Alaskan Travels: Far Flung Tales of Love and Adventure "The best essayist of my generation." (John Updike "One of the very best writers of his generation." (Saul Bellow "Edward Hoagland is a strong, solid writer with a splendid feel for the intricacy, queerness and stubborn pertinacity of life. He is also, so far as i know, the best essayist working in our perishing republic." (Edward Abbey) "The Thoreau of our time, an essayist so 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." (Washington Post Book World) "Hoagland inserts historical facts about the towns and cities he visited, and he provides plenty of appealing natural descriptions of a wondrous landscape. A pleasing combination of personal essays and reflections, a love story and a naturalist's view of one of the last unspoiled lands." (Kirkus Reviews)