SAINT CROIX NOTES: River Mornings, Radio Nights,...

SAINT CROIX NOTES: River Mornings, Radio Nights, by Noah Adams (Houghton Mifflin: $9.95). During 1988, Adams hosted Minnesota Public Radio’s “Good Evening,” the radio program that succeeded Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion.” “Saint Croix Notes” reprints the personal essays he read each week. In these warm discussions, Adams writes about land he explored in Minnesota and Wisconsin, gardening, canoeing, the seasons and how people react to the changes they bring. When he goes jogging during a spring thaw, he asks a question familiar to runners everywhere: Why are the people who look like they’ve been eating doughnuts all winter outrunning me? On a chilly October morning, he reflects on the few inches of brick and plaster that protect him from the hostile elements, concluding, “On Halloween, if you are whimsical enough, you could think of trick-or-treaters as creatures out there in the dark, goblins surely, and wolves and bears. And we stay huddled inside the shelter, throwing out scraps of food and candy to appease them.” Listeners to National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” will imagine Adams’ gentle, familiar voice reading these words.