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Paperback Down in Bristol Bay: High Tides, Hangovers, and Harrowing Experiences on Alaska's Last Frontier Book

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ISBN: 0312267290

ISBN13: 9780312267292

Down in Bristol Bay: High Tides, Hangovers, and Harrowing Experiences on Alaska's Last Frontier

Name: Bob&#39;s best
Item: Down in Bristol Bay: High Tides, Hangovers, and Harrowing Experiences on Alaska&#39;s Last Frontier
Rating: 5
Author: Thriftbooks.com User

by Bob Durr and Robert Durr

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Book Overview

Dr. Robert Allen Durr - literary scholar, award-winning author, former confidant to legendary writer H. L. Mencken, and one-time rising star in the East Coast academic world - decided one day to give it all up and move to a remote region of Alaska in search of paradise.Convinced that truth, beauty, and goodness could still be found in the wild, Durr bought a boat and journeyed to Bristol Bay in hopes of becoming a commercial salmon fisherman and earning a living. Catapulting the reader into this last frontier and onto a sea of storms and dangers, madcap bars and drinking parties, amid the camaraderie of some rugged Alaskans, mostly native fishermen known as D Inn Crowd, Down in Bristol Bay chronicles a hard life, but not without songs and ballads, misadventures and follies, occasionally of burlesque proportions, on land as well as at sea.Combining elements of Krakaur's Into the Wild , Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard , Junger's The Perfect Storm , McPhee's Coming Into the Country , and even Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Down in Bristol Bay is a powerful and raucous memoir of a man who abandoned the safe world of academia for the Alaskan wilderness to find his own kind of primal sanity.

Format:Paperback

Language:English

ISBN:0312267290

ISBN13:9780312267292

Release Date:November 2000

Publisher:St. Martin's Griffin

Length:240 Pages

Weight:0.57 lbs.

Dimensions:0.7" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Related Subjects

Adventurers & Explorers Biographical Biographies Biographies & History Biography & History Educators Nature Nature & Ecology Professionals & Academics Science & Math Specific Groups

Customer Reviews

5 ratings

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Bob's best

Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 14 years ago

Didn't really like cold man cometh. Did'nt realize was same writer. This is a good read. Interesting.Short, flows well.

Great read

Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 19 years ago

Great read for anyone who wants to get a flavor of the Alaska life and great figurative return for those who have lived it. It is also great literature because he was an English professor.

Captivating

Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 22 years ago

This book is a describes a man's struggle to break from the "creature comforts" world to live and fish in Bristol Bay, Alaska. It told a story that was captivating because when reading, you always wanting to know what was going to happen next. The story tells of a man who achieves having the best of both worlds ands puts the utimate dream to the test. I would highly recommend this book to all adventurists and those who would like to "escape" to the alaska frontier; if not in reality, then through this book.

Leave the philosophy in Syracuse

Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 23 years ago

This is a great little book and a fun read. It takes a lot of guts to do what Bob Durr did. His descriptions of the Alaskan bush and the people who live and work there are wonderful. Everyone should meet a person like Pope at least once in their lives. The philosophical discussions on board the fishing boat were sometimes tedious and less than believable, but somehow it all works. I hope Durr will write another book about the rest of his life in Alaska.