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The Maximum Security Book Club: Reading Literature in a Men's Prison
Par Mikita Brottman. 2016
A riveting account of the two years literary scholar Mikita Brottman spent reading literature with criminals in a maximum-security men’s…
prison outside Baltimore, and what she learned from them—Orange Is the New Black meets Reading Lolita in Tehran.On sabbatical from teaching literature to undergraduates, and wanting to educate a different kind of student, Mikita Brottman starts a book club with a group of convicts from the Jessup Correctional Institution in Maryland. She assigns them ten dark, challenging classics—including Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Poe’s story “The Black Cat,” and Nabokov’s Lolita—books that don’t flinch from evoking the isolation of the human struggle, the pain of conflict, and the cost of transgression. Although Brottman is already familiar with these works, the convicts open them up in completely new ways. Their discussions may “only” be about literature, but for the prisoners, everything is at stake.Gradually, the inmates open up about their lives and families, their disastrous choices, their guilt and loss. Brottman also discovers that life in prison, while monotonous, is never without incident. The book club members struggle with their assigned reading through solitary confinement; on lockdown; in between factory shifts; in the hospital; and in the middle of the chaos of blasting televisions, incessant chatter, and the constant banging of metal doors.Though The Maximum Security Book Club never loses sight of the moral issues raised in the selected reading, it refuses to back away from the unexpected insights offered by the company of these complex, difficult men. It is a compelling, thoughtful analysis of literature—and prison life—like nothing you’ve ever read before.The Best American Food Writing 2021 (The Best American Series)
Par Gabrielle Hamilton, Silvia Killingsworth. 2021
The year&’s top food writing, from writers who celebrate the many innovative, comforting, mouthwatering, and culturally rich culinary offerings of our…
country. Edited by Silvia Killingsworth and renowned chef and author Gabrielle Hamilton. &“A year that stopped our food world in its tracks,&” writes Gabrielle Hamilton in her introduction, reflecting on 2020. The stories in this edition of Best American Food Writing create a stunning portrait of a year that shook the food industry, reminding us of how important restaurants, grocery stores, shelters, and those who work in them are in our lives. From the Sikhs who fed thousands during the pandemic, to the writer who was quarantined with her Michelin-starred chef boyfriend, to the restaurants that served $200-per-person tasting menus to the wealthy as the death toll soared, this superb collection captures the underexposed ills of the industry and the unending power of food to unite us, especially when we need it most. THE BEST AMERICAN FOOD WRITING 2021 INCLUDES • BILL BUFORD • RUBY TANDOH • PRIYA KRISHNA • LIZA MONROY • NAVNEET ALANG • KELSEY MILLER HELEN ROSNER • LIGAYA MISHAN and othersThe Best American Food Writing 2020 (The Best American Series)
Par J. Kenji López-Alt. 2020
The year&’s top food writing from writers who celebrate the many innovative, comforting, mouthwatering, and culturally rich culinary offerings of our…
country.&“These are stories about culture,&” writes J. Kenji López-Alt in his introduction. &“About how food shapes people, neighborhoods, and history.&” This year&’s Best American Food Writing captures the food industry at a critical moment in history — from the confrontation of abusive kitchen culture, to the disappearance of the supermarkets, to the rise and fall of celebrity chefs, to the revolution of baby food. Spanning from New York&’s premier restaurants to the chile factories of New Mexico, this collection lifts a curtain on how food arrives on our plates, revealing extraordinary stories behind what we eat and how we live.THE BEST AMERICAN FOOD WRITING 2020 INCLUDES BURKHARD BILGER, KAT KINSMAN, LAURA HAYES, TAMAR HASPEL, SHO SPAETH, TIM MURPHY and othersThe Other Serious: Essays for the New American Generation
Par Christy Wampole. 2015
An original collection of incandescent cultural criticism, both experimental and personal, full of pragmatic advice for how to live a…
considered, joyful existence in our era of screen living and hipster irony, by a Gen-X Princeton professor and contributor to The New York TimesThe essays in The Other Serious examine the signature phenomena of our moment: the way our lives contradict themselves, how exaggeration and excess seep into our collective subconscious, why gender is becoming more rather than less complicated, and how we interact with the material things that surround us. It is a book about the delicacy and bluntness of American life, about how pop culture sticks its finger deeply into the ethical dilemmas of our time, and how to negotiate between the old and the new, the high and the low, the global and the local, the sacred and the profane. At the heart of these reflections lies a central question: What should you do when you don't know what to do?Taken together, these essays comprise a guide for the overhaul of "the administrativersity" of contemporary American life, a bureaucratic prison where the brain needn't work anymore. These pieces investigate the writer's own way of thinking—putting forth new ideas, questioning them, and urging the reader to adopt the same spirit of critical reexamination.The Best American Science And Nature Writing 2020 (The Best American Series)
Par Michio Kaku, Jaime Green. 2020
A collection of the best science and nature writing published in North America in 2019, guest edited by New York…
Times best-selling author and ground-breaking physicist Dr. Michio Kaku.&“Scientists and science writers have a monumental task: making science exciting and relevant to the average person, so that they care,&” writes renowned American physicist Michio Kaku. &“If we fail in this endeavor, then we must face dire consequences.&” From the startlingly human abilities of AI, to the devastating accounts of California&’s forest fires, to the impending traffic jam on the moon, the selections in this year&’s Best American Science and Nature Writing explore the latest mysteries and marvels occurring in our labs and in nature. These gripping narratives masterfully translate the work of today&’s brightest scientists, offering a clearer view of our world and making us care. THE BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE AND NATURE WRITING 2020 INCLUDES RIVKA GALCHEN • ADAM GOPNIK • FERRIS JABR • JOSHUA SOKOL • MELINDA WENNER MOYER • SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE • NATALIE WOLCHOVER and othersLetters to a Young Doctor
Par Richard Selzer. 1996
A timeless collection of advice, operating-room wisdom, and reflections on the practice of medicine, from the &“best of the writing…
surgeons&” (Chicago Tribune). &“Richard Selzer does for medicine what Jacques Cousteau does for the sea,&” raved The New York Times of this extraordinary collection. &“He transports the reader to a world that most of us never see, a world that is vivid and powerful, often overwhelming, occasionally fantastic.&” In this collection of highly candid, insightful, and unexpectedly humorous essays, the erstwhile surgeon turned Yale School of Medicine professor addresses both the brutality and the beauty of a profession in which saving and losing lives is all in a day&’s work. A number of these pieces take the form of letters offering counsel to aspiring physicians. Featuring wry and witty observations on matters of life and death, medical ethics, and the awesome responsibilities of being a surgeon, Letters to a Young Doctor should be required reading for all medical students—and anyone interested in the endless miracle that is the human body. "No one writes about the practice of medicine with Selzer's unique combination of mystery and wonder,&” observed the Los Angeles Times, while The New York Times praised Selzer&’s &“marvelous insight and potent imagery&” for making &“his tales of surgery and medicine both works of art and splendid tools of instruction.&”Company Man: Thirty Years of Controversy and Crisis in the CIA
Par John Rizzo. 2014
The “revealing” (The New Yorker) insider history of the CIA from a lawyer with a “front-row seat on the hidden…
world of intelligence” (The Washington Post). Former CIA director George J. Tenet called Company Man a “must read.”Over the course of a thirty-four-year (1976-2009) career, John Rizzo served under eleven CIA directors and seven presidents, ultimately becoming a controversial public figure and a symbol and victim of the toxic winds swirling in post-9/11 Washington. In Company Man, Rizzo charts the CIA’s evolution from shadowy entity to an organization exposed to new laws, rules, and a seemingly never-ending string of public controversies. As the agency’s top lawyer in the years after the 9/11 attacks, Rizzo oversaw actions that remain the subject of intense debate, including the rules governing waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques.”Rizzo writes about virtually every significant CIA activity and controversy over a tumultuous, thirty-year period. His experiences illuminate our nation’s spy bureaucracy, offering a unique primer on how to survive, and flourish, in a high-powered job amid decades of shifting political winds. He also provides the most comprehensive account of critical events, like the “torture tape” fiasco surrounding the interrogation of Al Qaeda suspect Abu Zubayadah, and the birth, growth, and death of the enhanced interrogation program. Company Man is the most authoritative insider account of the CIA ever written—a groundbreaking, timely, and remarkably candid history of American intelligence. This is “emphatically a book for anyone who cares about the security of this country” (The Wall Street Journal).Murder in St. Augustine: The Mysterious Death of Athalia Ponsell Lindsley (True Crime Ser.)
Par Elizabeth Randall. 2016
The true story of the long-unsolved killing of a celebrity in northern Florida: &“A page-turner.&” —First Coast Living The…
murder of Athalia Ponsell Lindsley, a former model and television hostess who was once engaged to Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., is still notorious more than four decades after it occurred. The only eyewitness said a man attacked Lindsley with a machete in broad daylight on the front steps of her mansion. Gossip swirled that neighbor Frances Bemis knew who killed Lindsley and would notify authorities—and then Bemis was later murdered on her nightly walk. Police arrested only one suspect for Lindsley&’s murder, which remains unsolved to this day. Here, Elizabeth Randall replaces the rumors with research, and draws from over one thousand pages of depositions, records, official county documentation, and interviews to reveal the story behind this shocking crime.Includes photosThe Man to See
Par Evan Thomas. 1978
This bestselling biography of legendary trial lawyer Edward Bennett Williams is "a skillful and lively portrait of a larger-than-life lawyer"…
(Kirkus Reviews).Legendary attorney Edward Bennet Williams was arguably the best trial lawyer ever to practice. Now, for the first time, bestselling author Evan Thomas takes us into the courtrooms of Williams's greatest performances as he defends "Godfather" Frank Costello, Jimmy Hoffa, Frank Sinatra, The Washington Post, and others, as well as behind the scenes where the witnesses are coached, the traps set, and the deals cut. In addition to being a lawyer of unprecedented influence, Williams was also an important Washington insider, privy to the secrets of America's most powerful men. Thomas tells the truth behind the stories that made Williams one of the most talked about public figures of his time, including Williams's role in the publication of the Pentagon Papers and the possibility that Williams may have been Watergate's Deep Throat. Based on Thomas's exclusive access to Williams's papers, The Man to See is an unprecedented look at the strategies and influence of this exceptional man.I Wrote This Book Because I Love You: Essays
Par Tim Kreider. 2019
*A People Top 10 Book of 2018*The New York Times essayist and author of We Learn Nothing, Tim Kreider trains…
his singular power of observation on his (often befuddling) relationships with women.Psychologists have told him he&’s a psychologist. Philosophers have told him he&’s a philosopher. Religious groups have invited him to speak. He had a cult following as a cartoonist. But, above all else, Tim Kreider is an essayist—one whose deft prose, uncanny observations, dark humor, and emotional vulnerability have earned him deserved comparisons to David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell, and the late David Foster Wallace (who was himself a fan of Kreider&’s humor).&“Beautifully written, with just enough humor to balance his spikiness&” (Booklist), I Wrote This Book Because I Love You focuses Tim&’s unique perception and wit on his relationships with women—romantic, platonic, and the murky in-between. He talks about his difficulty finding lasting love and seeks to understand his commitment issues by tracking down the John Hopkins psychologist who tested him for a groundbreaking study on attachment when he was a toddler. He talks about his valued female friendships, one of which landed him on a circus train bound for Mexico. He talks about his time teaching young women at an upstate New York college, and the profound lessons they wound up teaching him. And in a hugely popular essay that originally appeared in The New York Times, he talks about his nineteen-year-old cat, wondering if it&’s the most enduring relationship he&’ll ever have.&“In a style reminiscent of Orwell, E.B. White and David Sedaris&” (The New York Times Book Review), each of these pieces is &“heartbreaking, brutal, and hilarious&” (Judd Apatow), and collectively they cement Kreider&’s place among the best essayists working today.The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time
Par Will Durant. 2002
A wise and witty compendium of the greatest thoughts, greatest minds, and greatest books of all time—listed in accessible and…
succinct form—by one of the world's greatest scholars.From the &“Hundred Best Books&” to the &“Ten Greatest Thinkers&” to the &“Ten Greatest Poets,&” here is a concise collection of the world&’s most significant knowledge. For the better part of a century, Will Durant dwelled upon—and wrote about—the most significant eras, individuals, and achievements of human history. His selections have finally been brought together in a single, compact volume. Durant eloquently defends his choices of the greatest minds and ideas, but he also stimulates readers into forming their own opinions, encouraging them to shed their surroundings and biases and enter &“The Country of the Mind,&” a timeless realm where the heroes of our species dwell.From a thinker who always chose to exalt the positive in the human species, The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time stays true to Durant's optimism. This is a book containing the absolute best of our heritage, passed on for the benefit of future generations. Filled with Durant's renowned wit, knowledge, and unique ability to explain events and ideas in simple and exciting terms, this is a pocket-size liberal arts and humanist curriculum in one volume.The Negotiator: A Memoir
Par George J. Mitchell. 2015
Compelling, poignant, enlightening stories from former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell about growing up in Maine, his years in the…
Senate, working to bring peace to Northern Ireland and the Middle East, and what he’s learned about the art of negotiation during every stage of his life.It’s a classic story of the American Dream. George Mitchell grew up in a working class family in Maine, experiencing firsthand the demoralizing effects of unemployment when his father was laid off from a lifelong job. But education was always a household priority, and Mitchell embraced every opportunity that came his way, eventually becoming the ranking Democrat in the Senate during the administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.Told with wit, frankness, and a style all his own, Senator Mitchell’s memoir reveals many insights into the art of negotiation. Mitchell looks back at his adventures in law and politics—including instrumental work on clean air and water legislation, the Iran-Contra hearings, and healthcare reform—as well as life after the Senate, from leading the successful Northern Ireland peace process, to serving as chairman of The Walt Disney Company, to heading investigations into the use of steroids in baseball and unethical activity surrounding the Olympic Games. Through it all, Senator Mitchell’s incredible stories—some hilarious, others tragic, all revealing—offer invaluable insights into critical moments in the last half-century of business, law, and politics, both domestic and international.Hungry Heart: Adventures in Life, Love, and Writing
Par Jennifer Weiner. 2016
A “fiercely funny, powerfully smart, and remarkably brave” memoir from a #1 New York Times–bestselling author (Cheryl Strayed, #1 New…
York Times–bestselling author of Wild).Jennifer Weiner is many things: a bestselling author, a Twitter phenomenon, and an “unlikely feminist enforcer” (The New Yorker). She’s also a mom, a daughter, and a sister, a clumsy yogini, and a reality-TV devotee. In this “unflinching look at her own experiences” (Entertainment Weekly), Jennifer fashions uproarishly funny and moving tales of modern-day womanhood.No subject is off-limits in these intimate and honest essays: sex, weight, envy, money, her mother’s coming out of the closet, her estranged father’s death. From lonely adolescence to hearing her six-year-old daughter say the F word—fat—for the first time, Jen dives into the heart of female experience, with the wit and candor that have endeared her to readers all over the world.“Generous and entertaining.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review“You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll want to read it again.” —TheSkimm“I’m mad Jennifer’s Weiner’s first book of essays is as wonderful as her fiction. You will love this book and wish she was your friend.” —Mindy Kaling, #1 New York Times–bestselling author of Why Not Me?The Bloodied Nightgown and Other Essays
Par Joan Acocella. 2024
A collection of the New Yorker critic's finest essays, which examine the books that reveal and record our world.Joan Acocella…
was “one of our finest cultural critics” (Edward Hirsch), and she had the rare ability to examine literature and unearth the lives contained within it—its authors, its subjects, and the communities from which it springs. In her hands, arts criticism was a celebration and an investigation, and her essays pulse with unadulterated enthusiasm. As Kathryn Harrison wrote in The New York Times Book Review, “Hers is a vision that allows art its mystery but not its pretensions, to which she is acutely sensitive. What better instincts could a critic have?”The Bloodied Nightgown and Other Essays gathers twenty-four essays from the final decade and a half of Acocella’s career, as well as an introduction that frames her simple preoccupations: “life and art.” In agile, inspired prose, she moves from J. R. R. Tolkien’s translation of Beowulf to the life of Richard Pryor, from surveying profanity to untangling the book of Job. Her appetite (and reading list) knew no bounds. This collection is a joy and a revelation, a library in itself, and Acocella is our dream companion among its shelves.Includes 25 black-and-white imagesAnd Never Let Her Go: Thomas Capano: The Deadly Seducer
Par Ann Rule. 1999
From the #1 New York Times–bestselling author, the true story of a woman’s disappearance after her affair with a married…
man is a “true page-turner” (Booklist).The author of fifteen New York Times bestsellers, Ann Rule, a former Seattle policewoman, has researched thousands of homicides and understands every facet of murder investigation. Now, in the most shocking book of her long career, she explores the details of a fatal affair between a beautiful young woman and a widely admired millionaire attorney who was an immensely popular political figure.On June 27, 1996, thirty-year-old Anne Marie Fahey, a secretary for the governor of Delaware, had dinner with a married man she had been having a secret affair with for more than two years. “Tommy” Capano, forty-seven, was perhaps the most politically powerful man in Wilmington. Son of a wealthy contractor, former state prosecutor, partner in a prestigious law firm, advisor to governors and mayors, Tom Capano had a soft-spoken and considerate manner that endeared him to many. But sometime after 9:15 that night when Anne Marie and Tom left the restaurant, something terrible happened to Anne Marie. It would be forty-eight hours before her brothers and sisters realized that she had disappeared entirely.Ann Rule brilliantly traces the lives of both Fahey and Capano as she discloses the intimate details of their ill-fated connection. A vulnerable, trusting woman becomes spellbound by a charming, duplicitous married man, and what begins as a seemingly unremarkable affair is slowly transformed into an obsessive, convoluted, and deadly relationship.“ [A] truly creepy true-crime story.” —People“[Rule] tell[s] the sad story with authority, flair, and pace.” —The Washington PostThe Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time
Par Will Durant. 2002
A wise and witty compendium of the greatest thoughts, greatest minds, and greatest books of all time—listed in accessible and…
succinct form—by one of the world's greatest scholars.From the &“Hundred Best Books&” to the &“Ten Greatest Thinkers&” to the &“Ten Greatest Poets,&” here is a concise collection of the world&’s most significant knowledge. For the better part of a century, Will Durant dwelled upon—and wrote about—the most significant eras, individuals, and achievements of human history. His selections have finally been brought together in a single, compact volume. Durant eloquently defends his choices of the greatest minds and ideas, but he also stimulates readers into forming their own opinions, encouraging them to shed their surroundings and biases and enter &“The Country of the Mind,&” a timeless realm where the heroes of our species dwell.From a thinker who always chose to exalt the positive in the human species, The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time stays true to Durant's optimism. This is a book containing the absolute best of our heritage, passed on for the benefit of future generations. Filled with Durant's renowned wit, knowledge, and unique ability to explain events and ideas in simple and exciting terms, this is a pocket-size liberal arts and humanist curriculum in one volume.The Negotiator: A Memoir
Par George J. Mitchell. 2015
Compelling, poignant, enlightening stories from former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell about growing up in Maine, his years in the…
Senate, working to bring peace to Northern Ireland and the Middle East, and what he’s learned about the art of negotiation during every stage of his life.It’s a classic story of the American Dream. George Mitchell grew up in a working class family in Maine, experiencing firsthand the demoralizing effects of unemployment when his father was laid off from a lifelong job. But education was always a household priority, and Mitchell embraced every opportunity that came his way, eventually becoming the ranking Democrat in the Senate during the administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.Told with wit, frankness, and a style all his own, Senator Mitchell’s memoir reveals many insights into the art of negotiation. Mitchell looks back at his adventures in law and politics—including instrumental work on clean air and water legislation, the Iran-Contra hearings, and healthcare reform—as well as life after the Senate, from leading the successful Northern Ireland peace process, to serving as chairman of The Walt Disney Company, to heading investigations into the use of steroids in baseball and unethical activity surrounding the Olympic Games. Through it all, Senator Mitchell’s incredible stories—some hilarious, others tragic, all revealing—offer invaluable insights into critical moments in the last half-century of business, law, and politics, both domestic and international.Butch Cassidy: The True Story of an American Outlaw
Par Charles Leerhsen. 2020
Charles Leerhsen brings the notorious Butch Cassidy to vivid life in this &“lyrical and deeply researched&” (Publishers Weekly) biography that…
goes beyond the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to reveal a more fascinating and complicated man than legend provides.For more than a century the life and death of Butch Cassidy have been the subject of legend, spawning a small industry of mythmakers and a major Hollywood film. But who was Butch Cassidy, really? Charles Leerhsen, bestselling author of Ty Cobb, sorts out the facts from folklore and paints a &“compelling portrait of the charming, debonair, ranch hand-turned-outlaw&” (Ron Hansen, author of The Kid) of the American West.Born into a Mormon family in Utah, Robert Leroy Parker grew up dirt poor and soon discovered that stealing horses and cattle was a fact of life in a world where small ranchers were being squeezed by banks, railroads, and cattle barons. A charismatic and more than capable cowboy—even ranch owners who knew he was a rustler said they would hire him again—he adopted the alias &“Butch Cassidy,&” and moved on to a new moneymaking endeavor: bank robbery. By all accounts a smart and considerate thief, Butch and his "Wid Bunch" gang eventually graduated to more lucrative train robberies. But the railroad owners hired the Pinkerton Agency, whose detectives pursued Butch and his gang relentlessly, until he and his then partner Harry Longabaugh (The Sundance Kid) fled to South America, where they replicated the cycle of ranching, rustling, and robbery until they met their end in Bolivia.In Butch Cassidy, Leerhsen &“refuses to buy into the Hollywood hype and instead offers the true tale of Butch Cassidy, which turns out to be more fascinating and fun than the myths&” (Tom Clavin, bestselling author of Tombstone). In this &“entertaining…definitive account&” (Kirkus Reviews), he shares his fascination with how criminals such as Butch deftly maneuvered between honest work and thievery, battling the corporate interests that were exploiting the settlers, and showing us in vibrant prose the Old West as it really was, in all its promise and heartbreak.I Wrote This Book Because I Love You: Essays
Par Tim Kreider. 2019
*A People Top 10 Book of 2018*The New York Times essayist and author of We Learn Nothing, Tim Kreider trains…
his singular power of observation on his (often befuddling) relationships with women.Psychologists have told him he&’s a psychologist. Philosophers have told him he&’s a philosopher. Religious groups have invited him to speak. He had a cult following as a cartoonist. But, above all else, Tim Kreider is an essayist—one whose deft prose, uncanny observations, dark humor, and emotional vulnerability have earned him deserved comparisons to David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell, and the late David Foster Wallace (who was himself a fan of Kreider&’s humor).&“Beautifully written, with just enough humor to balance his spikiness&” (Booklist), I Wrote This Book Because I Love You focuses Tim&’s unique perception and wit on his relationships with women—romantic, platonic, and the murky in-between. He talks about his difficulty finding lasting love and seeks to understand his commitment issues by tracking down the John Hopkins psychologist who tested him for a groundbreaking study on attachment when he was a toddler. He talks about his valued female friendships, one of which landed him on a circus train bound for Mexico. He talks about his time teaching young women at an upstate New York college, and the profound lessons they wound up teaching him. And in a hugely popular essay that originally appeared in The New York Times, he talks about his nineteen-year-old cat, wondering if it&’s the most enduring relationship he&’ll ever have.&“In a style reminiscent of Orwell, E.B. White and David Sedaris&” (The New York Times Book Review), each of these pieces is &“heartbreaking, brutal, and hilarious&” (Judd Apatow), and collectively they cement Kreider&’s place among the best essayists working today.Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers (John Gierach's Fly-fishing Library)
Par John Gierach. 2020
Witty, shrewd, and always a joy to read, John Gierach, &“America&’s best fishing writer&” (Houston Chronicle) and favorite streamside philosopher,…
has earned the following of &“legions of readers who may not even fish but are drawn to his musings on community, culture, the natural world, and the seasons of life&” (Kirkus Reviews).&“After five decades, twenty books, and countless columns, [John Gierach] is still a master&” (Forbes). Now, in his latest original collection, Gierach shows us why fly-fishing is the perfect antidote to everything that is wrong with the world.&“Gierach&’s deceptively laconic prose masks an accomplished storyteller…His alert and slightly off-kilter observations place him in the general neighborhood of Mark Twain and James Thurber&” (Publishers Weekly). In Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers, Gierach looks back to the long-ago day when he bought his first resident fishing license in Colorado, where the fishing season never ends, and just knew he was in the right place. And he succinctly sums up part of the appeal of his sport when he writes that it is &“an acquired taste that reintroduces the chaos of uncertainty back into our well-regulated lives.&”Lifelong fisherman though he is, Gierach can write with self-deprecating humor about his own fishing misadventures, confessing that despite all his experience, he is still capable of blowing a strike by a fish &“in the usual amateur way.&” &“Arguably the best fishing writer working&” (The Wall Street Journal), Gierach offers witty, trenchant observations not just about fly-fishing itself but also about how one&’s love of fly-fishing shapes the world that we choose to make for ourselves.