By the Way: Essays on Books and Life, Music, Birds, Gardening, Food, Firewood, and the Great Outdoors

In By the Way, John Toren offers an eclectic portrait of modern life in essays ranging in subject from river-running to astronomy, with stops along the way at a World Press conclave, a naturalists' convention, a concert pianist's master class, a publishers' trade show, and a Louisiana crayfish festival. In one essay he reflects on the advisability of accumulating books, in another he reports on the whimsical goings-on at an ice-shanty village. Whether it's analyzing the challenges of buying firewood or parsing the distinction between the absurd and the impossible, there's something for everyone in this wide-ranging, thoughtful collection.