Books
The Last Best Day
The Last Best Day is a book about fly fishing. Not so much fly fishing as a sport, but as a way of life, a total experience so intricately interwoven into the fabric of being as to be foundational to the other less sublime realities of mere physical existence.
“Folks reading The Last Best Day should understand that you didn’t just sit down and write a book. I recognize The Last Best Day for what it is and know to be-a chronicle of your outdoor lifetime-and such, a chronicle to theirs and my own. It’s your own personal search for not only the Giver, but for his gift.”
Flip Pallot
Nineteen Years to Sunrise
Nineteen Years to Sunrise is a North American Hunting and Fishing Chronicle. There is New Mexico the Plantation Belt stretching across Georgia that holds so many quail, and the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. But most importantly, there is this long and linear trail that ranges forward from the dimming past into the trembling present that draws you in.
“Mike Altizer is one of those rare writers who can scrape away the surface grime encapsulating all that is human and burrow to the heart of things. Better yet, he is a writer who has the ability to look inside himself and relate his thoughts and feelings in such a way that it strikes a cord within the reader. He is above all, a student of creation. Of everything, not just the outdoors and the sporting life, but of the human condition and the relationship between humans and the rest of the universe.”
Robert Matthews
Ramblings-Tales From Three Hemispheres
At first, it appeared that this book was going to be a simple collection of stories and photographs and poems from few distant and disparate locations. But the further the book progressed, the more the realization grew that geographic diversity was part of its being. Ramblings takes you to events and locations to experience culture and the unimaginable.
“Mike has not only had the great fortune of traveling the world in search of unique hunting and fishing adventures, he also has been doubly blessed by being able to write about his experiences, so that those of us lucky enough to read his work will find ourselves standing right alongside him in the middle of a pristine trout stream where you can actually feel the cool water surging around your legs, or better yet, standing on a cold, windswept mountaintop where a magnificent early-morning bull elk is literally attempting to burst the sound barrier with his ear-splitting screams that can be heard three ridges over. Like its author, this new book, Ramblings-Tales From Three Hemispheres, is destined to stand in a class by itself and become a true outdoor classic. Thank you Mike for the gift you have given to us all!”
Duncan Dobie
A Fine Kind of Weary
A story is like a lyrical free form of dance as it grows, and each sentence, each paragraph is alive and flowing. For every time you return to it there is something to rethink and reread. A Fine Kind of Weary is a collection of years of travel and experiences and memories. Times that were too wonderful.
“If there is any justice in this world, Michael Altizer should become a household name among those who appreciate literary writing of the field-born persuasion. I’ve known him for nine years now, which sounds like a lot if you are young, but not is you aren’t. He has penned many thoughtful essays for all the publications I have worked on, some of them even creative fiction, that added a thoughtful and deep balance to the heavy adventure and informational side of the hunting titles I have helped on. So you’re better off to just get some of his books for yourself, as you did this one and revel in the grand emotion of all.”
Skip Knowles