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The Salt House
The Salt House is a beautifully observed and written memoir of a long summer's stay on the back shore of Cape Cod. Each chapter is like a prose poem, shedding increasing light on the challenge of finding "home" without the illusion of permanence, a quest based not on ownership but on affinity and familiarity with an area and its people. Cynthia Huntington expands her theme...more
Hardcover, 199 pages
Published
July 1st 1999
by Dartmouth Publishing Group
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Some books require a person to slow down, connect to senses, to the inner world of knowing, and the outer world of touch. The Salt House is such a book. It revels in the senses, and Cynthia Huntington's descriptions are deeply poetic.
I had to wait to enter into it -- wait until my inner rhythm (of beeping cars, a move across the country, and fast-paced work), was slow enough to enter in -- like stepping into a hot bath -- before I could really enjoy this active meditation.
Cynthia Huntington, pro...more
I had to wait to enter into it -- wait until my inner rhythm (of beeping cars, a move across the country, and fast-paced work), was slow enough to enter in -- like stepping into a hot bath -- before I could really enjoy this active meditation.
Cynthia Huntington, pro...more
A beautiful, very poetic account of 3 summers spent in one of the dune shacks on Cape Cod, and simultaneously a story of a budding relationship, about finding your place in the universe and connecting with the world around you and nature in particular. It reminds me of summers spent in Hirtshals, Denmark in my grandparents summer home on the front row dunes of the Ingeborg Klitten. I absolutely LOVE this book! There are so many beautiful passages throughout, and I know I'll have to read it again...more
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A beautifully written memoir of a summer lived in a shack on Cape Cod, right on the beach. The book reads almost like a poem, with hauntingly rendered imagery. My only issue is I couldn't really get stuck into it well enough, not with the sounds of the city around me and my children clambering for attention. I would like to try again during a more quiet time in my life.
This is a beautiful and ultimately romantic book, in all senses of the word "romantic." Who wouldn't want to spend 4 months in a rustic Cape Cod cabin with their loved one; no TV, no internet, no distractions?
I must admit, I'm a sucker for these seasonal nature memoirs. This is very similar to Ted Kooser's book about 4 seasons in the Bohemian Alps. Kooser's style is a bit homier. Huntington's writing has a morose and apocalyptic undercurrent here and there. It's a bit sexier. But these books ar...more
I must admit, I'm a sucker for these seasonal nature memoirs. This is very similar to Ted Kooser's book about 4 seasons in the Bohemian Alps. Kooser's style is a bit homier. Huntington's writing has a morose and apocalyptic undercurrent here and there. It's a bit sexier. But these books ar...more
The author describes in simple and eloquent prose her experiences, moment by moment at a Dune Shack. I have been there; I thank the author for letting me relive my precious moments on the beach.
The Salt House was not filled with plot or characters or conflict...rather long descriptive writing about the writer's observations and daily experiences while living simply with her artist husband in a Dune Shack named Euphoria. Heaven. She took time to notice and describe the smallest beauty in her beachy world and the nearby woods--from marsh hawks to sand tracks to ocean waves. It took a real effort for me to quiet my mind and focus on her words to envision what she was seeing, and as such,...more
Wonderfully written. The sentences flow like poetry. Full of images.
This was a beautiful read and I know I'll go back to it again and again.
I'm a sucker for any book that talks about living on Cape Cod or the Islands.
ever since I read this book many years ago, it's stayed in my mind. The life Huntington lived the summer of this memoir...in a dune shack with the ocean at her feet, has become one of my most wished for fantasy lives.
The mark of a good book is that it stays in your mind long after. This is a good book!
The mark of a good book is that it stays in your mind long after. This is a good book!
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Beautifully written account of a writer and artist who spent three summers in a P-town dune shack. However, if reading several pages about the daily habits of the piping plovers sounds dull, then this is not for you. It reminded me of "Walden". Lots of observations on nature.
I want to live this life! i'd love to spend a summer in one of these cottages, isolated from people, mayhem, life in general. Her words are poetic and beautiful.
language, language, language. this book is gorgeous in that respect.
Feb 21, 2013
Carli Brosseau
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Feb 07, 2013
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Carol Mccue
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Cynthia Huntington is an American poet, memoirist and a professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College.[1] She has published several books of poetry, most recently The Radiant (Four Way Books, 2003). In 2004 she was named Poet Laureate of New Hampshire.[2] She has published poems in numerous literary journals and magazines including TriQuarterly, The Michigan Quarterly Review, Harv...more
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