Balancing Acts

0671746812 ex-library with usual internal markings, some damage to the pastedowns; some edge wear to boards; Alfred Kazin once said that Edward Hoagland is ''a writer born, a writer obsessed.'' The Washington Post called him ''the Thoreau of our time, an essayist so intensely personal, so sharp-eyed and deep-sighted, so tender and tough, lyrical and elegiac as to transmute a simple stroll into a full-blown mystical experience.'' Here, for the first time in a decade, is a major new collection of essays from the man John Updike called ''the best essayist of my generation.'' This diverse and inspired collection of essays displays all of Hoagland's signature qualities: intimacy, virtuosity, eccentricity, and abiding originality. Though its pieces have breathtaking range, each involves discovery - of landscapes, thoughts, emotions. Hoagland takes us into the rainforest in Belize, the mountains of Yemen, the Okefenokee Swamp, and ''Up the Black to Chalkyitsik.'' With equal passion, he guides us through treacherous terrain in probing essays about the literary world. Part memoir, part travel guide, these twenty-five essays, (all written with a good deal of urgency and fun) represent the work of a master at the top of his dazzling form.