Around mid-day yesterday I received a phone call that I had been waiting for and was frankly getting a bit anxious about. The news was that Stonehill Publishing had received copies of Door County’s Islands and they would be available for the reading tonight.
Some late corrections and changes had pushed the print date back, and while they originally expected a release around the beginning of September, it was beginning to look like we would be cutting it close for the signing scheduled for tonight. Yesterday’s call meant that all parties were spared the embarrassment of having a release party for a book not yet available.
When the first box arrived, I dropped a pile on the counter, and then retreated to a chair with a copy for my own eyes. Not having a great deal of time, I drove straight for the chapter on Chambers Island and read it through. Like all of the books previously released by the Burtons, Door County’s Islands does not disappoint. Well written, packed with information, and entirely accessible, this book should prove to be quite popular and of great interest to residents and tourists alike.
Like several of their previous books, Door County’s Islands is not written as a single narrative, but rather as a series of articles like a journal. The chapters are devoted each to an island, or island group in the case of the smaller islands like the Strawberries. Each chapter can stand independently of the others, so that entire stories can be read in a short sitting if the reader likes. In the case of the Islands book, there is some value in understanding some of the islands in the context of the others, but I have found not much is lost by reading around in the book.
Please join us tonight if you can.