HERE AT EAGLE POND by Donald...

HERE AT EAGLE POND by Donald Hall (Ticknor & Fields: $9.95, illustrated). Reading these alternately warm and acerbic essays about life in New Hampshire is like spending a cozy winter afternoon with a charming but crotchety grandfather. Prize-winning poet Donald Hall lives in a remote farmhouse his ancestors built more than a century ago, and he discovers new facets of their personalities as he examines the letters and belongings they left in its spare rooms and attics. “If people like Wesley and Kate, like Paul and Bertha, not only live out their lives but pass on the stories of their lives--their own and the stories dead people told them--by these stories our seasons on earth may return and repeat themselves in others.” Hall recounts his delight in the harsh beauty of the New Hampshire landscape throughout the seasons and his distaste for the Young Rural Professionals of Vermont with equal enthusiasm.