From Here to There and Back Again

by Sue Hubbell

"Sue Hubbell's From Here to There and Back Again is stylish and thought-provoking. As her brother I have long admired her mince pies and her ability to knit her own thermal underwear."
---Bil Gilbert "The real masterwork that Sue Hubbell has created is her life."
--- New York Times Book Review "A latter-day Henry Thoreau with a sense of the absurd."
--- Chicago Sun-Times "Sue Hubbell writes splendidly."
---William Least Heat-Moon "Prose as clear, languorous and beautiful as honey poured from a jar."
--- People From Here to There and Back Again is the much-anticipated collection of essays on an array of offbeat and engrossing subjects by magazine essayist and nature writer Sue Hubbell, author of A Country Year, Shrinking the Cat , and Waiting for Aphrodite . Reading Sue Hubbell is like embarking on a journey of discovery with a close friend. Her writing is witty, learned yet unassuming, intensely personal, and pointedly honest as she ranges far and wide on such topics as after-hours truck stops, the country's best pie restaurants, bowling shoes, Costa Rica's blue morpho butterfly, earthquakes, and the honey trade. Several of her pieces take place in Michigan locales as well, including Elvis sightings in Vicksburg and the magicians' convention in Colon. In the end you'll return from these travels refreshed, enlightened-and wiser.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Memoir

192 pages, Hardcover

First published July 14, 2004

About the author

Sue Hubbell is a graduate of the Universtiy of Southern California. She received a master's degree in library science from the Drexel Institute of Technology and was a librarian at Brown University. In addition to her books she has written for Time Magazine, Smithsonian Magazine, The New Yorker, the New York Times and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She currently resides in Maine.

Reviews

[Neil · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could read Sue Hubbell's clean, clear, sensible prose for ever.

[Kira FlowerChild · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved the first book I read by Sue Hubbell, A Country Year: Living the Questions. This is a collection of (mostly) autobiographical essays originally written in the 1980s, many of which were published in magazines like The New Yorker and Smithsonian Magazine. The topics do not seem to belong in either magazine, with some of the longer essays being about Elvis sightings and impersonators, an annual gathering of magicians, and an interminable list of various pies found at diners and restaurants across the U.S. If I'm being totally honest, I should put this on my DNF list, but I feel I paid my dues. Sure, I skimmed. Skipped passages towards the end. I was terminally bored and I just didn't care.

I had set a goal for myself to read the physical books sitting on my bookshelf that I haven't read. This is a dismal start. I can only hope the rest are better than this one. That wouldn't be hard. This one is already on the donate pile.