The Living Great Lakes: Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas

If you are interested in the Great Lakes, it’s a fabulous read!

"The Living Great Lakes" by Jerry Dennis is subtitled "Searching for the Heart of the Inland Seas" and that is an apt description of this engrossing book. It is very easy to see why the Outdoor Writers of America named it the "Best Book of 2003". Dennis succeeds in introducing the Great Lakes to you in the same sense that someone introduces special friends to you. You won't just learn about the lakes; you will meet them. Though Dennis has driven around the lakes (more than once), he takes you through the lakes the only way any explorer can really meet the lakes - by boat, a sailing boat to be precise - and he is a skilled enough writer to make you feel like your reading chair must certainly have been magically transferred to the poop deck. The Great Lakes, like the other incredible and enigmatic regions here; the Great Plains, the Rockies and Sierras, Appalachia, et al, are a region of amazement and Dennis helps his reader savoir that wonder through a very deft and enjoyable immersion. "The Living Great Lakes" is a hearty brew of history, lake lore, science, ecology, appreciation, sailing adventure, Great Lakes culture, weather wisdom, and Irish wit. Your entertainment is guaranteed.

This book was very entertaining. Excellent info on the Great Lakes thru the beginning and middle of the book. The author follows a voyage on the lakes and sprinkles in some good history and facts. It slows off track at the end when then leave the Great Lakes but finishes nicely.

I knew nothing about the Great Lakes except that there were five way up north of everything. I was fascinated. It's a wonderful book even if you already know a lot about the lakes. If you don't, it is hard to lay down. It tracks a journey from Lake Superior to the Erie Canal and it's awesome. The lakes are huge. Much like being on an ocean. Who knew?! And it is a good story about the journey delivering a boat to a buyer in New York. As soon as my daughter and son-in-law return my copy, I'm going to read it again. They took it with them as they made a car trip all around the lakes. Lucky them!!

Interesting read before embarking on a Viking Expedition cruise through the Great Lakes

[I had the honor of introducing Jerry after studying his work.]Jerry Dennis IntroThose of us who identify as book-lovers, those of us who lived inside stories throughout our childhoods—we know the work of a living legend when we encounter it on the page. Similarly, those of us who have built careers out of the well-shaped sentence, the fully-formed paragraph, the intentionally crafted essay—we know what it’s like to learn from a colleague whose body of work represents a deeply significant contribution.Today’s Keynote Speaker, Jerry Dennis, is that kind of writer. He has given us work that ignites the imagination, while also infusing it with facts. Woven into his book The Living Great Lakes, which is part memoir, part research, part adventure—the facts alone don’t invite story, but they do stay with us long after the final page has been turned—the story that’s there is, indeed, a page-turner. There’s an important kind of intentionality to that approach. We learn as we go along, but we hardly notice that we’re learning.Whether reading a brief personal essay Jerry published 20 years ago, or a new blog post published last month, his careful focus, smart craft, and generosity of spirit that infuse the page instill readers with a sense of possibility. “You have to open yourself to natural spectacle,” Jerry writes in The River Home. “Like a child, you have to be empty of expectation, have to possess eyes that see and ears that hear. It takes practice, like anything. Sometimes you can be surprised.”Jerry’s writing gives us those eyes and ears, as well as surprise. His place-based work, infused with facts and the imagination, adds up to what I call slow and steady eco-activism. The result is body of work that has brought the Great Lakes Region to life for thousands of readers, above and beyond its residents. His work helps people find a way into caring, into breathing fresh air, and into appreciation of natural resources—even if they aren’t looking for it. Even if they’ve never caught a fish in their lives. Even if they’ve never seen a Great Lake.If you’re not familiar with his work, I want you to know that Jerry is an internationally acclaimed author who has earned his living as a freelance writer since 1986. His books, including A Walk in the Animal Kingdom, The Living Great Lakes, The Windward Shore, and A Place on the Water, have won numerous awards, have been translated into seven languages, have appeared on national bestseller lists, and are required reading in many universities and colleges. His essays, poems and short fiction have appeared in more than 100 publications, including The New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, American Way, Michigan Quarterly Review, PANK, and Mid-American Review.But his bio wasn’t always so chalk-full, and his life—as much as we may like to romanticize the life of the writer—is just as busy, exciting, boring, overbooked, full of love, full of confusion, muddled by injustice, and full of uncertainty as the rest of ours.So what can we learn? After thirty years of making a living as a writer, I won’t go so far as to say that Jerry’s seen it all, but I will tell you that I invited him to be today’s Keynote Speaker with great confidence that he’s not going to sugar-coat what he has to tell us. He’s seen changes in the publishing industry that impact everyone in this room, and many of those changes, he’s seen from more than one angle.I’m as eager as you are to learn more, and while he won’t be reading from his published work today, I hope you’ll take the hard facts he’s going to share during this presentation and water them with a healthy dose of Great Lakes imagination by reading his books when we’re done.

The book was dirty and needed cleaning. Try and clean a softball book. With out ruining it. Other than that good.

A very well-written and readable book. Once I started reading the book I forgot the novel I had been reading. That doesn't happen often.The author tells a story of a particular adventure with many fascinating tales of other ships sailing the lakes and, especially, stories about the lakes themselves involving the development of the lakes, the ecology and the people. The water itself and attempts to misuse it is described.Living on the west coast for decades I am very aware of water and the management of water. It's interesting to read how this has affected the lake states and Canada.I knew of the problems of alien intrusion such as alewives and other alien species, including plant life, and it is fascinating to read such a well-written tale that includes these dangers, and the attempts to control them and the results of their impact.This book offers an enjoyable story about sailing the Great Lakes and the history, nature and importance of the lakes themselves. Read the book, then keep it on the shelf to read again. It's one of the best books I have read. Put this book on your must-read list; you won't regret it. I'd give it 10 stars if that were possible.

Couldn't put the book down! Fabulous!

Perfect

Dennis does a good job jumping between the history, the science, the politics, the sociology of the lakes and his personal adventure and experience of them. A nice balance that keeps you turning pages wanting more. Not judgemental, but questioning enough to make us pause and reflect on a serious way.