Indian Summer: Musings on the Gift of Life - Tapa blanda

"These essays aren't simply a collection of reportage. Rather, they are funny, painful, insightful, and sometimes surprising conclusions of a man who actually knows how to think - and who entices readers to join him. Part of what he thinks is that life is fascinating, if often absurd. Life, he lets us know in fresh ways, is messy and engaging, unpredictable and absolutely crawling with ambiguity and contingency. And even though it sometimes drives him nuts, he wouldn't have it any other way." - Bill Tammeus"

Indian Summer is the newest collection of personal essays by Sam Pickering. In typical Pickering fashion, he seeks to capture the gift of living. He brings to the page again his family, students, and a wealth of country characters who live in places that exist only in his imagination and who wander through the stories he tells. He describes how his life has been altered by his children leaving home for college, and he ponders the changes aging brings and the things that never change. The consummate teacher, he celebrates academic life and the pleasures of the classroom. Readers will roam familiar ground with Pickering as he explores the fields and small hills of eastern Connecticut and the bogs and woods on his farm in Nova Scotia. Indian Summer celebrates hearing and seeing. Butterflies tumble across the pages, flowers bloom and wilt, and dragonflies glitter like stained glass in the sunlight. Pickering teaches us to value our words and to laugh at the world around us. His musings mirror his desire for his readers to appreciate life a little more after exploring this book.