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Basejumper
, December 12, 2016
I'm biased. James Salter is one of my favorite writers, and I have read...reread...then read again most everything I could get hold of. But this one is a change of pace....as if Hemingway had written a cookbook with Martha Gelhorn in a private publication meant for the pleasure of his friends. I have given it to most everyone I know. The hardbound is out of print, but the paperback has been reissued. This copy is hardbound, from England, and feels better than the paperback....in ways that any hardbound book does. It consists of daily entries....one for every day of the year.....full of insight, wisdom..even whimsy.
He died last year, and I went into a deep funk...reading everything again...including articles in periodicals searched on the web. Until I stopped three years ago, I had been a skydiver for nearly fifty years, and a BASE jumper for over thirty. Salter did this with his entire life. Fighter pilot, Jewish West Pointer in an anti-semitic era, traveller, screen writer (Downhill Racer, among the best), a person who knew how to get deeply into harm's way, take notes, then write about it with....god help me for saying it...but its true..... economy and grace.
This is his gentlest, sweetest book...the one you can give to mom, your best friend, even your mother-in-law. I'm ordering more.
Christmas is upon us.
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