Book Review

Sporting Classics Review of We’ll Do It Tomorrow

I was honored that my new book We’ll Do It Tomorrow was reviewed by Sporting Classics magazine. Click on the picture to see the article in context or read the excerpt below.

Review of We'll Do It Tomorrow

“Finally, as a nice counterpoise to stories of big game and distant locales, there’s John P. Faris Jr’s We’ll Do It Tomorrow: Southern Hunting and Fishing Stories (Hardbound, 253 pages, illustrated, $28.99 from www.outdoorstories.com).  This is the talented author’s second book-length venture into storytelling, with his previous effort, Ten Was the Deal, having carved a comfortable niche in the ranks of contemporary Southern tellers of sporting tales.

The book’s subject matter ranges widely and encompasses the quarries and activities that typify local outdoor pursuits in the heartland of the South – whitetails and cottontails, bass and a first gun, simple culinary pleasures, little things that are part of the sporting experience, and much more.  If you read the book’s title story and don’t find yourself dabbing your eyes or with a catch in your throat, some serious self-examination is in order.  The piece is that moving and meaningful.

Mostly though, this is just relaxed literature on the outdoors in the vein of Havilah Babcock, Archibald Rutledge, Robert Ruark in his “Old Man” pieces, or Charlie Elliott at his best.  As Southern as a slice of pecan pie or Vienna sausages and Saltines on a summer fishing trip, this is a book meant not just for sons and daughters of the South, but anyone who relishes those warm and winsome hours devoted to being astream or afield.”

Sporting Classics Review of We’ll Do It Tomorrow2020-11-16T15:43:33+00:00

Sporting Classics Review of Ten Was The Deal

I was honored that my new book Ten Was The Deal was reviewed by Sporting Classics magazine. Click on the picture below to see the article in context or read the excerpt  below.

A NOTEWORTHY NEW BOOK
John P. Faris Jr., Ten Was the Deal: Southern Hunting and Fishing Stories. Indianapolis, Indiana: Dog Ear Publishing, 2013.

Available in hardback, paperback and e-book forms through major retailers.

This work, illustrated by Ralph A. Mark Jr., is a throwback to a time when storytelling was considered an art and outdoor magazines actually published material of that genre on a regular basis as opposed today’s fixation with how to, where to and trophy hunting. Faris’ book is largely autobiographical in nature and exhibits the author’s obvious appreciation of Robert Ruark’s Old Man and the Boy. There are a dozen pieces in all along with an introduction that pays warm tribute to his father as a sporting mentor. The book’s title comes from one of the stories, and along the way you’ll fish for bream, hunt ducks and turkeys (the latter in a piece with the unlikely but eye-catching title “Big ’Possums Walk Late”), and enjoy the camaraderie and closeness to the land that loom so large in Southern storytelling. I greatly enjoyed the book, and it’s no secret that I can be picky and sometimes downright peevish when judging works dealing with hunting and fishing.

Sporting Classics Review of Ten Was The Deal2020-11-03T19:14:12+00:00
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