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The Last Book
Readers familiar with Sam Pickering's delightful essays will certainly hope that the title of his latest collection is not intended as prophecy. A true original, Pickering offers observation on everyday life that never fail to sparkle with wit, insight, amusement, and wonder.
Freely blending fact with fiction-"Writing makes liars of us all," he notes-Pickering ranges easily and amiably from his home base in Storrs, Connecticut, to his roots in middle Tennessee, with numerous side trips to observe the natural world to refelct on the bonds of family and friends. One essay finds him playing auctioneer at a local arts council event, jollying the attendees with "tattered country tales" and fanciful, extravagant claims for items being sold. In another piece, his tongue-in-check remarks about the split infinitive, when quoted in a newspaper, ignite a small controversy that lands him on radio talk shows and provokes a flood of sometimes angry e-mail. Yet, whenever the irritations of the human world become a bit too wearying, Pickering finds ready refreshment in the doings of birds and insects and the splash of sunlight on a tree or flower.
Throughout these sixteen essays, Pickering implicitly heeds the advice he offers his son just before the boy much meet the parents of his prom :The good storyteller, I instructed Francis, heaps paragraph upon paragraph, just like a waitress serving mashed potatoes in a family-style restaurant." Having dined at the table of a master storyteller, readers will depart this collection feeling fully sated-indeed, well nourished.
The
A native of Nashville, Sam Pickering is a professor of English at the University of Connecticut and author of eleven previous books of essays. His most recent collections are Living to Prowl, Deprived of Happiness , and A Little Fling .
Freely blending fact with fiction-"Writing makes liars of us all," he notes-Pickering ranges easily and amiably from his home base in Storrs, Connecticut, to his roots in middle Tennessee, with numerous side trips to observe the natural world to refelct on the bonds of family and friends. One essay finds him playing auctioneer at a local arts council event, jollying the attendees with "tattered country tales" and fanciful, extravagant claims for items being sold. In another piece, his tongue-in-check remarks about the split infinitive, when quoted in a newspaper, ignite a small controversy that lands him on radio talk shows and provokes a flood of sometimes angry e-mail. Yet, whenever the irritations of the human world become a bit too wearying, Pickering finds ready refreshment in the doings of birds and insects and the splash of sunlight on a tree or flower.
Throughout these sixteen essays, Pickering implicitly heeds the advice he offers his son just before the boy much meet the parents of his prom :The good storyteller, I instructed Francis, heaps paragraph upon paragraph, just like a waitress serving mashed potatoes in a family-style restaurant." Having dined at the table of a master storyteller, readers will depart this collection feeling fully sated-indeed, well nourished.
The
A native of Nashville, Sam Pickering is a professor of English at the University of Connecticut and author of eleven previous books of essays. His most recent collections are Living to Prowl, Deprived of Happiness , and A Little Fling .
208 pages, Hardcover
First published September 5, 2001
1 person want to read
About the author
Samuel F. Pickering Jr.
36 books9 followersSam Pickering is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Conneticut.
Samuel F. Pickering Jr. (also known as Sam) was born in Nashville, attended Montgomery Bell Academy and the University of the South, and took advanced degrees at Cambridge and Princeton on his way to becoming a scholar of children's literature. In addition to scholarly books and articles, his writing life has been built on the familiar essay, where his wit, crusty affability, and sense of wonder often tinged with mischief shine through what he calls "forthright, workaday sentences." His topics range from wildflowers in Nova Scotia to small town gossip in Tennessee to the fusty pretensions of university life. As exercises in "gilding the mundane," Pickering's essays discover subtle ironies, juxtapose delight and melancholy, and wander afield but always return home.
Pickering's allegiance is always to the essays themselves, which are often based in fact but are not slaves to it. In "Composing a Life" from his first collection, A Continuing Education (1985), he writes, "The trouble is that I'm not sure if the things I remember actually happened." His blend of the madcap and mundane, as he says in another piece, can "thrust him against the actual." Pickering sees truth as composite, to be picked apart by language. His books include May Days (1987), Still Life (1990), and Walkabout Year: Twelve Months in Australia (1995). His life, he says, is like his writing: "slow, relaxed, punctuated by fits of pique and occasionally lust, but all in all meandering and gently contemplative."
Samuel F. Pickering Jr. (also known as Sam) was born in Nashville, attended Montgomery Bell Academy and the University of the South, and took advanced degrees at Cambridge and Princeton on his way to becoming a scholar of children's literature. In addition to scholarly books and articles, his writing life has been built on the familiar essay, where his wit, crusty affability, and sense of wonder often tinged with mischief shine through what he calls "forthright, workaday sentences." His topics range from wildflowers in Nova Scotia to small town gossip in Tennessee to the fusty pretensions of university life. As exercises in "gilding the mundane," Pickering's essays discover subtle ironies, juxtapose delight and melancholy, and wander afield but always return home.
Pickering's allegiance is always to the essays themselves, which are often based in fact but are not slaves to it. In "Composing a Life" from his first collection, A Continuing Education (1985), he writes, "The trouble is that I'm not sure if the things I remember actually happened." His blend of the madcap and mundane, as he says in another piece, can "thrust him against the actual." Pickering sees truth as composite, to be picked apart by language. His books include May Days (1987), Still Life (1990), and Walkabout Year: Twelve Months in Australia (1995). His life, he says, is like his writing: "slow, relaxed, punctuated by fits of pique and occasionally lust, but all in all meandering and gently contemplative."
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