“Our country is lucky to have Jerry Dennis. A conservationist with the soul of a poet...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 

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NEWS  5/17/13:  The new edition of Canoeing Michigan Rivers is here -- and it has waterproof covers! Ask for it at your favorite bookstores. Or, for signed copies from Jerry, contact him here.  Many thanks to Chelsea Bay Design for the stunning new front and back covers.

NEWS 5/17/13: Check back soon to see Jerry's new and improved website, currently under construction by  Chelsea Bay Design. We will also soon launch a new site dedicated to Michigan's rivers, with up-to-date news reports, personal essays, testimonials, photos, short films, and pertinent links dedicated to paddling, fishing, and the environmental health of our state's rivers and streams.

NEWS 4/19/13:  Jerry's essay, "Can We Inspire a New Generation of Stewards?"  is awarded second place in the 2012 WOLFoundation Essay Contest to celebrate essays that further the socio-economic debate. Download the essay here.
First place went to the amazing Damon DiMarco for his compelling inquiry into environmental crises in undeveloped nations, "Brown Is Just As Important As Green." Read it here.

NEWS 12/17/12: Glenn Wolff, Chad Pastotnik, and I are delighted to announce the release of a new edition of our signed-and-numbered, letterpress broadside, "The Trout in Winter," published by Deep Wood Press. This is our third collaboration and, like the others, was created at Chad's beautiful and inspiring studio on the banks of Antrim County's Cedar River in northern Michigan. And, as with the others, there was something magical about the process... To learn more, visit my blog.

NEWS:  The Windward Shore has been selected as the campus read for the 2012-13 school year at Washtenaw Community College in Ann Arbor, MI. The college-wide theme of the school year is water, and The Windward Shore will be read in classes across many disciplines.

Read an excerpt from The Windward Shore here.

See the book trailer produced by Aaron Dennis and Stone Hut Studios, with magnificent photos and time-lapse footage of the Great Lakes by Aaron, Ken Scott, and others.

JOIN JERRY ON FACEBOOK!


NOW IN PAPERBACK:

THE WINDWARD SHORE: A WINTER ON THE GREAT LAKES

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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:

"Every once in awhile, communities are blessed with a voice -- someone who can describe the simple and extraordinary, who can define the connection between people and place. Jerry Dennis is just such a voice for northern Michigan. Through the lyrical passages of his books, Dennis teaches us about shorelines, rivers, lakes. His words speak deep truths, his poignant meditations bind together those of us who love the Great Lakes. The Windward Shore has become my go-to gift -- I send it to people who have never visited Michigan, to people who've moved away, and to people who now call this state home. I love all of Dennis's books, but I have to say, I think he completely knocked it out of the universe with this one.”
                        -- Kate Bassett, Harbor Light Newspaper


"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
 



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