When I initially opened the package containing the advance reading copy of Peter B. Logan’s Audubon; America’s Greatest Naturalist and His Journey of Discovery to Labrador that had been sent to me from Ashbryn Press, I must admit that I had not previously heard of Ashbryn Press, or Peter B. Logan for that matter. A few minutes of searching on the Internet also brought me the information that the press had precisely one book to its lists; the one presently sitting on my desk as I typed. But as I picked it up and, assuming it to be a self-published work, headed with it toward my “discard pile” I began to thumb through it. I distinctly remember thinking as I saw that its voluminous size was due to it being nearly half research citations, “Wow! This Logan fellow has really done his homework.”
Therefore, doing something I don’t ordinarily do and operating under the idea that everyone has to begin somewhere – after all, Audubon’s works themselves were what we would now term self-published – I made a ninety degree turn and added it to the “read for review” shelf. We’ll soon see if my sudden onset of liberality was justified.
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