From Publishers Weekly
This collection of columns and articles by Anderson, outdoors editor of the St. Paul Pioneer Press , should mainly appeal to outdoors fans in his region. Anderson clearly loves nature; describing a trip to a hunting cabin, he declares, "I have more country in me than city and more autumn in me than summer." His fluid prose is sometimes overdramatic but generally colloquial; his topics include duck hunting in Alaska, a visit to a resident of rural Minnesota who was once dubbed "Loneliest Woman in America" and tracking grouse with Minnesota Vikings head coach Bud Grant. More than half the book is devoted to Anderson's 1988 series, "Empty Skies: America's Ducks in Crisis," for which he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Anderson documented illegal harvests of ducks in Louisiana, probed the waterfowl conservation organization Ducks Unlimited and prompted greater waterfowl law enforcement in Louisiana. However, for a book, he might have converted the articles, written in daily journalistic style, into more of a narrative.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
In the first half of this book, Anderson, an outdoors editor for the St. Paul Pioneer Press , compiles columns on dogs, ducks, cowboys, fishing, and friendship. Many of the columns are set in and beyond the upper Midwest. The second half, which dates mostly from 1988, forms a series called "Empty Skies: America's Ducks in Crisis." He reports on illegal hunting in Louisiana and examines the mismanagement, habitat loss, and hunting ignorance from Mexico to Canada that has contributed to the decline of animal populations in the past four decades. Though the series is a powerful indictment of poor hunting practices, the miscellaneous pieces vary greatly in quality and suffer from lack of polish. In addition, the roughness of the first half and the datedness of the second make this unlikely to appeal to those not familiar with the author's column.
- Roland Person, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Roland Person, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
