Seasons & Days: A Hunting Life

Rating:
Summary: More than hunting
Review: "Seasons & Days" bears the subtitle "A Hunting Life," but that might have been more accurate if it were simply "Life." Thomas McIntyre is one of the most intelligent writers we have today, a master of the insightful - and frequently very amusing - essay. All of these essays revolve around hunting, but they are also meditations on the human experience. And beautifully written!

Rating:
Summary: A gourmet naturalist who happens to carry a gun
Review: Intense curiosity separates McIntyre from most writers in the hook and bullet trade. McIntyre is a naturalist and a storyteller who happens to carry a gun. Everything is of interest to this man. While devoted to hunting all over the globe, McIntyre also sets his sights and his talents to work describing the natural world: birds in flights, the machinations of rivers, the rattling of dried leaves and, yes, food. This writer is very serious about cooking and eating game. The charm in this book lies not so much in the detailing the stalk, which McIntyre does in great detail, but in his descriptions and conversations, for example, with a rail-thin, five-time married guide who helped McIntyre bag an ocelated turkey in Mexico.

McIntyre writes with passion for the outside, not just for what flies or trods upon the earth in cloven hoof, but for the earth itself. A first-rate read.