Robert Kimber - Böcker

Wilderness is central to the image of Maine most of us carry in our minds. In this extraordinary collection nearly forty writers, poets, artists, and photographers bear witness to the central role it plays in Maine, its importance to our understanding of nature, to our sense of who we are in the world, to our very souls. And some of them devote practical thinking to how we might recover and nurture wilderness in the future.At this time of major changes in land ownership in the North Woods and of development pressures and sprawl threatening the rural landscape of southern and central Maine, these voices for wilderness could not be more relevant.

Bob, living in a farmhouse near the pond, buys a dilapidated camp at the water's edge and finds his way down there almost daily, to swim or ski, depending on the season. His friends discover the allure of the pond, too--summer afternoons of swimming with Bob, his wife Rita, and an assortment of canine dog-paddlers, or companionable conversations over a beer, enjoying the beauty of a quiet pond beyond the porch. Bob tells the McNairs about a neighboring camp up for sale, a perfect little camp, compact as a ship in all its details, and they buy it. Roorbach feels drawn to the pond so strongly that he and his wife sometimes bushwack through underbrush so as not to intrude, but the pond is a place where this trio of friendships flourishes. Told with humor and affection, the stories in this small book will appeal to anyone who feels drawn to spend time near water.

Kimber shares his adventures, misadventures, and reflections as a part-time farmer and fetcher of firewood, his struggles with recalcitrant sheep and aging tractors, the joys of roaming the hills with his dog, plunking for pickerel in the lily pads, savoring the echoes of silence in a sleeping Maine village. Like a good apple pie, these essays are a blend of the sweet and the tart, the aromatic and the astringent, seasoned with a dash of wit and self irony, these love letters to life upcountry are as crisp, fresh, and bracing as they are affectionate.