My Life in the Maine Woods recounts Annette Jackson’s North Woods experiences during the 1930s when she, her husband and their children lived in a small cabin on the shore of Umsaskis Lake. Jackson, an avid sportswoman and nature lover, writes of hunting, fishing, campfire cooking, and the sounds of the wilderness through the seasons. She visits trappers and woodsmen, and tells what it’s like to sleep on a bed of pine boughs under the stars that shine on the legendary Allagash.
“I love everything about this hilarious book except the font size.” —Jon Stewart Although his career as a bestselling author and on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart was founded on fake news and invented facts, in 2016 that routine didn’t seem as funny to John Hodgman anymore. Everyone is doing it now. Disarmed of falsehood, he was left only with the awful truth: John Hodgman is an older white male monster with bad facial hair, wandering like a privileged Sasquatch through three wildernesses: the hills of Western Massachusetts where he spent much of his youth; the painful beaches of Maine that want to kill him (and some day will); and the metaphoric haunted forest of middle age that connects them. Vacationland collects these real life wanderings, and through them you learn of the horror of freshwater clams, the evolutionary purpose of the mustache, and which animals to keep as pets and which to kill with traps and poison. There is also some advice on how to react when the people of coastal Maine try to sacrifice you to their strange god. Though wildly, Hodgmaniacally funny as usual, it is also a poignant and sincere account of one human facing his forties, those years when men in particular must stop pretending to be the children of bright potential they were and settle into the failing bodies of the wiser, weird dads that they are.
A tribute to the everyday rewards of rural living. The authors record the rhythms of their work and days, along the way providing advice and instruction on dozens of traditional country arts and crafts. 250 full-color photos.
Amid the sublime beauty of Maine—its primordial forests, remote lakes, rugged mountains, and craggy coastline blooms a handmade culture fed by heritage, self-sufficiency, and collaboration. Handcrafted Maine: Art, Life, Harvest & Home features lively profiles of more than twenty artists, artisans, and craftspeople—weavers and potters, a painter, an architect, a boatbuilder, a leatherworker, bakers, lobster-men, and more—at work in the woods, towns, and cities of Maine, celebrating the triumphs and challenges of entrepreneurship and independence. Including more than 225 inspiring color photographs and intimate narrative portraits, Handcrafted Maine provides a window into the inner lives of creatives and brings to life the powerful environment and spirited character that nurture the unbridled ingenuity and common-sense approach to craft and life found Down East.
An evocative, gorgeous four-season look at cooking in Maine, with 100 recipes No one can bring small-town America to life better than a native. Erin French grew up in Freedom, Maine (population 719), helping her father at the griddle in his diner. An entirely self-taught cook who used cookbooks to form her culinary education, she now helms her restaurant, The Lost Kitchen, in a historic mill in the same town, creating meals that draw locals and visitors from around the world to a dining room that feels like an extension of her home kitchen. The food has been called “brilliant in its simplicity and honesty” by Food & Wine, and it is exactly this pure approach that makes Erin’s cooking so appealing—and so easy to embrace at home. This stunning giftable package features a vellum jacket over a printed cover.
In historic Boston a drunken ex-cop and bartender must find his way back after his wife and daughter die and his father is severely injured in an accident he caused. Broken in many ways, he discovers he can still be of use when an acquaintance turns to him for help after being tortured in a back room by a mysterious and sadistic pair of men who work in the shadows of city government while committing the crime of the century.
With its elegant simplicity and rugged DIY sensibility, the Maine aesthetic is both evergreen and timely. In this one-of-a-kind book, the Remodelista team offers readers both a guide for the design-minded traveler and a master class in re-creating the Maine look in one's own home. Author Annie Quigley takes readers into 10 exceptional homes, ranging from a renovated farmhouse to a sophisticated artists' retreat, offering invaluable design lessons along the way. There are interviews with local experts, who teach readers how to channel the Maine way of life (chop firewood, hunt for flea market finds, and weather the summer without AC), and step-by-step projects for Maine-inspired home decor, including printed tea towels, mussel-shell votives, and balsam fir pillows. Expertly curated itineraries include design shops, galleries, restaurants, hotels, and more. And finally, the Remodelista team highlights the 'Maine 25': classic, beautiful products that are built to last, sourced from local makers. It adds up to the perfect travel companion, design inspiration, and how-to manual, all rolled into one!
“Woodsqueer” is sometimes used to describe the mindset of a person who has taken to the wild for an extended period of time. Gretchen Legler is no stranger to life away from the rapid-fire pace of the twenty-first century, which can often lead to a kind of stir-craziness. Woodsqueer chronicles her experiences intentionally focusing on not just making a living but making a life—in this case, an agrarian one more in tune with the earth on eighty acres in backwoods Maine. Building a home with her partner, Ruth, on their farm means learning to live with solitude, endless trees, and the wild animals the couple come to welcome as family. Whether trying to outsmart their goats, calculating how much firewood they need for the winter, or bartering with neighbors for goods and services, they hone life skills brought with them (carpentry, tracking and hunting wild game) and other skills they learn along the way (animal husbandry, vegetable gardening, woodcutting). Legler’s story is at times humbling and grueling, but it is also amusing. A homage to agrarian American life echoing the back-to-the-land movement popularized in the mid-twentieth century, Woodsqueer reminds us of the benefits of living close to the land. Legler unapologetically considers what we have lost in America, in less than a century—individually and collectively—as a result of our urban, mass-produced, technology-driven lifestyles. Illustrated with rustic pen-and-ink illustrations, Woodsqueer shows the value of a solitary sojourn and both the pathway to and possibilities for making a sustainable, meaningful life on the land. The result, for Legler and her partner, is an evolution of their humanity as they become more physically, emotionally, and even spiritually connected to their land and each other in a complex ecosystem ruled by the changing seasons.
Joining the ranks of classics like The Elements of Style and On Writing Well, Writing Without Bullshit helps professionals get to the point to get ahead. It’s time for Writing Without Bullshit. Writing Without Bullshit is the first comprehensive guide to writing for today’s world: a noisy environment where everyone reads what you write on a screen. The average news story now gets only 36 seconds of attention. Unless you change how you write, your emails, reports, and Web copy don’t stand a chance. In this practical and witty book, you’ll learn to front-load your writing with pithy titles, subject lines, and opening sentences. You’ll acquire the courage and skill to purge weak and meaningless jargon, wimpy passive voice, and cowardly weasel words. And you’ll get used to writing directly to the reader to make every word count. At the center of it all is the Iron Imperative: treat the reader’s time as more valuable than your own. Embrace that, and your customers, your boss, and your colleagues will recognize the power and boldness of your thinking. Transcend the fear that makes your writing weak. Plan and execute writing projects with confidence. Manage edits and reviews flawlessly. And master every modern format from emails and social media to reports and press releases. Stop writing to fit in. Start writing to stand out. Boost your career by writing without bullshit.
