Journeys

Journeys is a collection of essays by a raconteur describing meanderings that range from his backyard to Canada and Australia, from the remnant of a salt water farm to fly-specked dinners, from running half-marathons to dozing through a hernia operation. Essays guide readers through small town in Tennessee and Nova Scotia then suddenly jolt them into fields blue and yellow with asters and goldenrod. Crowds of odd and oddly sophisticated people wander the margins of pages. Classes flash into paragraphs, rooms in which students interrupt lectures, asking, "Mr. Pickering, have you ever wondered about the patterns on bed sheets, why John Deere, not to mention Farmall, tractors don't appear on any sheets?"

Sam Pickering is a native Tennessean who has spent most of his life in New England. He is also an inveterate wanderer, having spent years in the Mid-East, Britain, Canada, and most recently in Australia and New Zealand. He teaches English at the University of Connecticut and has written more than 20 books and 200 articles.