Praise for Sam Pickering:
"The art of the essay as delivered by Mr. Pickering is the art of the front porch ramble."
---The New York Times Book Review
"Reading Pickering . . . is like taking a walk with your oldest, wittiest friend."
---Smithsonian
"What a joy it is to 'mess around' with Professor Sam Pickering!"
---The Chattanooga Times
"Pickering is a barefoot observer of the quotidian who revels in the spectacle and its gift for surprise, prefers the rumpled to the starched, has raised puttering and messing about to an art form, and wrings from it more than a pennyworth of happiness and a life well lived."
---Kirkus Reviews
The movie Dead Poets Society is where most Americans first met Sam Pickering, the University of Connecticut English professor. Robin Williams plays the lead character (loosely based on Pickering), an idiosyncratic instructor who employs some over-the-top teaching methods to keep his subjects fresh and his students learning.
Fewer know that Pickering is the author of more than 16 books and nearly 200 articles, or that he's inspired thousands of university students to think in new ways. And, while Williams may have captured Pickering's madcap classroom antics, he didn't uncover the other side of the author-Sam Pickering as one of our great American men of letters. Like the music of Mozart, the painting of Picasso, or the poetry of Emily Dickinson, you can spot Pickering's writing a mile away; there's no mistaking the Pickering pen. As an ample demonstration of the author's literary gifts, Waltzing the Magpies is his unabashedly lush and Technicolor travelogue from Down Under.
On the face of it, Waltzing is the chronicle of a sabbatical year spent with family in Australia. Yet beneath the surface Pickering's big themes-family, nature, seizing the moment-move in a powerful current that frequently bursts out in moments of ecstatic revelation and intense sensual flourish. Through it all Pickering weaves stories from his fictional Southern town of Carthage, Tennessee, especially when the goings of the outside world get rough.
Waltzing the Magpies is classic Pickering at the height of his literary powers, and places him in the company of such great American essayists as E. B. White and James Thurber, but with an irony and observational prowess that is pure Pickering.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Sam Pickering is Professor of English at University of Connecticut in Storrs. He's the author of more than a dozen books of essays, including Trespassing, The Blue Caterpillar and Other Essays, and The Last Book. He is married and has three children.
It seems a shame to preface any introduction to Pickering by saying he was the inspiration for Robin Williams' character in Dead Poet's Society, but if that's what it takes to get more people to read him, then so be it. In a just world, Pickering would be better known than Williams, and at times, his wry commentary is equally amusing. This new collection of essays should go a long way in gaining him the wider audience he deserves. Like a long, newsy letter from an old friend, Pickering recounts how he packed up his life, his wife, his children, and his penchant for quiet observation and moved the whole kit and caboodle to Australia for a year's sabbatical. Adopting the persona of a Connecticut Yankee in a kangaroo court, Pickering's delight with the natural world continues unabated. The flowers and birds might have different names, but their ability to fascinate Pickering remains the same. Few writers can entertain so thoroughly; few essayists can distill the world's vagaries with as deft a hand. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
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Seller: Monroe Street Books, Middlebury, VT, U.S.A.
Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 280 pages. Clean, tight copy. Record # 453093. Seller Inventory # 453093
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: ThriftBooks-Dallas, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. No Jacket. May have limited writing in cover pages. Pages are unmarked. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 1.35. Seller Inventory # G0472113771I4N00
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Seller: Manyhills Books, Traralgon, VIC, Australia
Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. Hardcover. 280 pages. *** PUBLISHING DETAILS: University of Michigan Press, 2007. *** CONDITION: The book itself is in very good condition and comes in near fine dust jacket. More specifically: Boards have no wear, rubbing or soiling. Spine has minor lean. Edges of dust jacket have light bumping. Dust jacket is unclipped. Edges of pages are lightly browned. *** ABOUT THIS BOOK: This is Pickering's second book about Australia, following on 'Walkabout Year', published in 1995. 'Waltzing the Magpies' recounts the year that the author and his family spent in western parts of Australia. *** Quantity Available: 1. Category: Travel & Places; ISBN/EAN: 9780472113774. Inventory No: 15100265. The photo of this book is of the actual book for sale. Seller Inventory # 15100265
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: BOOKHOME SYDNEY, Annandale Sydney, NSW, Australia
Hardback octavo, dustjacket, very good condition (in very good dustjacket), minor edgewear jacket. 280 pp. A travelogue by academic Sam Pickering, who writes energetically (sometimes critically) about his sabbatical year spent with family travelling around Australia, though based mostly in Perth. He provides incredible details about flora and fauna (pedantic, actually). His text lapses into his fictional fantasy world of Carthage, Tennessee, when he gets highly stressed. The author is a University of Connecticut English professor, who was played by Robin Williams in the movie 'Dead Poets Society'. . Seller Inventory # 24236
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Resource Books, LLC, East Granby, CT, U.S.A.
Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. First Edition. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2004. First edition, first printing, with personalized inscription signed by the author on the title page. Fine condition, no other markings, dustjacket in mylar protector. Inscribed by the Author. First Edition. Hard Cover. Fine/Fine. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Seller Inventory # 032221
Quantity: 1 available