Donald C. Jackson’s newest book of outdoor essays, Restless Winds: Memoirs of an Outdoorsman, takes the reader on a journey from America’s Deep South out into the world. Jackson’s essays explore landscapes, waters, and cultures that have defined Jackson’s career and life. Hunting and fishing stories from his Mississippi farm blend with tales from Africa, Alaska, Asia, Australia, Europe, and South America.

As a fisheries professor at Mississippi State University, naturalist, conservationist, and former pastor for a small rural church in Kentucky, Jackson injects deeply personal and spiritual experiences into his writings. From the desert of Central Australia, into remote jungles of Malaysia and Vietnam, through the Nepalese mountains, to long walks during misty nights in Uganda, Jackson shows readers how to recapture their humanity in a rush-away world. Whether he is recounting his experience during a military coup in Paraguay or the magic of training a puppy to become a good retriever, Jackson’s encounters rediscover how simple things bring life in the present tense into sharper focus.