A Life Worth Living (Hardcover) | Released: 01 Oct 2002

Jack Hemmingway, son of Ernest Hemingway and one of America's best-known outdoorsmen, has written a warm and candid memoir of his life as an incorrigible sportsman. But be forewarned - this is not a how-to book, nor a guide to secret places, though there is plenty of expertise and uncharted territory to be discovered here.Jack's season of a sportsman begins appropriately in the spring, at a dude ranch in Clark's Fork Valley, near the Yellowstone River. As an awkward six-year-old threading live grasshoppers on old, worn-out wet flies his father Ernest had discarded, Jack found his lifelong passion in much the same way his father had so many years earlier as a child on Walloon Lake in Michigan. His summer would bring steelhead on the North Umpqua, fishing with Papa's newly christened "Christ Pants" that enabled him to "walk on water," and looking for trout along the Danube in the aftermath of World War II. Fall brings expeditions to the steelhead-laden tributaries of the Snake River, fishing for Atlantic salmon, along with time for reflection and Jack's fervent belief that "there is always something new to learn."Balancing a self-effacing humor with a delicacy of prose both graceful and knowing, along with an introduction by Geoffrey Norman and a foreword contributed by Angela Hemingway, A Life Worth Living is a touching memoir of a lifetime spent practicing the sport he and his father both loved so much. (6 1/4 x 9 1/4, 288 pages, color photos)Jack Hemingway was an avid fly fisherman and sportsman for more than sixty years, and the son of Ernest Hemingway, one of the century's towering literary figures. His death in 2000 was marked on television and in newspapers and magazines around theworld. This posthumous publication is his second book.


Most of my truly good days have been spent fishing." So begins Jack Hemingway's wonderful new memoir of his life as an incorrigible sportsman. But be forewarned -- this is not a "how-to" book, nor a guide to secret places, though there is plenty of expertise and uncharted territory to be discovered here.

Jack's seasons of a sportsman begins appropriately in the spring, at a dude ranch in Clark's Fork Valley, near the Yellowstone River. As an awkward six-year-old threading caught grasshoppers on old wet worn flies his father Ernest had discarded, Jack found his lifelong passion much in the same way his father had so many years earlier as a child on Walloon Lake. His summer would bring steelhead on the North Umpqua, fishing with Papa's newly christened "Christ Pants" that enabled him to "walk on the water, " and looking for trout along the Danube in the aftermath of World War II. Fall brings expeditions to the steel-head-laden tributaries of the Snake River, fishing for Atlantic salmon, along with time for reflection and Jack's fervent belief that "there is always something new to learn."

Balancing a self-effacing humor with a delicacy of prose both graceful and knowing, "A Life Worth Living" is a touching dedication to a lifetime of the sport both he and his father loved so much.