Customer Reviews

A Listening Walk...and Other Stories

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A book of beautiful words describing a time and place almost gone. The outdoors comes to life with humour and tears as one remembers how things used to be, and wishes yet for things to come. This book gave me great pleasure as I read about hunting, fishing, and the spirituality of a life outside. I yearn for my children to encounter such beauty, and with the inspiration of Gene Hill, I am able to introduce them to this unique life.

I dedicate this awkward review to the man who introduced me to the words of Gene Hill, the late Dr. Don Diefendorf, himself a country gentleman and good friend. I will miss him.

This book is a collection of articles mostly written for and previosly pulblished by Field and Stream magazine. Gene Hill demonstrates his gift as a writer in each of these stories in having something to say and expressing it in a way that will touch your heart. I suppose if you have never fished or hunted or grown up in a rural setting and experienced the joys of being a 10 year old boy and longing for such things as a pocket knife, it is possible that this book will have little relavence to you. But if you do have any of that background, you will find yourself immersed in the joys of the past and how they relate to the present. It is also nice to hear from someone who (in my humble opinion) really gets the outdoor experience, that is not the heft of the game bag that matter so much, but rather how we experience nature, our relation to it and the comradery of our friends. Were he alive today, I could only say well done Mr. Hill.

Gene Hill writes in the Everyman Discipline, every man who takes the time to read the book can relate to moments and points of reflection Mr. Hill so splendidly weaves as he tells his tales. This should be required reading for the neophyte as well as the seasoned hunter. If you've not read Gene Hill you've not read about bird hunting, dogs and shotguns. This will pluck your heart strings, if it doesn't you have no soul!

I've only read a few of the stories in this book so far but can say it is and is going to be a great book. What i've read so far has detail, detail, and more detail on hunting, fishing, and alot more! It talks about being in Nature and what hunting and fishing is really about threw the eyes of a great author that any true sportsman would have no problem agreeing with. This book is an insight into hunting and fishing how it used to and should be and yet still is to many of us today, how my grandfather described hunting as he grew up. In summary, its a great read for any true Sportsman!

A Listening Walk is the first Gene Hill that I have read. As someone who has newly discovered the great outdoors I really enjoyed the essays about life in the outdoors. Overall, I liked his writing style. The book contains an interesting mix of humor, serious, nostalgic, and just plain entertaining stories drawn from Gene Hill's life. The essays that I enjoyed the most were (each worth a star in my rating):

1. Wanted: Ten-year old
2. Our World Without Shotguns
3. What Makes a Hunter
4. Some Things Never Change
5. The Responsible Sportman

If you enjoy tales about the outdoors, then I think you will enjoy the book. It is an easy read since each story is only a few pages, will make you laugh, and hopefully even ponder a little.

I don't generally write bad reviews but this book made me weary just reading it. I kept hoping the man was going to get serious and impart some unique experience based insight but every chapter was a duplicate of the last. Cover to cover 'one liners'. Hill obviously loves the outdoors but fails to get beyond why sportsmen love equipment. Most of his time is spent portraying outdoors-men as materialistic boobs. The equipment that he talks about is beyond the reach of the average fisherman or hunter. It's been my own experience that more fish in this country are caught using a Zebco than on a Orvis bamboo fly rod. The real issue is that you are or are not fishing, not how you look. The 'them and us' attitude towards other outdoor users also got old; everyone knows that 'tree huggers'are a threat but most people realize that their approach is not practical, why Hill continued to give them relevance is beyond me. Maybe my personal expectations of this writer were too great. Amazon suggested this book if you enjoyed "The Old Man And The Boy', this book isn't even in the same league. I did not enjoy the read.