> He also ruminates on the true meanings of "place" and "home"; offers a fable on the 1872 Mining Act, "the most anachronistic and devastating piece of 'corporate welfare' in the world"; and details how Montanans rallied to prevent a giant mining company from extracting gold near the Blackfoot River, the setting of the Norman Maclean classic <I>A River Runs Through It</I>. All in all, <I>My Story As Told by Water</I> is a moving collection by an exquisite writer endowed with wit, compassion, and the rare ability to appeal to both emotion and reason in equal measures. <I>--Shawn Carkonen</I> 24186 17 7 2001 My Story as Told by Water: Confessions, Druidic Rants, Reflections, Bird-Watchings, Fish-Stalkings, Visions, Songs and Prayers Refracting Light, from Living Rivers, in the Age of the Industrial Dark total:218|5:80|4:77|3:51|2:10|1:0| 218 881 333 23 5 1 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 24 10:57:09 -0700 2008 Wed May 28 13:20:10 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Oct 24 12:56:32 -0700 2008 Fri Oct 24 12:57:01 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Thu Jul 31 07:55:46 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 03 22:29:44 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Thu Sep 24 07:04:30 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 24 07:05:08 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Tue Sep 01 17:12:24 -0700 2009 Tue Sep 01 17:13:07 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Thu Jan 01 09:30:18 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 01 09:30:34 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sat Dec 13 14:09:35 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 13 14:09:51 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Sun Aug 16 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Jul 22 07:43:17 -0700 2009 Sun Aug 16 17:54:55 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Apr 14 21:11:19 -0700 2007 Thu Aug 30 12:16:03 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Mar 31 16:12:32 -0700 2008 Mon Mar 31 16:14:51 -0700 2008
Are you seeing a trend? Yes. You are.

David James Duncan if you are out there, please come to my house and have a cup of tea with me.

Not sure ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Feb 26 14:18:33 -0800 2008 Wed May 07 16:17:48 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Oct 28 23:55:22 -0700 2008 Thu Aug 07 13:16:47 -0700 2008 Tue Oct 28 23:55:22 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Oct 14 08:03:12 -0700 2008 Tue Oct 14 08:09:12 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 24 14:02:54 -0800 2008 Sun Feb 01 12:21:15 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Aug 03 17:19:08 -0700 2008 Sun Aug 03 17:21:29 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Mon Jun 16 15:54:13 -0700 2008 Mon May 19 10:24:55 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 16 15:54:13 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Sat Jan 26 13:17:10 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 26 13:18:00 -0800 2008 5 0 false false Mon Sep 24 19:46:20 -0700 2007 Mon Sep 24 19:47:32 -0700 2007 3 0 false false Fri Nov 09 19:28:12 -0800 2007 Fri Nov 09 19:28:56 -0800 2007 4 0 false false Wed Jul 30 22:01:26 -0700 2008 Wed Jul 30 22:01:26 -0700 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=23194