 |
|
||||||||||||||
|
Cabin Fever: A Suburban Father's Search for the Wild
Product Code: 0096 ISBN: 978-080700096-0 Pages: 224 Binding Information: Cloth Size: 5.5" X 8.5" Inches Illustrated: No Copyright Date Ed: 06/07/2011 Trade Code: 00C Price: $24.95 In stock. View the reader's guide. A modern Walden--if Thoreau had had three kids and a minivan--Cabin Fever is a serious yet irreverent take on living in a cabin in the woods while also living within our high-tech, materialist culture. Recommended by USA Today
Try to imagine Thoreau married, with a job, three kids, and a minivan. This is the serious yet irreverent sensibility that suffuses Cabin Fever, as the author seeks to apply the hermit-philosopher’s insights to a busy modern life. Tom Montgomery Fate lives in a Chicago suburb, where he is a husband, father, professor, and active member of his community. He also lives in a cabin built with the help of friends in the Michigan woods, where he walks by the river, chops wood, and reads Thoreau by candle light. While he divides his time between suburbia and the cabin, Fate’s point is not to draw a line between the two but to ask what each has to say about the other. How do we balance nature (picking blackberries) with technology (tapping BlackBerrys)? What is revealed about human boundaries when a coyote wanders into a Quiznos? Can a cardinal protecting chicks from a hungry cat teach us anything about instincts and parenting? Fate seeks a more attentive, deliberate way of seeing the world and our place in it, not only among the trees and birds but also in the context of our relationships and society. A seasonal nature memoir, Cabin Fever takes readers on a search for the wild both in the woods and within ourselves. Although we are often estranged from nature in our daily lives, Fate shows that we can recover our kinship with the earth and its other inhabitants if we are willing to pay attention. In his exploration of how we are to live “a more deliberate life” amid a high-tech, material world, Fate invites readers into an interrogation of their own lives, and into a new kind of vision: the possibility of enough in a culture of more. Read chapter 13, "Falling Apart: Death and Birth In the Media Click here to read an interview with Tom Montgomery Fate in the Chicago Tribune Click here to read an article featuring Cabin Fever in the Minneapolis Star Tribune Click here to read a Q&A with Tom Montgomery Fate in the TriQuarterly Online Click here to read a review of Cabin Fever on Creative Nonfiction/Brevity. Tom Montgomery Fate on WBEZ's Eight Forty-Eight, September 7th, 2011; click here to listen to his reflections pertaining to the 9/11 attacks. Click here to watch the Book Trailer for Cabin Fever. Tom Montgomery Fate on WTTW's Chicago Tonight, June 29th, 2011; click here to watch. Tom Montgomery Fate on WBEZ's Eight Forty-Eight, June 15th, 2011; click here to listen. Click here to read a review of Cabin Fever in the Wall Street Journal Click here to read a write-up about Cabin Fever in the Chicago Tribune's TribLocal Click here to read a write-up about Cabin Fever in The University of Iowa news release. Click here to read an article featuring Tom Montgomery Fate in The Herald Palladium Tom Montgomery Fate on "Living On Earth" on Public Radio International, June 17th, 2011; click here to listen. Tom Montgomery Fate on "Eight Forty-Eight" on Chicago Public Radio, April 12th, 2011; click here to listen. Click here to read an interview with Tom Montgomery Fate in Chicago's Daily Herald Click here to read a write-up about Cabin Fever in WDCB News Click here to read a Q&A with Tom Montgomery Fate in the Glen Ellyn News Tom Montgomery Fate on WDCB Public Radio, June 7th, 2011; click here to listen.
Reviews
Review Kirkus Reviews - March 23, 2011
“Quiet, beautifully written reflections on nature and the mindful life, laced with the thoughts and writings of Thoreau.”
Review By: Hilary Daninhirsch, Foreword Reviews - May 15, 2011
“The tone of Fate’s writing is serious and thoughtful, yet laced with some humor (particularly the chapter in which he imagines a gay relationship between two male cardinals)… Fate is introspective and writes in a lyrical manner, offering much food for thought in this multi-layered, 'how to live' memoir.”
Review Publishers Weekly - May 1, 2011
"Never snide or condescending, Fate blends the significant milestones of marriage and family in a high-tech BlackBerry society with the joys and shortcomings of being mindful in both cultures."
Review By: Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred review) - May 1, 2011
“His frank, poignant, and funny essays grapple with the quandaries inherent in the effort to live a balanced life. Fate’s clarion musings on place, time, family, social responsibility, the wild, and the civilized are thoughtful and affecting in their revelations of how complex and precious life is.”
Review Christianity Today - July 1, 2011
“His account of a quest for a ‘more deliberate life,’ inspired by a re-reading of Thoreau’s Walden several years ago, is refreshingly modest but also aching with yearning for the Home we all desire.”
Review Wall Street Journal - July 1, 2011
“May touch a chord in a desperate urban-dweller's heart … may also show … that Mother Earth's bosom is not always welcoming to mere humans.”
Review Christian Century - August 9, 2011
“Tom Montgomery Fate’s charming volume is about his search for meaning in the suburbs, a search that takes him to the woods of Michigan where he builds his own cabin…What makes Cabin Fever such good reading is that the author doesn’t try to be a modern-day Thoreau…The magic of Cabin Fever is the author’s willingness to move back and forth between the two worlds of hectic suburbs and the more isolated nature-soaked cabin.”Review Brevity - October 1, 2011
“Cabin Fever is a quietly stunning book, organized around the four seasons, much as Walden is structured.…His elegant and rhythmic prose is about embodiment and the fight we must make to swim against the current that seeks to sweep us away from such bold and incarnational living…Not all books invite us to enter their lives in so intimate a fashion, to join our own patterns of living with theirs. But Fate’s admission that he is a 'slow and bungling pilgrim' serves as an admonition and a blessing to his readers to go and live, even if imperfectly, this one blessed life we’ve been given.”
Review Terrain.org - November 1, 2011
“I grew fond fast of this book, and it’s hard not to. Fate is a man who brings coyotes and cougars to the page in a thoughtful, beautiful prose that’s readable, lyrical, and begs the reader to slow down and take their time. The book is a wide, deep river, best observed with a cup of coffee as the sun’s coming up over the ridge and the night’s crickets have given way to the scratching and calls of the morning’s towhees.”
Quotes Also Available As:
Binding Information: Paperback Not Defined
ISBN: 978-080700098-4 Availability: In stock. Price: $16.00
|
  
|
|||||||||||||
Beacon Press is a department of the