Book picks similar to
Chokecherry Places: Essays From The High Plains by Merrill Gilfillan
essay
american-west
great-plains
perfect-games
Landmarks
Robert Macfarlane - 2015
Landmarks is about the power of language to shape our sense of place. It is a field guide to the literature of nature, and a glossary containing thousands of remarkable words used in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales to describe land, nature and weather. Travelling from Cumbria to the Cairngorms, and exploring the landscapes of Roger Deakin, J. A. Baker, Nan Shepherd and others, Robert Macfarlane shows that language, well used, is a keen way of knowing landscape, and a vital means of coming to love it.
With Every Mistake
Gwynne Dyer - 2005
With Every Mistake is not only a collection of the very best of Dyer’s recent work, but an examination of how, time and again, the media skews fact and opinion, wielding formidable influence on how we all shape our own thoughts. And why is so much of the information wrong? Is it herd instinct, official manipulation, robber-baron owners with ideological obsessions — or just the conflict between the inherently bitty, short-term nature of news reporting and analysis and the longer perspectives needed to understand what is actually going on? How much misinformation stems from simple ignorance and laziness?
A Wild Journey for Payback
Ethan Westfield - 2020
Having no interest in gold or fame, he had his fill of adventure before arriving in the untamed backdrop of the wild frontier. When he first set foot in Bozeman, Montana, trouble was the last thing he expected to find, but after the sudden attack of three notorious felons wanted by the law, he figured out that his stay there would not be a child's play, as he wished. As if that weren't enough, running low on bullets and cash will soon throw him on the mercy of a ruthless rancher, who has nearly complete control of the town. Will Smith finally take the risk to accept a tempting job offer from the vicious man?Rumors about Smith spread in town like wildfire, but little did he know that this crime was only the beginning of his perilous adventure. While riding on a rainy day, he rescues a helpless woman, trapped in a criminal's dirty hands. Smith will soon find out that she is Josephine Compton, the daughter of a powerful cattle baron, and he will take it upon himself to return her to the ranch. How will their unexpected encounter change their lives once and for all?Even though Josephine and Smith meet under the worst variety of circumstances, the attraction between them is impossible to deny. However, their love cannot flourish, as Smith's temporary stay in Bozeman will soon turn into a bloody undertaking without end. Will he manage to choose the right side and fight for good against evil? Or will they both be doomed to a dreadful fate?An action-packed story, featuring complex and fascinating characters, and twists and turns that will take your breath away. A must-read for fans of Western action and romance."A Wild Journey for Payback" is a historical adventure novel of approximately 60,000 words. No cliffhangers, only pure unadulterated action.
Savage Country
Robert Olmstead - 2017
In September 1873, Elizabeth Coughlin, a widow bankrupted by her husband’s folly and death, embarks on a buffalo hunt with her estranged and mysterious brother-in-law Michael. With no money, no family, no job or security, she hopes to salvage something of her former life and the lives of the hired men and women who depend on her. The buffalo hunt that her husband had planned, she now realizes, was his last hope for saving the land. Elizabeth and Michael plunge south across the aptly named Deadline demarcating Indian Territory from their home state of Kansas. Nothing could have prepared them for the dangers: rattlesnakes, rabies, wildfire, lightning strikes, blue northers, flash floods, threats to life in so many ways. They’re on borrowed time: the Comanche are in winter quarters, and the cruel work is unraveling their souls. They must get back alive. This is a gripping, historically accurate account of that infamous hunt, which decimated the bison population to near extinction, and the story of a moment in our history in which mass destruction of an animal population was seen as the only route to economic solvency. And it is also a thrilling, readable tale of how that hunt changed Michael and Elizabeth forever.
The Land of Moonlit Snows: & Other Real Travel Stories from the Indian Himalaya
Gaurav Punj - 2018
Of narrow escapes from remote valleys, encounters with the wild, treks across snow-covered passes and flower-filled meadows, blended with the kindness of locals and their food, culture and festivals. The real stories in the book attempt to make just one point — exploration is for everyone. Includes: Solo Trek Story by Rujuta Diwekar25 day-by-day itineraries for treks and trips across the Indian HimalayaContact information of local guides and organisations ‘Highly original, wackily entertaining and unusually instructive … Gaurav’s writing breathes back the special joy unique to Himalayan trekking’ – Bill Aitken
Venice Observed
Mary McCarthy - 1956
“Searching observations and astonishing comprehension of the Venetian taste and character” (New York Herald Tribune).
Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung
Lester Bangs - 1987
Advertising in Rolling Stone and other major publications.
Tales Of The Open Road: Signed As On Road With Ruskin Bond
Ruskin Bond - 2006
And if the place is well known, Ruskin leaves the common tourist spots to find a small alley or shop where he finds colourful characters to engage in conversation.Tales of the is a collection of Ruskin Bond’s travel writing over fifty years. Here, you will encounter a tonga ride through the Shivaliks, a hidden waterfall near Rishikesh, walks along the myriad streets of Delhi (one of which used to be the richest in Asia), trips down the Grand Trunk Road, stopovers in little tea stalls in the hills around Mussoorie, and an excursion to the icy source of the Ganga at over ten thousand feet above sea level.Enriched by rare photographs that Ruskin took during his travels, Tales of the is a celebration of small-town and rural by its most engaging chronicler.
The Best American Sports Writing 2014
Christopher McDougall - 2014
From more than 350 national, regional, and specialty publications and, increasingly, the top sports blogs, Christopher McDougall, best-selling author of Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, hand-selected the very best sports journalism of the past year.
Lump it or Leave It
Florence King - 1990
Her cuts are so swift that the smiles are still on the faces when she displays the heads on her trophy wall.--Washington Post. Finally in trade paperback, here is the latest volume of stiletto essays from the author of Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye and Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady.
Route Britannia, the Journey South: A Spontaneous Bicycle Ride through Every County in Britain
Steven Primrose-Smith - 2016
All 97 counties of it! Surely it can't be as bad as everyone tells him. After twenty years living abroad, he thinks the time is right to search his homeland for the best of British using new eyes, those of a foreign tourist, and in the only way he knows how – by bicycle. Armed with a list of recommendations gathered from friends and strangers alike and the most spontaneous of routes, he pedals 5,000 miles through damp English country lanes, soggy Welsh moorland and windswept Scottish mountains. He gets wet quite often. Following on from the success and irreverent style of both No Place Like Home, Thank God and Hungry for Miles, Steven seeks out the quirky in the people he meets, the places he visits and the food he eats. Can his initial store of positivity survive the journey, or will it be ground down by the traffic, the weather and his British, vegetable-free diet of beer, pies and pork scratchings? In this, Book 1, The Journey South, Steven travels from Merseyside to Warwickshire, through the whole of Wales, the West Country, the south coast and to London. Armed with a bag of googly eyes, he meets a poetry-prescribing nurse, stumbles across Hilda Ogden's lawnmower, has his footwear stolen by foxes, discovers some very special Mexican fleas, crashes the TARDIS and visits dozens of British capitals, including its infidelity capital, its boob job capital and its dogging capital. He experiences "real" Britain – the good and the bad – its Morris dancers, pie 'n' mash and the pinnacle of British culture, a good old-fashioned street fight. The concluding part, The Journey North, covering the east of England, Scotland and the north-west of England will be available in Summer 2017.
The Norman Maclean Reader
Norman Maclean - 2008
But it was a role he took up late in life, that of writer, that won him enduring fame and critical acclaim—as well as the devotion of readers worldwide. Though the 1976 collection A River Runs Through It and Other Stories was the only book Maclean published in his lifetime, it was an unexpected success, and the moving family tragedy of the title novella—based largely on Maclean’s memories of his childhood home in Montana—has proved to be one of the most enduring American stories ever written.The Norman Maclean Reader is a wonderful addition to Maclean’s celebrated oeuvre. Bringing together previously unpublished materials with incidental writings and selections from his more famous works, the Reader will serve as the perfect introduction for readers new to Maclean, while offering longtime fans new insight into his life and career. In this evocative collection, Maclean as both a writer and a man becomes evident. Perceptive, intimate essays deal with his career as a teacher and a literary scholar, as well as the wealth of family stories for which Maclean is famous. Complete with a generous selection of letters, as well as excerpts from a 1986 interview, The Norman Maclean Reader provides a fully fleshed-out portrait of this much admired author, showing us a writer fully aware of the nuances of his craft, and a man as at home in the academic environment of the University of Chicago as in the quiet mountains of his beloved Montana.Multifarious and moving, the works collected in The Norman Maclean Reader serve as both a summation and a celebration, giving readers a chance once again to hear one of American literature’s most distinctive voices.
The Maestro Myth: Great Conductors in Pursuit of Power
Norman Lebrecht - 1991
And in portraying the politics and inflated economics surrounding the podiums of today's international classical music scene, the author investigates the awesome power of superagents, the obstacles faced by blacks, women, and gays, and the mounting crisis in a profession where genuine talent grows ever scarcer.
The Bread and the Knife: A Life in 26 Bites
Dawn Drzal - 2018
F. K. Fisher in The Gastronomical Me, food is more than a metaphor in The Bread and the Knife. It is the organizing principle of an existence. Starting with "A Is for Al Dente," the loosely linked chapters evoke an alphabet of food memories that recount a woman’s emotional growth from the challenges of youth to professional accomplishment, marriage, and divorce. Betrayal is embodied in an overripe melon, her awakening in a Béarnaise sauce. Passion fruit juice portends the end of a first marriage, while tarte Tatin offers redemption. Each letter serves up a surprising variation on the struggle for self-knowledge, the joy and pain of familial and romantic love, and food’s astonishing ability to connect us with both the living and the dead. Ranging from her grandmother's suburban kitchen to an elegant New York restaurant, a longhouse in Borneo, and a palace in Rajasthan, The Bread and the Knife charts the vicissitudes of a woman forced to swallow some hard truths about herself while discovering that the universe can dispense surprising second chances.
La rosa blanca
B. Traven - 1929
A clash of two cultures, total exploitation for maximum profit vs. reverence for the land and what flows from it. As in this novel: We all are poor people, delight in the machine, in the airplane, the radio precisely because we have lost our attachment to the soil. This loss leaves us apathetic and distracted. That's why we need gasoline - to anesthetize us, to make us insensible of our loss, of our pain, gasoline that deludes us with speed so that we can flee all the quicker from ourselves and the needs of the heart. A Collector's Edition