{"product_id":"9781935628637","title":"Nature's Housekeeper: An Eco-Comedy","description":"We've all read books that changed our lives but one college professor gets more than he bargains for when he picks up a dusty, dog-eared copy of the American classic \u003ci\u003eWalden\u003c\/i\u003e by Henry David Thoreau.\u003cp\u003e Proud postmodern consumer and card-carrying member of the I Hate Nature Club, Michael Gurnow is content in his role as American literature professor at a Midwest college.   Everything changes once he gets done reading Thoreau's masterpiece.  Realizing he has been living a life of quiet desperation, it suddenly occurs to him that even though it's his job to teach tales of other people's adventures, he hasn't lived any of his own.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Without a second thought, Gurnow hands in his resignation before driving to the nearest state park and applies to be the wilderness equivalent of a construction worker.  How hard can trail maintenance be? he asks himself.  It's a minimum-wage job.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e He quickly learns there is a difference between book smarts and common sense.  In this mile-a-minute comedy of errors, Gurnow discovers why it's a bad idea to get into a fistfight with a mudslide, horny hornets are a force to be reckoned with, being able to identify poison ivy is a grossly undervalued skill, and you can't outrun deer--even if you're naked.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e With a tie-dye cast of characters, Gurnow compresses several hard-won years in the wilderness into four side-splitting seasons.  With his newly minted critical eye toward consumer culture, he reveals the surprisingly complex world of trail maintenance while taking the reader on a guided, philosophic tour of the nature classics.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e Introduction by The Aldo Leopold Foundation; Afterword by Lawton Grinter, author of I Hike.  \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Blue River Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47137430307056,"sku":"9781935628637","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781935628637_p0.jpg?v=1763659197","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781935628637","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}