A Place on the Water

Book excerpt: More than a collection of fishing stories, A Place on the Water is a passionate and eloquent exploration of subjects with broad appeal: love of land and water, informed and unsentimental appreciation of nature, and outrage at changes that threaten to obliterate places we can no longer afford to take for granted. Jerry Dennis’s sparkling prose and Glenn Wolff’s captivating illustrations transport us to a world we recognize from childhood: a place of limitless range and possibility, shimmering with life, where the very next cast will be the one that hooks something enormous and wonderful. PRAISE: “A Place on the Water is a collection of lyrical, haunting essays, set in northern Michigan. Many are about fishing, but that does not necessarily mean they are to be enjoyed strictly by anglers. Hemingway’s Big Two-Hearted River was about fishing, too, but can be read for pleasure if you have never wet a line…Dennis covers a lot of ground, then; but there is throughout the book a kind of constant tone, as sharp and precise as the scent of cedar. And it stays with the reader long after he has put down the book.” —Geoffrey Norman, author of American Way “Eloquent essays about the author’s adventures exploring his love of land, water and nature in his beloved Michigan…Enjoyable reading with beautiful, evocative illustrations.” —Sports Afield "Jerry Dennis is one of a handful of superb writer who love angling deeply and write memoirs full of warmth, eloquence, and wit. A Place on the Water is a book of many robust—and fragile—miracles." —Nick Lyons, author of Spring Creek