Where Rivers Change Direction by Mark Spragg
|
List Price: Our Price: $7.82 You Save: $8.18 (51%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.42 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Where Rivers Change Direction
Book Review: Wonderful memoir of childhood
Summary: 5 Stars
I have never been within a thousand miles of Wyoming, and never sat on the back of a horse - but I was entranced by this book, or at least by the first three-quarters of it. It is sad that the child is so often more attractive than the man - full of promise and idealism and vision which are thereafter never truly realised. The final 3 or 4 chapters are really rather sad: here we see the middle aged Mark, childless, one failed marriage behind him, semi 'new-age, into philosophising about life, with (seemingly) litle of that earlier promise actually realised and much of the vitality gone. I longed to meet with the younger version; as for the older, I felt I already knew him in myself and many other men of a 'certain age'. But I will never forget those earlier chapters, and am better for having met with the young Mark Spragg and his brother.Book Review: Shared memories
Summary: 5 Stars
I have been to the places Mark Spragg wrote about. I spent summers at Rimrock Ranch and lived in Powell. I know the painter but not his son.(I knew the daughter) I was the daughter of one of the hunters from the east. I did not want his stories to end. The writing was descriptive, concise, from the heart and told of another side of life than what I knew. Yet there were some shared memories; the horse "bear baits", the rivers, the cold, the horses, the boys/men on the ranches. Thank you for these stories, these reaches into your life. I wanted to know more. I wanted to know if your pain ended. Thank you for these memories. I'm sending this book to my brother and to my male friends who know these rivers.Book Review: A book to remember forever.
Summary: 5 Stars
I also received this book (signed copy), as a gift from my minister's wife. She bought it at a book store in Cody, WY and Mark Spragg happened to be there to sign it. From the first page on I knew that it was a very special book. By coincidence I had ridden right past Crossed Sabers Ranch on a motorcycle trip the past summer. As as matter of fact I stopped at Shoshone Lodge (one ranch closer to Yellowstone), for breakfast. This was also the ranch where his friend worked. Even without this "link", it was simply one of the best books I've ever read. My wife is in the process of starting it (after much urging), and I hope she understands what this book meant to me, and that she can derive half as much pleasure as I did.Book Review: you.must.read.this.book.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a high and wide western book that will disarm you. Spragg knocked the wind out of me with his tactile evocation of northwest Wyoming. Having lived in western Montana, and now living in the east, I was sharply reminded of every scent and turn of western landscape. True to American form, Spragg discovers identity and frailty in isolation. True to western form, his literary canvas is huge and his vocabulary winsome. Even though "nostalgia can be dangerous" (Sherman Alexie) I think Spragg earns this life, and the ultimate transcience of it, through his maturation. The main character lives true to the title: in a small life alone, all rivers change direction.Book Review: A trip "home"
Summary: 5 Stars
I loved this book. It was like a trip home for me...I grew up in the same locale and a very similar time period as the author - I found myself happily recalling people and places named in the book. Journeys back to our childhood - our formative years - are always frought with pitfalls. Were the places ever that wonderful? Were the people ever that horrible? But Spragg avoided those pitfalls well in his written recollections and painted very strong and beautiful pictures of life up Northfork - the good, the bad, the harsh, the beautiful. I have never been as homesick as I was when I finished this book. I can't wait to read his other books!