Imagine A River Runs Through It seen through the eyes of Dave Barry and you'll get an idea of Rich Tosches' sharp-eyed reflections on the art, hobby, and obsession of fly fishing. Armed with a rod, a pen, and an eccentric sense of humor, Pulitzer Prize-nominated sportswriter Rich Tosches headed for the Grand Teton Mountains, site of the World Fly Fishing Championship, and cast a keen eye on his fellow trollers from all over the globe. This encounter-and many others during a lifetime dedicated to the pursuit of fly fishing -are captured in a side-splitting collection of observations on every angle-and angler-of one of America's favorite pastimes.
Expert crafter, Lisa Comfort shares the secrets of her sewing passion. She guides you through all the basics of sewing by hand and machine, as well as providing you with the skills you need to follow her simple but stylish projects.
'Times are changed with him who marries; there are no more bypath meadows where you may innocently linger, but the road lies long and straight and dusty to the grave.' So wrote Robert Louis Stevenson. Christine feels bound to agree. 'My wife can do anything,' Vinson says. Struggling to comply with this statement, Christine has to adjust to life in America, whilst catering to Vinson's idea of a good spouse. She must force a sycophantic smile for the wife of Admiral Hamer (who wears patent-leather shoes like bananas) in an effort to ease his promotion. There must be a cold Turkey and a cold ham at every party and she must suffer her ridiculous mother-in-law. Bitter arguments are relieved by bleak silences. As the realities of married life wash away her rosy dream of it, Christine begins to wonder if Vinson is really what she wants. First published in 1953, No More Meadows unravels the threads of a very real marriage. Full of her inimitable warmth and sense of idiosyncratic character, Monica Dickens explores Christine's heart-warming – and at times heart-breaking – search for happiness.
Five years ago, Don Robak set aside his practice as an attorney to take up a new one - that of judge. But his wife Jo is suddenly stricken with a strange illness that leaves her robbed of much of her memory, strength, and in need of professional care and leaves Don alone, bereft, and convinced that Jo's illness was a planned attack and not an accident of fate. Though he lacks evidence, Robak has plenty of suspects of whom the major ones include the Wolfers, a local clan of tax rebels whose patriarch Damion Darius Wolf is out for revenge after Judge Robak sentenced his son to death. The other is Libby Macing, the daughter and principle of local powerhouse Macing Drugs, with whom Robak was once involved and now is part of a lawsuit against Macing Drugs that is being tried in Robak's court. It soon becomes clear that something nefarious is going on, that some tie exists between the much-feared Wolfers and their opposite on the social scale, the Macing clan. As threats against Robak and his sick wife persist and intensify, Robak finds his old instincts beginning to kick in. Determined to remain impartial during the trial being heard before him, he is equally determined to find out the truth of the situation before he and his loved ones fall victim to whomever is pulling the strings behind the scene. . . in Joe L. Hensley's Robak in Black.
Michael Fowler is doing his best not to fall in love with Steve Lopes, a piano player with eyes as green as willow shoots and hair the color of polished chestnuts. Love is just not in the cards for an actor whose career is on the rise, and who has just landed the triple part in Shakespear´s "Hamlet;" the role that Shakespear himself is likely to have played. But Steve is really hard to get out of his head, and, he fears, his heart. Then there is the fact that Steve wants him to do an ´environmental´ performance, playing his non-existant cousin Toby in order to solve some long-term family problems. Steve was raised by his beloved Aunt Minerva who, it appears, has imaginary relatives as well as real ones. And the real ones want to get their hands on her money. To top it off, there is a serial killer who has been murdering Gay men, and the killer has Michael at the head of his hit list. Set in the 1980s in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Mason Powell´s Gay romantic crime novel is a tightly plotted tale of murder and madness, of theater and people whose lives put the theater to shame. It is also a tour of places as they were and characters as they are likely to remain in California: a state which holds its zanies to be its greatest natural resource. "If you love a good love story, you will love this novel. If you love a good mystery, you will keep turning the pages. If you loved "Tales of the City," you will want to return to the golden days of the 80s in San Francisco with this book." ---Diana L. Paxson Author of "Priestess of Avalon"
Seventy-four percent of Americans suffer from glossophobia, the fear of public speaking. In fact, even top professional speakers and accomplished actors experience butterflies before presenting. They never eliminate the butterflies; they just teach them how to fly in formation. How? Michael Gelb’s techniques will help you clarify and shape your message so that your audience — no matter how big or small, in person or virtual — will care about it. Once the message is clear, he teaches you how to convey it in memorable, creative, and effective ways. Gelb shows that public speaking is a skill anyone can learn and enjoy. Mastering the Art of Public Speaking will guide you to rediscover your natural gift for communication while strengthening confidence and presence.
In this award-winning crime series debut, a Sydney detective must catch a brilliant serial killer while keeping an eye on his mysterious new partner. Sydney homicide detective Frank Bennett has a new partner—dark, beautiful, coldly efficient Eden Archer. Frank doesn’t know what to make of her, or her brother Eric, who’s also on the police force. Their methods are . . . unusual. But when a graveyard full of large steel toolboxes filled with body parts is found at the bottom of Sydney harbor, unusual is the least of their worries. For Eden and Eric, the case holds chilling links to a scarred childhood—and the murderer who raised them. For Frank, each clue brings him closer to something he’s not sure he wants to face. But true evil goes beyond the bloody handiwork of a serial killer—and no one is truly innocent . . . “Compelling . . . A chilling read.” —Sydney Morning Herald Winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best Debut Crime Novel
The End of San Francisco breaks apart the conventions of memoir to reveal the passions and perils of a life that refuses to conform to the rules of straight or gay normalcy. A budding queer activist escapes to San Francisco, in search of a world more politically charged, sexually saturated, and ethically consistent—this is the person who evolves into Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, infamous radical queer troublemaker, organizer and agitator, community builder and anti-assimilationist commentator. Here is the tender, provocative and exuberant story of the formation of one of the contemporary queer movement's most savvy and outrageous writers and spokespersons. Using an unrestrained associative style to move kaleidoscopically between past, present and future, Sycamore conjures the untidy push and pull of memory, exposing the tensions between idealism and critical engagement, trauma and self-actualization, inspiration and loss. Part memoir, part social history and part elegy, The End of San Francisco explores and explodes the dream of a radical queer community and the mythical city that was supposed to nurture it. "Mattilda is a dazzling writer of uncommon truths, a challenging writer who refuses to conform to conventionality. Her agitation is an inspiration."—Justin Torres, author of We the Animals “Author Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is the artistic love child of John Genet and David Wojnarowicz, deconstructing language swathed in unbridled sensuality, while flinging readers into a disrupted, chaotic life of queer anarchy.”—Gay and Lesbian Review "Bring on The End of San Francisco! And Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, whose new book has reinvented memoir without the predictable gloss of passive resolution. This book is undeniably brave and new, and the internal energy churning at its core is like nothing you've seen, heard or read before. I swear."—T. Cooper, author of Real Man Adventures "We hear so much about coming-of-age narratives that we seldom think about going-of-age—the shutting down and closure, the making sense of where we've been. Written with grace, reserve and the honest tremblings that come when things matter, Mattilda shows us that The End of San Francisco is really the beginning of joy."—Daphne Gottlieb, author of 15 Ways to Stay Alive "It would be easy to describe The End of San Francisco as a Joycean 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Queer' (although the book's intense stream of consciousness is reminiscent of the later, more experimental, Joyce) . . . but this is misleading. This journey of a life that begins in the professional upper-middle class (both parents are therapists) and the Ivy League and moves to hustling, drugs, activism—Sycamore was active in ACT UP and Queer Nation—and queer bohemian grunge, is profoundly American. At heart, Sycamore is writing about the need to escape control through flight or obliteration."—Michael Bronski, San Francisco Chronicle
Fish have figured profoundly in both human history and imagination for millennia. They are both gifts of the sea, drawing civilizations to the water, and terrors of the deep, holding revelations of the unconscious and the unknown. Today, fly fishing attracts millions looking to escape modern life and reconnect with some primal, meditative instinct to partake in nature’s offerings. Gilgamesh to Gierach is a collection of three hundred fishing, water, and fish tales spanning four millennia and numerous genres. More than a historical overview, White has distilled this immense topic into threads that flow through time, from legends and literature to nursery rhymes, poems, and humorous fish tales. Anglers will discover fly fishing’s ancient roots and spiritual seekers the fish’s religious and existential implications. Among the included voices are Homer, St. John, Ovid, Brendan the Navigator, Dame Juliana Berners, Shakespeare, Walton, Melville, Yeats, Thoreau, Hemingway, Rodrick Haig-Brown, and Norman Maclean. Whether told in full or, more often, condensed, these stories will leave the reader with a strong sense of the fish’s significance to many of the world’s greatest thinkers. Brimming with jokes, histories, simple folk tales, and great tragedies, this impressive work offers something for everyone.
Zen is not a religion, it is living life in its totality, herenow. Religions are always postponing life: they are giving you beautiful illusions about life somewhere in the future, far away, beyond death. That is a strategy to divert and distract you from the realities of life. That is pure cowardice. It is also a rationalization so that you can be consoled: ’If life is miserable today there is nothing to be worried about, tomorrow everything is going to be well. In fact, to suffer life today is a preparation for enjoying life tomorrow, so the more you suffer the better. There is no reason to complain, no reason to rebel, no reason to revolt against all those things which are causing misery.’
