The run

by John Hay

Clean cover has only mild wear. Pages are mildly tanned, but otherwise clean and unmarked. Ships fast from California.

Genres: Nature, Animals

184 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 1975

About the author

John Hay (August 31, 1915, Ipswich, Massachusetts – February 26, 2011, Bremen, Maine was an American author, naturalist, and conservation activist. Hay co-founded the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History in Brewster, Massachusetts and served as its president from 1955 to 1980. He composed 18 books from his "writing shack" on Dry Hill at his home in Brewster, Massachusetts, including two autobiographies, A beginner's faith in things unseen (1995) and Mind the Gap: The Education of a Nature Writer. (2004).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ha...

Reviews

[Nelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic nature writing. A personal favorite (it is about my study species, after all, and about ecology I have spent most of my life steeped in) that I re read this time of year in honor both of these fish and their spring spawning migration, but also for my friend with whom I shared a love of all of this, and took more than once to take part in citizen science counting these fish on their way inland in a little river in Maine.

“It is not I think, incongruous to apply the word love to a cold-blooded fish. In this spawning act there is an imperative rhythm, with grace in its preparation and power in its fulfillment.”

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow-paced, gentleman-poet-naturalist style. Quite reminiscent of The Outermost House. Sometimes, I think I was born in the wrong era.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been visiting Cape Cod for 60+ years, and I follow several Cape Cod related Instagram accounts. This spring one of the people I follow challenged folks to read John Hay's The Run to fully appreciate and understand Cape Cod nature, specifically the life habits of the alewives. I accepted the challenge and loved this book.

All these years I have walked the Brewster-Harwich area and kayaked ponds and the Herring River almost unaware of all the action going on under me. Sure, I knew herring runs existed, but I never saw the alewives or understood their journey from salt water to ponds and back. Mr. Hay's description of the challenges, danger, and beauty of alewives' lives read like a novel. This book turned up my awareness and curiosity of nature a notch. It offered me a more robust, vigorous understanding of Cape. Did it change my life? No, but it caused a shift.

I recommend.

[Scott Sanders · Rating 4 out of 5]

Less well known than he deserves to be, John Hay (1915-2011) wrote lyrical, ecologically-grounded celebrations of nature as viewed from his beloved Cape Cod. The Run, about the annual migration of alewives, the first of his books, is one of my favorites. But I also return with pleasure to The Bird of Light, about the soaring terns, and his more philosophical books, such as A Beginner's Faith in Things Unseen and In the Company of Light. An excellent introduction is The Way to the Salt Marsh: A John Hay Reader, edited by poet and essayist Christopher Merrill.