The Hat of My Mother: Stories

Every summer Simpson and his wife Mary travel to the wildest places they can find in northwestern Montana, the Canadian North Woods or Alaska, where they backpack, hunt, fish and revel in the majesty of nature as yet unspoiled. Shunning campgrounds stuffed with motor homes and buzzing with generators , they prefer to spread their sleeping bags out in the open, separated from other tourists by as many hundreds of miles as possible. Simpson ( When the Water Smokes ) poetically describes some of North America's most spectacular scenery and recounts in vivid detail his adventures with bear, moose, elk, wolverine and blizzards. The book, beautifully written, is suffused with a sense of wonderment and concern for the open spaces that are fast disappearing on this continent. Illustrations not seen by PW. (September)