Author Jerry Dennis
Welcome to my website. It's a work in progress, with many changes yet to come, so please visit often.
My autumn 2011 book tour is winding down, with the final appearance of the year upcoming December 23 at my home bookstore, Horizon Books in Traverse City, Michigan. The full schedule is on the Events page.
Read an excerpt from The Windward Shore here.
NEW! See the book trailer produced by Aaron Dennis and Stone Hut Studios here.
SPECIAL HOLIDAY OFFER FROM GLENN WOLFF! GLENN WILL MAIL A SIGNED AND NUMBERED ENGRAVING OF THE COVER ART OF THE WINDWARD SHORE AND A SIGNED COPY OF THE BOOK FOR $100. ONLY 100 AVAILABLE. ORDER HERE.
IN BOOKSTORES NOW:
THE WINDWARD SHORE: A WINTER ON THE GREAT LAKES
From the publisher:
If you have been enchanted by Jerry Dennis’s earlier works on sailing the Great Lakes, canoeing, angling, and the natural wonders of water and sky—or if you have not yet been lucky enough to enjoy his engaging prose—you will want to immerse yourself in his powerful and insightful new book about winter in Great Lakes country.
Grounded by a knee injury, Dennis learns to live at a slower pace while staying in houses ranging from a log cabin on Lake Superior’s Keweenaw Peninsula to a $20-million mansion on the northern shore of Lake Michigan. Walking beaches and exploring nearby woods and villages, he muses on the nature of time, weather, waves, agates, books, words for snow and ice, our complex relationship with nature, and much more.
From the Introduction:
“I wanted to present a true picture of a complex region, part of my continuing project to learn at least one place on earth reasonably well, and trusted that it would appear gradually and accumulatively—and not as a conventional portrait, but as a mosaic that included the sounds and scents and textures of the place and its inhabitants. Bolstered by the notion that a book is a journey that author and reader walk together, I would search for promising trails and follow them as far as my reconstructed knee would allow.”
Advance Praise:
“Our country is lucky to have Jerry Dennis. A conservationist with the soul of a poet whose beat is Wild Michigan, Dennis is a kindred spirit of Aldo Leopold and Sigurd Olson. The Windward Shore—his newest effort—is a beautifully written and elegiac memoir of outdoor discovery. Highly recommended!”—Douglas Brinkley, author of The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America
"In prose as clear as the lines in a Dürer etching, Jerry Dennis maps his home ground, which ranges outward from the back door of his farmhouse to encompass the region of vast inland seas at the heart of our continent. Along the way, inspired by the company of water in all its guises—ice, snow, frost, clouds, rain, shore-lapping waves—he meditates on the ancient questions about mind and matter, time and attention, wildness and wonder. As in the best American nature writing—a tradition that Dennis knows well—here the place and the explorer come together in brilliant conversation."—Scott Russell Sanders, author of A Conservationist Manifesto
"Come for a journey; stay for an awakening. Jerry Dennis loves the Great Lakes, the swell of every wave, the curve of every rock. He wants you to love them too before our collective trashing of them wipes out all traces of their original character. Through his eyes, you will treasure the hidden secrets that reveal themselves only to those who linger and long. Elegant and sad at the same time, The Windward Shore is a love song for the Great Lakes and a gentle call to action to save them." --Maude Barlowe, author of Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water
Reviews:
"I have long been a fan of Dennis’s books and am something of an evangelist for his The Living Great Lakes so I expected to love this book but nothing prepared me for the deep connection it forged with me – a connection so strong that I spent two weeks avoiding reading the last chapter so the book would never end. But end it did and with a commandment to “Go forth.” I cannot imagine a more apt challenge and one that if they were among us that Thoreau and Aldo Leopold might have tossed. Yes, this book does compare to Walden and to The Sand Country Almanac. Yet, it’s entirely accessible and would make a suitable holiday gift for a fisherman, a motorcyclist or a hunter as well as those who love natural history...” READ MORE
"Part poem, part philosophical discourse, part memoir, a handy dose of scientific observation--Jerry Dennis’ new book, The Windward Shore: Winter on the Great Lakes, is not what I expected. I guess I thought I’d be taught lessons from nature, or maybe handed fables to live by, or healing through a walk in the woods. Instead the reader is taken on a sprawling stroll, on many winter days, through a writer’s mind, back and forth—ice and snow and life—as ideas pop and grow and find form in fine, pellucid prose..." READ MORE
"The Windward Shore might be described as our first philosophy of the Great Lakes. As Dennis takes in the view from a log cabin on Lake Superior or a $20 million mansion on Grand Traverse Bay, he can reflect back on a lifetime of learning about these places, pull images from that experience, follow his reading wherever it might lead, and sharpen the understanding of his love for this place. Over the years Dennis has been compared to many different writers--both those who write well about hunting and fishing, and those who work in the great tradition of American nature writing--but in this book I think his only model might have been Ralph Waldo Emerson. Dennis is very willing to write the quick glimpses of the important ideas that swirl at the edge of his reverie..." READ MORE
"Dennis has made the very ebb and flow of the Great Lakes define his life’s direction. Well known for his literary works on nature, science, outdoor sports, Michigan’s lakes, and this entire Bountiful World, Dennis has become the collective voice of integrity when considering our magnificent waterways..." READ MORE
"As autumn recedes under the lowering, snow-filled skies of winter, curl up in a warm place with the newest book of essays by celebrated nature writer Jerry Dennis, with wood engravings by the incomparable Glenn Wolff. Or better yet, follow the writer outside, as he takes you on a guided exploration along The Windward Shore: A Winter on the Great Lakes. The book continues Dennis’ complex relationship with a region that he says is difficult to easily define or know, as it encompasses so many diverse elements, loved or used or thrown away by so many..." READ MORE
"Jerry Dennis is a natural treasure, and he keeps writing new and more wonderful books. Fitting him into a specific category can be a bit difficult because he is at once an outdoor writer, a conservationist, a nature lover, a dreamer, who develops words of magic that capture the soul and spirit of those of us lucky enough to live near the Great Lakes..." READ MORE
Copyright © 2011 Jerry Dennis. All Rights Reserved.
