In a trio of wonderful, long essays, three quite different writers--one a nature and outdoor writer, another a poet, and the third an essayist and novelist--let us sit in on their friendship and what draws them, inexorably, to the same small pond in Maine. Bob, living in a farmhouse near the pond, buys a dilapidated camp at the water's edge and finds his way down there almost daily, to swim or ski, depending on the season. His friends discover the allure of the pond, too--summer afternoons of swimming with Bob, his wife Rita, and an assortment of canine dog-paddlers, or companionable conversations over a beer, enjoying the beauty of a quiet pond beyond the porch. Bob tells the McNairs about a neighboring camp up for sale, a perfect little camp, compact as a ship in all its details, and they buy it. Roorbach feels drawn to the pond so strongly that he and his wife sometimes bushwack through underbrush so as not to intrude, but the pond is a place where this trio of friendships flourishes. Told with humor and affection, the stories in this small book will appeal to anyone who feels drawn to spend time near water. As all six of us--four humans, two dogs--swim out from the shade of the bill into the sunlight, we're like a school of dolphins or a family of otters. We're nowhere near as skillful swimmers as those aquatic acrobats, but water seems to affect us as it does them, making us more sociable and playful.... We converse silently through the ripples and wakes our fins and flippers and paws trail behind us, and if we do speak, our words sound a bit like the murmuring gabble of a raft of ducks or, if we're clowning and boisterous, like the hooting of loons. (R.K.)