Fishing 1 by 1

posted by admin on Feb 27

Editorial Reviews

Travel is no longer a luxury and not always an entertainment. Many journeys need to be made‹to get home or away from an enemy, to work, to find a last resting place, or because someone has told you to go. This issue of Granta is about such journeys; you might call it necessary travel writing, with Decca Aitkenhead: looking for cheap sex and drugs; Manuel Bauer: a child¹s escape over the Himalayas; Isabel Hilton: what have they done to Beijing?; Ian Jack: the train crash that stopped Britain; Ryszrd Kapuscinski: in the forests of Cameroon; Ian McEwan: on the retreat to Dunkirk, 1940; John Ryle: the last Emperor makes his last journey; Dayanita Singh: inside a sanctuary for girls in Benares; Simon Winchester: how Britain and the US made a people homeless; plus the untold story of how the FBI pursued James Baldwin at home, revealed by James Campbell. Granta is the paperback magazine of new writing. Every issue features the best new fiction, reportage, memoir and photography, generally collected under a theme.

Order Granta 73: Necessary Journeys (Granta: The Magazine of New Writing): Ian Jack form Amazon.

posted by admin on Feb 20

Editorial Reviews

“Nothing indicated that we were otherwise situated than in a very pleasant, rather wide grass valley in the embrace of the mountains. Only a walk of a few hundred yards atop the upthrow of the low rise revealed the fact that it was in reality the lip of a bench, and that beyond it the country fell away in sheer cliffs whose ultimate drop was some fifteen hundred feet. One could sit atop and dangle his feet over unguessed abysses.” This excerpt comes from the first chapter.

Order The Land of Footprints: Stewart Edward White form Amazon.

posted by admin on Jan 14

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Except for adding photographs and a new introduction, some minor editing, and a larger format, this collection of 14 thoughtful essays about fishing is the same as the 1976 edition ( LJ 4/1/76). Chatham’s coast is the Pacific from San Francisco to Vancouver, but he also writes about some inland rivers and lakes. He is a fly fisherman whose favorite quarry is salmon and steelhead, although his quest for sport has even led him after herring. Because of increased fishing and the damming of rivers and other environmental pressures, his writing documents an angling scene that may never happen again. Libraries that missed the earlier edition, particularly in the West, will want to purchase.
- Peter C. Leonard, Mt. Lebanon P.L., Pa.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
“…one of the best angling writers… I luxuriated in his brilliant, sensitive description of the West Coast and its fishing.” — Nelson Bryant - New York Times

“Chatham is an evocative, skilled writer.” — SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

“Chatham’s one of the best angling writers in action today.” — Nelson Bryant/NEW YORK TIMES

“Some angling writers have traveled the world over in search of big fish, Chatham has cruised.” — Thomas McGuane, from The Prologue

Order The Angler’s Coast: Russell Chatham form Amazon.

posted by admin on Jan 14

Editorial Reviews

Robert Lee’s comic creation, Donnie Phillips, is a Montana fly-fishing guide with a few issues–such as his belief that no woman should be allowed on a trout stream. Guiding Elliott is an epistolary novel that allows Donnie plenty of room to make his hilarious, misguided casts as he endeavors to pass on a little small-town wisdom to folks in the Manhattan chapter of Trout Unlimited. Like all buffoons, though, Donnie also manages to impart some solid sense amid the pratfalls and malapropisms.

From Kirkus Reviews
As told by Donnie Phillips, Lee’s debut novel about fly- fishing in Montana is bestrewn with glorious malapropisms: “I have a good vocabulary for a fishing guide, but I know I ain’t no Rogue Scholar, so when I come upon a new word I study on it some.” The main new word Donnie studies is piscatorial, as in “Dear Piscatorial Partners,” which is how he opens the letters that comprise this epistolary novel and that he sends to Manhattan Chapter #6 of Trout Unlimited. This opening, further, lets him avoid mentioning women (“effeminate females,” as he would have it) in his discussions of the men-only (as he would have it) art of trout fishing. Piscatorial derives from the Roman Empire, where a local angler, seeing women fishing, remarked, “Ain’t that a piss- cutter!” Says Donnie: “The empire collapsed soon after that, and historians have misinterpreted the remark and decided that `piscator’ was a Latin term meaning fishermen.” When New Yorker Elliott, separated from his wife back in the city, arrives to teach English and creative writing, he hires Donnie as a guide to show him some fishing water–which he does, though forever twisting other people’s superior abilities, including Elliott’s graceful and accurate casting, in his own form of one-upmanship. Meanwhile, Donnie is somehow married to Nancy, who has a degree in psychology and sociology and works for a local home where they help people who are really messed up. When Donnie’s boss Wally fires him and hires Elliott to replace him, Elliott’s girlfriend Beth, suggests that she, Elliott, Donnie, and Nancy build their own B&B lodge for fishing guests. Before Donnie knows it, a whole passel of fisherwomen from New York have their eye on the lodge-to-be. Good fun and steadily amusing, though it seldom plucks at the heartstrings as does, say, Ring Lardner, the master of authoritative stupidity and lingual description. — Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Order Guiding Elliott: Robert Lee form Amazon.

posted by admin on Jan 14

Editorial Reviews

Charles Lindsay’s lens points inward as well as out. In Mentawai Shaman: Keeper of the Rain Forest, he captured his time living with an Indonesian tribal leader and hunter. Closer to home, Upstream explores his latest odyssey: five years spent roaming the American West with a fly rod in one hand and a camera in the other. Here we find photographer as predator, slipping unseen into an alien world to witness the hidden lives of his quarry, to understand his own stalking. The hunter-artist returns from his extended fishing trip with some of the most striking testimonials to an ancient pursuit ever seen. As with Ansel Adams’s photos, Lindsay’s landscapes of arid hills, big skies, and rushing rivers can be stark and ominous, but Lindsay infuses the lonely, wide-open spaces with a sense of possibility that only a living thing can provide: A sudden swirl in an opaque pool. A taught line whipsawing across a riffle. A dense hatch of mayflies rising above the surface. And then the chance, if brief, to greet the nearly unknowable denizen of another world–a fish miraculously to hand. There’s humor and futility, too: the inevitable bird’s nest of tippet and fly knotted around a willow. These are images that will enthrall fly-fishers and photography enthusiasts alike, matched with the peerless prose of outdoorsman-author Thomas McGuane.

“The face of creation takes in everything with a level stare . . . only in observation of nature can we recover that view. “–Thomas McGuane

A poetic exploration, in words and pictures, of the art and spirit of fly-fishing.

Charles Lindsay’s grandfather taught him to fly-fish when he was nine years old. Ever since, in pursuit of trout and solitude, he has immersed himself in the clear, rushing waters of the American West. Fly rod in hand, he participates in the ancient rituals between man and nature. At times photographing beneath the surface of the water, Lindsay literally enters the world of the trout. In this close observance of the cosmos within the river, he explores the fundamental relationship of all life to water.

The photographs in Upstream illuminate a primitive world of elemental beauty and fractured light-abstract and utterly in motion. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, with wilderness under siege and humanity increasingly removed from nature, Lindsay uses his camera to express the enduring vitality of the natural world. Thomas McGuane, avid fly fisherman, frequent contributor to Sports Illustrated and Riverwatch, and author of Ninety-two in the Shade, brilliantly explores these themes in his accompanying text.

Order Upstream: Fly-Fishing in the American West: Thomas McGuane, Charles Lindsay form Amazon.

posted by admin on Jan 14

Editorial Reviews

It’s no surprise, really, that a novelist of Craig Nova’s range should find himself as drawn to trout as he is to words. Both are uncertain and private pursuits with lots of time for contemplation, punctuated by plenty of setbacks and the occasional victory. Remarkably, each has a way of sustaining the other.

Nova’s memoir is, sadly, short, but the experiences he relates are anything but thin; anglers know there is just as much splendor in a game little fish as there is in one that’s trophy-size. On streams from Maine to the Catskills, he skillfully and revealingly connects his fly lines to his life lines: his courtship, his marriage, his daughters, his writing. In one remarkable set piece, he recalls in splendid detail a bizarre episode, complete with the absurd intrigue of overt threats and secret mail drops, in which he becomes the target of an interstate extortion plot; Nova finds solace through the anxiety as he befriends–and fishes with–the FBI agent assigned to his case.

Why, in the end, does angling hook him so? One memorably lovely passage explains the essence of the union: “During important events in my life, I have gone fishing for brook trout. What I got out of this was not just the absence of what was confining or upsetting, but the presence of another quality altogether: These fish are forever associated in my mind with the depths of thankfulness for good fortune, just as they always reminded me of beauty and a sense of what may be possible after all.” It is in that hopeful landscape of the possible that anglers–and writers–go to thrive. –Jeff Silverman

From Library Journal
Though Nova is the author of nine hard-edged novels, including The Universal Donor and The Book of Dreams, in this slim, likeable memoir he reveals himself to be a caring and sensitive spouse, parent, and outdoorsman. FishingAmostly for brook trout with a fly rodAhas been a constant throughout his adult life, and he credits it with enhancing whatever writing skills or virtues he might possess. He argues that flyfishing’s reflective nature lends intrinsic hopefulness and clear thinking to almost any proximate activity. The chapters cover meaningful events and relationships such as the impact angling had on his perseverance as a young, struggling writer and how fly tying helped him to evade his 12-year-old daughter’s questions about what it’s like to be in love. There’s also a harrowing tale about an extortionist that ends anticlimactically. Recommended for public libraries.AWill Hepfer, SUNY at Buffalo Libs.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Order Brook Trout and the Writing Life: Craig Nova form Amazon.

posted by admin on Jan 13

Editorial Reviews

Review
“A Good Life Wasted is a vicarious pleasure for anyone who has ever wondered, even once, what it would be like not to have a ‘real job’.”–Missoulian, July 10, 2003

“[Ames] writes 11 loosely connected stories, eloquently using the medium of angling to discuss the virtues of a lifestyle old timers used to describe as ‘trifling.’ Moving, thought-provoking, sometimes powerful, and always entertaining, this is an important and welcome addition to the literary side of the angler’s world.”–Library Journal, July 29, 2003

“Powerful at points, moving, thought-provoking, and always entertaining, this is an important and welcome addition to the literary side of the angler’s world.”– Library Journal

Told through the eyes of a longtime Montana fishing guide and itinerant fishing bum, A GOOD LIFE WASTED offers a unique perspective on an implausible period in the recent history of human civilization. When Dave Ames started guiding, Rocky Mountain locals rode horses and dug camas roots; now they’re trading stock options on cell phones. The collision of stone and computer ages was short-lived, but the deep-rooted themes of this book remain.
A chronicle and celebration of the fishing-guide life, A GOOD LIFE WASTED is a vicarious pleasure for anyone who has ever wondered, even once, what it would be like not to have a “real job.” The book is poignant and spiritual; it’s Blackfoot Indians and copper miners’ daughters; it’s fiddles and guitars and the fabric of space; it’s about what happens to wild people when the wilderness is gone.
From the first chapter–in which Dave Ames recalls bluffing his way into a job as a fishing guide to the rich and famous (after barely managing to suppress the overwhelming urge to go postal at the federal agency where he suffered his first, and only, “real” job in a cubicle farm)–we’re hooked. We gladly follow Ames as he describes the rite of tasting clouds of mating midges to better match the hatch, tells the story of a fabled Blackfoot fishing guide, and shares his further adventures as a guy with no job, no office, and no stress. A GOOD LIFE WASTED spins a fascinating, compelling web–a web that entices the deskbound salary slave to make a break for it, and head west to big sky and fast, cold water, ASAP.

Order A Good Life Wasted: or Twenty Years as a Fishing Guide: Dave Ames form Amazon.

posted by admin on Jan 12

Editorial Reviews

Sponsored by the habitat conservation group Trout Unlimited, The Gift of Trout is an unabashed celebration of trout and the wild places they call home. It is also an anthology of angling’s first-rate writing. As editor Ted Leeson explains in his introduction, "This book celebrates trout by attempting to decipher the shorthand–to explore in the work of some of angling’s best writers the abundance and variety of contexts that create the trout angler’s world."

From the Back Cover
John Gierach, Thomas McGuane, David Quammen, Roderick Haig-Brown, David James Duncan, Harry Middleton, Paul Schullery - these are just a few of the memorable authors whose best essays grace this rich celebration of the “the gift of trout.”The selections range from a section on “Early American Trout Fishing” to “Can Fly Fishing Survive the Twenty-first Century?” Mixed into the rich stew are such treats as “First Native” (David James Duncan), “Walk on Water for Me” (Lorian Hemingway), “Big Water” (a poem by John Engels), “Midstream” (Thomas McGuane), and an updated version of Robert Berls’s important survey of the best in modern American fly-fishing literature, “Sudden Spate: A New Celebration of Fresh, Literate Books About Trout Fishing,” which originally appeared in Trout Unlimited’s Trout magazine. (6 1/4 X 9 1/4, 196 pages, illustrations)

Order The Gift of Trout: A Treasury of Great Writing about Trout and Trout Fishing: Ted Leeson form Amazon.

posted by admin on Jan 12

Editorial Reviews

Logger, trapper, guide, magistrate, army officer, radio broadcaster, conservationist, and university chancellor, Roderick L. Haig-Brown, the multitalented Renaissance man of North American angling, considered himself first and foremost a writer. Given the overall quality, range, depth, and grace of The Seasons of a Fisherman, it would be awfully hard to argue. This marvelous volume, which collects four of his best-loved classics between one set of covers for the first time, should elegantly introduce Haig-Brown, who died in 1976, to a new generation of outdoors enthusiasts as it reintroduces him to his old angling friends.

Originally written in the early ’50s, the four books wade into an angler’s summer, winter, spring, and fall, and while each muses over what a particular season requires of the fisherman, none is just about fishing; Haig-Brown never limited himself. These books are about his beloved British Columbia, the environment as a whole, its repetitive rhythms, and the angler’s place in it. They are about fishing stories; the traditions of fly-fishing; and how to catch fish, tie flies, and observe the natural world. Fishing, in Haig-Brown’s cosmos, was more than just the pursuit of fish: it was the full, wide-ranging engagement of the mind and the senses.

Listen to the litheness of his prose from “Fisherman’s Spring,” the first of the four sections, as he ponders the worthiness of the endeavor:

It is … something more than a sport. It is an intimate exploration of a part of the world hidden from the eyes and minds of ordinary people. It is a way of thinking and doing, a way of reviving the mind and body, that men have been following with growing intensity for hundreds of years.

This is just a taste of what “Seasons” overflows with, as is this admission–is there an angler who can’t share it?–from “Summer”: “I am beginning to find it very salutary to remember just how much ‘happening right,’ if not downright luck, there has been in nearly all my little triumphs.” As a book, Seasons is a big enough triumph to become a dog-eared cornerstone of your fly-fishing library. –Jeff Silverman

From Library Journal
With spring within sight, fly fishers are beginning to inspect their gear carefully, feeling their lines for nicks and weak spots, testing hook sharpness, and checking waders for holes, all in anticipation of that first magic day out. Haig-Brown has long been a favorite read among anglers, and this volume combines his four standard volumes, Fisherman’s Spring (1951), Fisherman’s Summer (1959), Fisherman’s Fall (1964), and Fisherman’s Winter (1954), into a single, beautiful hardcover. Haig-Brown’s writings are always in season.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Order The Seasons of a Fisherman: A Flyfisher’s Classic Evocations of Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter Fishing: Roderick L. Haig-Brown form Amazon.

posted by admin on Jan 12

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
“It is a truism among anglers that the deepest affections attach to first waters. They become our private archetypes…. The images of people, the reflections of other times and places are mirrored in a silver surface, and fishing becomes a form of memory, and memory a form of return.” Angling essayist and Oregon State University English professor Leeson’s new collection of essays (after Habit of Rivers) returns to the waters he’s known since childhood, the spring creeks in southern Wisconsin’s pastoral “driftless country.” The landscape is an Ice Age geologic anomaly, untouched by glaciers and composed of narrow valleys, coves, hollows and small creeks full of trout. Leeson’s finely woven recollections and thoughtful meditations on the natural world drive these essays, as he considers everything from bees to Amish farms to the special qualities of trout fishermen. He recalls becoming a fishing fanatic at the age of 14, describes his favorite fishing companions (his brother and their old childhood friend, nicknamed “Lizard”) and tells of a medieval custom called “beating the bounds,” in which older villagers taught young boys the limits of their rural hamlet by banging their heads against trees and other boundary markers. Occasionally Leeson’s reveries drift into vague sentimentality, but for the most part he keeps them grounded with anecdotes and facts about the natural history and geography of his native region.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Spring creeks (streams rising from subsurface aquifers) loom large in Leeson’s angling life, even though less than one-thousandth of all trout water flows in them. This book’s 15 essays explore the spring creeks that Lesson has fished in “Driftless country” on the Illinois-Wisconsin border, a region mysteriously spared alteration by the great Wisconsin glaciers. Although spring creeks and Wisconsin geography are somewhat arcane subjects, Leeson brings them alive with style and insight in this remarkable memoir, one of the last books edited by angling great Nick Lyons. Leeson’s writing displays the same thoughtfulness and beauty evident in his first book, Habit of Rivers (1994), but this time the pace is faster, and there is more wit. Remarkably, there is no fishing in the book’s first third, and when Leeson does describe his forays into the spring creeks, it is always without jargon and with a vivid sense of place and context. The text is peppered with allusions to books and films (Hemingway and Hitchcock’s The Birds); marvelous reflections on Wisconsin farms, taverns, cows, and cheese; references to English writers Halford and Skues, also devotees of spring creeks; and even a touch of baseball. Like the best fishing books, his account transcends its topic; its audience should be not just those who read the great fishing writers (Lyons, Barich, Gierach) but also those who savor the nonfiction of Annie Dillard, John McPhee, and William Least Heat-Moon. John Rowen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Order Jerusalem Creek: Journeys into Driftless Country: Ted Leeson form Amazon.