.
New Book

Although I have not read anything much new in a while on Ernest Hemingway, I have been a very big fan of his writing and also of the biographies about him for many years. In my library, I have probably in the neighborhood of 50 different biographies about Hemingway in addition to a copy of each of his books and short stories.

This interest in Hemingway originated while I was in graduate school. Being far away from family and friends, and missing them greatly, I decided I needed a hobby. But I had no idea what I would want to do. But, I knew I needed a hobby of some sort that I could deeply immerse myself in as a break from the intense reading/writing/researching in biology I was doing as a graduate student.

During that time, while I was trying to figure out some sort of hobby to "grab on to" to help with being away from my family and friends, I happened to be in the office of one of my committee members, casually chatting with him, as he was cleaning his office. Dr. (Professor) Herman Krause, who was VERY German in mannerisms and demeanor. He spoke with a fairly heavy German accent, and his diction was rather staccato. He had a very, very bushy, grey moustache and beard that he wore in a goatee style. Dr. Krause was clearing some of his bookshelves of books when he picked up a copy of "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" by Hemingway. He looked at it quizzically at first, and then commented that he had thought he had given it away already. He was an avid reader, and while he kept almost all of the biology texts he read, he would not keep other books, especially fiction, but would give them away after he read them. He offered the book to me, saying it was "...interrrrresting..." but that it was not Hemingway's best work in his opinion.

I thanked him and took the book with me when I left.

The book left an enormous impression on me, and I quickly started to read and collect all of his works I could find. I also started to read and collect biographies of the man.

Well, there is a new book that I received from my sister as a Christmas present and I began to look through the volume last night. It is a book of Hemingway's Letters. I had not really read or even looked for anything new about Hemingway in several years, but I must say, starting this book brought back a flood of enjoyable memories about how much I enjoyed reading the fellows work and biographies about him and about times past when I was in hot pursuit of a rare biography of the man at any number of used bookstores over the years that I visited on my various travels.

PipeTobacco