David Gessner is the author of several books, including The Prophet of Dry Hill and Return of the Osprey, which was chosen by the Boston Globe as one of the top ten nonfiction books of the year and the Book-of-the-Month club as one of its top books of the year. The Globe called it a "classic of American Nature Writing." Forthcoming from Beacon is Soaring with Castro, in which he follows the osprey migration from Cape Cod to Cuba and Venezuela and back. In 2006 he won a Pushcart Prize. He has taught environmental writing at Harvard, and is currently an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. (By writing about how much he loves Cape Cod he ended up a thousand miles away.) He is the Editor of the national literary journal, Ecotone. His daughter, Hadley, is (still) a beautiful genius.

An irreverent, absorbing, and insightful tale of one man's adventures following the great 7,000-mile osprey migration across two continents

A Book Sense Notable Title

David Gessner has long been fascinated by ospreys, graceful raptors with wingspans of up to six feet, renowned the world over for their swashbuckling dives into the ocean. One year, inspired by their annual trip south that crosses numerous borders, Gessner picks up and follows them. With early mornings fueled by strong Cuban coffee, evenings passed sampling local beers, and days spent alongside a cast of international characters in cars, ferries, planes, or on foot, Gessner discovers the beauty of impulsively following what you love.

"An engaging, lyrical guide to osprey migration, Cuba, and a common humanity."
--Orion Magazine 

The Prophet of Dry Hill

David Gessner had always known of John Hay. A nature writing legend, Hay was a hero to the younger writer. But it wasn't until Gessner returned to his childhood home on Cape Cod that he befriended the older man. At first, Gessner thought he might write Hay's biography. But that idea gradually changed as the two talked and walked through the fifty acres surrounding Hay's house on Dry Hill. The book that resulted is a dramatic record of what the younger man learned from his elder.
The Prophet of Dry Hill is the compelling story of two men and the year they spent together. But more than a book about friendship, it's a lyrical primer on the importance of living a life connected to the wild. John Hay has lived deeply on one piece of land for sixty years. As a consequence, he has much to tell Gessner--and us--about the importance of creating a strong relationship with the land we live on. His words speak to our forgotten need for space and for reaching beyond ourselves to the world outside. Seeing is the great discipline that nature teaches, Hay proclaims. Nature, not psychology, is the path to our true selves.
In our split-second world, a life like John Hay's--rooted, connected to nature--provides a radical counterpoint to our technology-filled indoor existences. Gessner learned much from this man on the hill. We too will be challenged and changed.

Sick of Nature 

 David Gessner's Return of the Osprey is "among the classics of American nature writing," said the Boston Globe. So why does this critically acclaimed nature writer now declare himself to be "sick of nature"?
In diverse, diverting, and frequently hilarious essays, Gessner wrestles with father figures both biological and literary, reflects on the pleasures and absurdities of the writing life, explores the significance of place for both his work and his sense of well-being, and rails at the confines of the nature genre even as he continues to find fresh inspiration for his writing in the natural world. In the end, he learns to embrace--or at least tolerate--the label he once rejected.

Whether kicking at the limits of his category or explaining why he was fired from his job as a bookstore clerk; whether recalling his youthful obsession with Ultimate Frisbee or recounting an adventure in the jungles of Belize; whether lampooning his own writerly envy of Sebastian Junger or raging at the over-development of Cape Cod or searching for solace in nature in the wake of September 11, Gessner ranges from the personal to the natural in lyrical reflections on writing, self, and society.
In a powerful concluding essay, Gessner moves from the arrival of coyotes in the suburbs of Boston to the birth of his first child in an extended meditation on his characteristic themes of wildness, place, and creativity.

Return of the Osprey

For six luminous months-an entire nesting season-David Gessner immersed himself in the lives of the magnificent osprey's that had returned to his seagirt corner of Cape Cod. In this marvelous book-part memoir, part paean to a once-endangered species, part natural history of the Cape-Gessner recounts the many discoveries he made in the course of that magical season.

Hailed by Roger Tory Peterson as the symbol of the New England coast, the osprey all but vanished during the 1950s and '60s because of the ravages of DDT. But now these breathtaking birds are returning. Writing with passion, humor, and a reverence for the natural world, Gessner interweaves the stories of the nesting osprey pairs he observed with the narrative of his own readjustment to life on a windblown, beautiful, and increasingly developed landscape he had known as a child. For Gessner, spotting an osprey dive for fish at forty miles an hour becomes a lesson in patience and focus, watching the birds build their nests illustrates the vital task of making a home, and following the chicks' attempts to fly shows him the value of letting go.

A story of recovery and connection, "Return of the Osprey celebrates one of nature's most remarkable creatures as well as our own limitless capacity for wonder.