New Title from Huron River Press - An Uncrowded Place

Ann Arbor, MI, October 29, 2008 --(PR.com)-- Huron River Press is pleased to announce the release of An Uncrowded Place: The delights and dilemmas of life Up North and a young man's search for home, a personal narrative, by author Bob Butz. With a post-college trip out of the eastern Pennsylvania suburbs that eventually leads him to northern Michigan, this 176-page book looks at Butz’ life away from the city – in a place where evergreens abound and makeshift road signs advertise Maple Syrup and U-Pick Blueberries.

But beyond his quiet life in a small Michigan town, Bob's story is one that runs deeper than his encounters with the wilderness. Butz is a young man seeking balance. As a boy, while others were dreaming of football fields and baseball diamonds, he was knee-deep in a neighborhood creek or off hiding in the woods contemplating life as a mountain man. As someone amazed and inspired by wide-open fields, forests, and clear-running trout streams, Butz found little room in the sprawling brick and mortar neighborhoods that defined his childhood. And while reconciling a passion for woods and waters with a love of family, community and home proves difficult for Butz in his new life Up North, he manages to tell his story with warmth and humor in the pages of this book.

A past-contributing editor for Sports Afield and TRAVERSE: Northern Michigan’s Magazine, Bob Butz is also an award-winning essayist, public radio commentator on environmental and eco-political topics, and magazine writer whose byline has appeared in The New York Times, Men’s Journal, National Wildlife, Outdoor Life, and numerous others. Butz’ last book, Beast of Never, Cat of God: A search for the eastern puma, was chosen by the Library of Michigan as a “Michigan Notable Book” for 2006.

Here’s what the press is saying about An Uncrowded Place.

John Lennon once said that life is what happens while you are busy making other plans. Bob Butz is not making other plans—he is living his life to the fullest, in the woods of Michigan, right now. His descriptions of the episodes in his life—from the simple acts of following fox tracks in the snow to the more complicated and sometimes humorous ones of paying bills and dealing with New York City editors—make you realize that we all ought to slow down a bit and enjoy what we have right in front of us.
Jay Cassell, Deputy Editor, Field & Stream

Bob Butz has an intimacy with the woods and water of Northern Michigan that simply can't be faked. His essays about hunting, fishing and life on the land he loves include black nights, blood, cold, wet, euphoria, a sense of humor and a simple grace. In "An Uncrowded Place," we get to eavesdrop on Bob's reverie of the solitude and wonder of nature and then find, in ourselves, a sense of coming home.
Deborah Fellows, Founder/Editor-In-Chief, Traverse, Northern Michigan's Magazine, Northern Home & Cottage and Destinations

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