A Certain Alchemy is the name of Keith Carter’s new book. It has an introduction by Bill Wittliff, another renowned Texas photographer who founded the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University – San Marcos, and is the author of the recent bestselling book from University of Texas Press, A Book of Photographs from Lonesome Dove. There is also an afterword by Patricia Carter, Keith’s wife, who offers another perspective on his work. Carter has made himself a major name in fine art photography circles in the last twenty-odd years, and this new book will attest to his relentless creativity. Photography has to do with what is chosen to be inside the frame, what is left out of the frame, how the image is lighted, and what the perspective is, among other things. Carter has been called a “poet of the ordinary” and he has taken mundane happenings around his home in East Texas and made these seemingly everyday things look extraordinary. His photographs of animals are legendary, see the book he did with Texas in 2000 called Ezekiel’s Horse (Booklist called the book, “Majestic, intelligent, sculptural”), and here he does not disappoint readers. He expands his range of subjects and locations to put together a gallery of photographs that is haunting, arresting, and attempts to seeks out the profound hidden meanings of the real world.
You can view photographs by Carter and get some deep background on this key artist by going to his web site http://www.keithcarterphotographs.com/ -- a Keith Carter book is always entertaining to look at closely, and you never know quite what to expect from his camera. A Certain Alchemy is his tenth book, and here we see a visual artist at the absolute top of his game.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
Minnesota to publish a book on radical Serbian filmmaker Dušan Makavejev
Lorraine Mortimer is a social science lecturer from Melbourne (La Trobe University), and she has written a critical assessment of the films of Makavejev, Terror and Joy: The Films of Dušan Makavejev. Amazingly, this is the first book-length critical study of this key Serbian filmmaker. The book spans his career from 1965 to 1994.
Man Is Not a Bird (1965) is an amazing film, his first feature, and the film "blends actuality with fiction in a manner so unselfconscious as to seem almost natural …” according to International Film Guide.
WR: Mysteries of an Organism (1971) is an offbeat, counter-cultural classic. Inspired by the writings and life of Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, the WR in the title, Makavejev describes it as "a black comedy, political circus, a fantasy on the fascism and communism of human bodies, the political life of human genitals, a proclamation of the pornographic essence of any system of authority and power over others...If you watch for more than five minutes, you become my accomplice." It’s interesting to note that Tuli Kupferberg, legendary beat poet and band leader of the 1960s group The FUGS, has a role in the film.
Sweet Movie (1974) helped establish Makavejev as “one of cinema's most controversial, original and exciting directors,” according to Facets Multimedia in Chicago. This is one hard-to-find movie, since it was banned in several countries, and helped get Makavejev exiled from Serbia for close to 15 years. Facets has several Makavejev films in their video collection, among which is an early experimental film called Innocence Unprotected (1968). This film is described by Facets as a “cinematic collage” that is “a funny and daring (in both content and form) mix of a wide variety of film footage--including documentary, narrative, agitprop, and various other bits and pieces of found footage.”
Any Makavejev film is going to be interesting to watch, especially the early ones. He did make an attempt at doing a Hollywood film. In Australia, he directed The Coca Cola Kid (1985), starring Eric Roberts and Greta Scacchi. That was a pretty entertaining film, his stab at doing a romantic comedy, but it ultimately failed at the box office.
Mortimer’s book is a groundbreaking look at seven of Makavejev’s films, and she puts his films in historical context with political upheavals such as World War II, the breakup of Yugoslavia, and the fall of communism. True to the spirit of Makavejev, Morimer takes what the publisher calls “a radically interdisciplinary approach” in her critical assessment of Makavejev’s work. Complete with 25 b/w photos, this should be one cool book.
For more information about Makavejev, along with an extensive interview with the director and lots more information, visit this web site http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/11/makavejev.html
Man Is Not a Bird (1965) is an amazing film, his first feature, and the film "blends actuality with fiction in a manner so unselfconscious as to seem almost natural …” according to International Film Guide.
WR: Mysteries of an Organism (1971) is an offbeat, counter-cultural classic. Inspired by the writings and life of Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, the WR in the title, Makavejev describes it as "a black comedy, political circus, a fantasy on the fascism and communism of human bodies, the political life of human genitals, a proclamation of the pornographic essence of any system of authority and power over others...If you watch for more than five minutes, you become my accomplice." It’s interesting to note that Tuli Kupferberg, legendary beat poet and band leader of the 1960s group The FUGS, has a role in the film.
Sweet Movie (1974) helped establish Makavejev as “one of cinema's most controversial, original and exciting directors,” according to Facets Multimedia in Chicago. This is one hard-to-find movie, since it was banned in several countries, and helped get Makavejev exiled from Serbia for close to 15 years. Facets has several Makavejev films in their video collection, among which is an early experimental film called Innocence Unprotected (1968). This film is described by Facets as a “cinematic collage” that is “a funny and daring (in both content and form) mix of a wide variety of film footage--including documentary, narrative, agitprop, and various other bits and pieces of found footage.”
Any Makavejev film is going to be interesting to watch, especially the early ones. He did make an attempt at doing a Hollywood film. In Australia, he directed The Coca Cola Kid (1985), starring Eric Roberts and Greta Scacchi. That was a pretty entertaining film, his stab at doing a romantic comedy, but it ultimately failed at the box office.
Mortimer’s book is a groundbreaking look at seven of Makavejev’s films, and she puts his films in historical context with political upheavals such as World War II, the breakup of Yugoslavia, and the fall of communism. True to the spirit of Makavejev, Morimer takes what the publisher calls “a radically interdisciplinary approach” in her critical assessment of Makavejev’s work. Complete with 25 b/w photos, this should be one cool book.
For more information about Makavejev, along with an extensive interview with the director and lots more information, visit this web site http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/11/makavejev.html
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Catholic University of America Press to publish a key 19th Century Spanish novel
Juan Valera’s The Illusions of Doctor Faustino (Las illusions del doctor Faustino) came out in 1875, and was considered to be one of the most important novels of its time in Spain. It was favorably compared to Flaubert’s A Sentimental Education (L’Education sentimentale) because of the negative affect of Romanticism on Faustino’s life. Valera had written a blockbuster the year before, Pepita Jiménez, and that book clearly established Valera as a writer of brilliant prose. This previous book deals realistically with the struggle between love and religion in an ardent young man who is studying for the priesthood, and who falls desperately in love with the title character, who is supposed to marry his widowed father. Valera takes it one step further with Doctor Faustino’s character, who seems to be unlucky in love at every turn, through no fault of his own. His love life is a series of nonstarters and missed opportunities, as he either scorns or is scorned by three different women in the course of his life. The story starts out in Andalusia, in Southern Spain, and then moves on to Madrid, where the denouement takes place and Faustino meets his sad end in a Romantic malaise.
This edition is deftly translated by Robert M. Fedorchek, a professor emeritus of Spanish at Fairfield University., with an introduction by Agnes Money, a professor of Spanish at Temple University. Fedorchek is a veteran translator, and he previously translated another Valera book for CUA Press in 2006, Juanita la Larga. According to an expert, Harriet S. Turner, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, “Fedorchek’s translation of Juanita la Larga captures the light, sinuous line of the original Spanish. In a masterly series of sleights of hand—transpositions, pauses, and ellipses—Fedorchek informs his translation with the wit, delicacy, and playfulness of Valera’s novel." It is evident that Fedorcheck does the same thing with The Illusions of Doctor Faustino, and allows English readers a rare opportunity to encounter a classic Spanish-language work.
This edition is deftly translated by Robert M. Fedorchek, a professor emeritus of Spanish at Fairfield University., with an introduction by Agnes Money, a professor of Spanish at Temple University. Fedorchek is a veteran translator, and he previously translated another Valera book for CUA Press in 2006, Juanita la Larga. According to an expert, Harriet S. Turner, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, “Fedorchek’s translation of Juanita la Larga captures the light, sinuous line of the original Spanish. In a masterly series of sleights of hand—transpositions, pauses, and ellipses—Fedorchek informs his translation with the wit, delicacy, and playfulness of Valera’s novel." It is evident that Fedorcheck does the same thing with The Illusions of Doctor Faustino, and allows English readers a rare opportunity to encounter a classic Spanish-language work.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Personal Struggles and Triumphs Can Make For Great Reading
Ohio University Press published a pioneering book in 1997 with Linda Spence’s Legacy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Personal History. The book was designed to prod a story out of people about the different phases of their lives. The focus was on getting older people to talk about their experiences, and the end-result was a set of writing that was “mesmerizing and revelatory,” according to Booklist. A new book along the same lines is coming out from Ohio, it's called Catching Stories: A Practical Guide to Oral History. The book has five authors, all of whom are professional historians and researchers: -- Donna M. DeBlasio, director of the Center for Applied History at Youngstown State University; Charles F. Ganzert, a communications professor at Northern Michigan University; Davis M. Mould, a research dean at Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University; Stephen H. Paschen, an archivist and librarian at Kent State University; Howard L. Sacks, director of the Rural Life Center at Kenyon College. These experts tell readers with little or no experience how to plan and implement an oral history project. These are the kind of stories from everyday people that the media and certain history books tend to overlook. The guide is practical in that it tells readers everything thing they need to know, from recording devices, legal issues, and the interview process, that will assist readers in the important work of documenting memories, and in collecting the stories of community and family. This book should find a place on library shelves and in bookstores across the country.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
University of Washington Press is all over the Map, and loving it from Seattle
From Coulee Dam to the Monterey coast, from the far-flung territories of Native American art to a quaint hillside garden in Seattle, from the frontlines in the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s to the origins of the Shan state in Myanmar, this university press continues a tradition of eclectic excellence in its seasonal book offerings.
There is an eerie Thai mystery, featuring the ace detective Father Ananda, in a book distributed for Silkworm Books called Killer Karma by Nick Wilgus, chief sub-editor for the “Outlook” section of the Bangkok Post. A grisly spectacle of ghostly heads bobbing on the surface of the sea attracts a crowd near Wat Phloi, a tiny monastery on the coast of Chanthaburi Province in central Thailand. Ananda, an urban monk and former Bangkok police officer, is sent to investigate. This becomes his most challenging case to date, and he is accompanied by Jak, a former temple boy, who assists the good Father in unraveling the case. Wilgus’ previous books include Adventures of Birdshit Foreigner under the pen name of Sulayman X. Previous books in the Father Ananda series are Mindfulness and Murder and Garden of Hell, both available from Silkworm through Washington. Booksellers and librarians should order up.
Towards the back of the Washington catalog for those readers with curiosity and perseverance there is a really interesting book distributed for UNSW Press (University of New South Wales Press in Australia). The F Word: How We Learned to Swear by Feminism by Jane Caro and Catherine Fox is a topical new book that addresses the crucial work/life balance that women face in Western society. They dispel the idea that the balancing act women go through as they juggle work and family is a no-win situation for them. In vivacious prose they offer practical suggestions for effectively combining work and social life with parenting and marriage for women. There are a range of women profiled here that provide readers with a big picture, and the book helps women in forgiving themselves, having fun and not giving up while holding it all together. The cover hangs its hat on a big lowercase F, along with a brassier, a frying pan, and a brief case. See the cover: http://www.unswpress.com.au/isbn/9780868408231.htm
Books from Washington referred to above are B Street: Notorious Playground of Coulee Dam by Lawney L. Reyes. This is Reyes’ memoir of growing up in the Depression-era in and around the town where the Grand Coulee Dam was built. The Reyes’ were a mixed-race family of a Indian mother and a Filipino father and they faced racism as white workers on the dam came after-hours to the bars and the brothels along B Street to let off steam after a grueling work day. Based on his own experience and those of his little sister, Luana, and from his mother’s diary and stories told to him by his parents and members of the Sin-Aikst tribe, this is a fascinating and important document about a way of life that was irrevocably changed forever when the Grand Coulee Dam was built.
In Shaping the Shoreline: Fisheries and Tourism on the Monterey Coast, Connie Y. Chiang, explores the history and development of this key town, which was the setting for John Steinbeck’s classic novel, Cannery Row. What makes this book distinctive is that this is an environmental history of a key region that pays as much attention to human interactions as it does changes in the natural world. She draws on such hot-button issues of race and class, and integrates it with how events in the outside world affected the town and overall region. Monterey began as a quaint seaside resort and developed into a fishing center, as Steinbeck wrote about it in Cannery Row, and then a world-class aquarium was built and this turned the town into a tourism powerhouse. This is being called “a compelling narrative” by Carol McKibben, author of Beyond Cannery Row, and by Richard White of Sanford University says this is “a revealing story of people of Monterey and the sea that gave them life.”
Judith Ostrowitz, the author of Privileging the Past: Reconstructing History in Northwest Coast Art (Washington, 1999), provides a close reading of the contemporary art of native tribes such as Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshain in her new book, Interventions: Native American Art for Far-Flung Territories. These artists cross borders and boundaries in more ways than one, and many are from Canadian First Nation groups, along with their native counterparts in the States. Among many key issues discussed in this thought-provoking book, Ostrowitz explores the impact of modernity on Indian art, and the extraordinary use of the Internet to establish an Indian territory there. This has to do with complex issues dealing with construction of self-identity, and a wacky update to what was previous known as Indian Country. Native American art is becoming more and more familiar to the mainstream art world, and Ostrowitz offers what is being called “an invaluable and timely contribution to the increasingly complex debates around Northwest Coast Native Art” (Charlotte Townsend-Gault, University of British Columbia). Janet Catherine Berlo of University of Rochester pegged it when she said Ostrowitz’s “first-rate” book “brings many intellectual worlds together.” “Interventions” appears to be an apt title for this ground-breaking book.
Streissguth Gardens is a hillside park in the City of Seattle that was founded by a couple who work at University of Washington there. Daniel Streissguth is a Architecture and Urban Planning professor, and his wife Ann is a professor in the School of Medicine, and an avid gardener. Together with their son Benjamin, the Streissguth family worked diligently over 40 years to convert a steep forested hillside in the heart of Seattle into a beautiful woodland garden with vistas of the city and lake. In an engaging narrative, In Love With a Hillside Garden, they discuss their philosophy of creating a green park in the middle of the city, and they describe the process in detail about how they achieved their dreams. There are 147 color illustrations in an oversize 7 x 10 format, with 128 pages in paperback. This beautiful book should travel well beyond the city limits of Seattle, and be a source of inspiration for readers in cities around the globe who would like to try this very thing.
There are several books published every year about the American civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s and the various things occurred during that tumultuous time period. The High Museum of Art in Atlanta is publishing a riveting photography book on the period called Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956-1968 by Julian Cox, a curator at the museum. The introduction is by Charles Johnson, a professor at University of Washington, and Congressman John L. Lewis, a key civil rights leader at the time, provides the afterword. The 120 unforgettable images in the book are by many different photographers – photojournalists, artists, activists and amateurs. This book is a significant visual record of some of the key events that took place then, such as the Freedom Rides of 1961, the Birmingham hosings of 1963, and the Selma to Montgomery March of 1965. This is a fascinating collection of images that speaks directly to the struggle of another generation as they helped to change the nation for themselves and their children.
The Shan people in Myanmar (formerly Burma) are one of the largest and most influential ethnic groups in the country. They settled in the rugged eastern part of the country, the Shan Plateau in the first century, CE from their native China. Sai Aung Tun, a historian and native of the Shan, is writing a useful and fascinating history of the region and its people. History of the Shan State: From Its Origins to 1962, published by Silkworm Books, describes how the Shan dominated the political stage in the country for several years, and how they played an important part after World War II in gaining independence from the British and creating an autonomous state. Sai Aung Tun does a remarkable job of tracing the cultural and political history of the Shan from their immigrant origins to the constitutional crisis of 1962. He highlights the period of 1946 to 1962, and discusses the historic Second Pang Long Conference in 1947 where all nationalities in Myanmar agreed to work together for independence. He concludes with an account of the military coup in 1962. This book provides a sorely needed historical perspective on Myanmar, and will help readers gain a greater understanding and insight to current events unfolding there today.
Readers of all stripes are encouraged to get a hard copy of Washington’s Fall 2008 catalog, or go to their website http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/ to view some really cool books.
There is an eerie Thai mystery, featuring the ace detective Father Ananda, in a book distributed for Silkworm Books called Killer Karma by Nick Wilgus, chief sub-editor for the “Outlook” section of the Bangkok Post. A grisly spectacle of ghostly heads bobbing on the surface of the sea attracts a crowd near Wat Phloi, a tiny monastery on the coast of Chanthaburi Province in central Thailand. Ananda, an urban monk and former Bangkok police officer, is sent to investigate. This becomes his most challenging case to date, and he is accompanied by Jak, a former temple boy, who assists the good Father in unraveling the case. Wilgus’ previous books include Adventures of Birdshit Foreigner under the pen name of Sulayman X. Previous books in the Father Ananda series are Mindfulness and Murder and Garden of Hell, both available from Silkworm through Washington. Booksellers and librarians should order up.
Towards the back of the Washington catalog for those readers with curiosity and perseverance there is a really interesting book distributed for UNSW Press (University of New South Wales Press in Australia). The F Word: How We Learned to Swear by Feminism by Jane Caro and Catherine Fox is a topical new book that addresses the crucial work/life balance that women face in Western society. They dispel the idea that the balancing act women go through as they juggle work and family is a no-win situation for them. In vivacious prose they offer practical suggestions for effectively combining work and social life with parenting and marriage for women. There are a range of women profiled here that provide readers with a big picture, and the book helps women in forgiving themselves, having fun and not giving up while holding it all together. The cover hangs its hat on a big lowercase F, along with a brassier, a frying pan, and a brief case. See the cover: http://www.unswpress.com.au/isbn/9780868408231.htm
Books from Washington referred to above are B Street: Notorious Playground of Coulee Dam by Lawney L. Reyes. This is Reyes’ memoir of growing up in the Depression-era in and around the town where the Grand Coulee Dam was built. The Reyes’ were a mixed-race family of a Indian mother and a Filipino father and they faced racism as white workers on the dam came after-hours to the bars and the brothels along B Street to let off steam after a grueling work day. Based on his own experience and those of his little sister, Luana, and from his mother’s diary and stories told to him by his parents and members of the Sin-Aikst tribe, this is a fascinating and important document about a way of life that was irrevocably changed forever when the Grand Coulee Dam was built.
In Shaping the Shoreline: Fisheries and Tourism on the Monterey Coast, Connie Y. Chiang, explores the history and development of this key town, which was the setting for John Steinbeck’s classic novel, Cannery Row. What makes this book distinctive is that this is an environmental history of a key region that pays as much attention to human interactions as it does changes in the natural world. She draws on such hot-button issues of race and class, and integrates it with how events in the outside world affected the town and overall region. Monterey began as a quaint seaside resort and developed into a fishing center, as Steinbeck wrote about it in Cannery Row, and then a world-class aquarium was built and this turned the town into a tourism powerhouse. This is being called “a compelling narrative” by Carol McKibben, author of Beyond Cannery Row, and by Richard White of Sanford University says this is “a revealing story of people of Monterey and the sea that gave them life.”
Judith Ostrowitz, the author of Privileging the Past: Reconstructing History in Northwest Coast Art (Washington, 1999), provides a close reading of the contemporary art of native tribes such as Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshain in her new book, Interventions: Native American Art for Far-Flung Territories. These artists cross borders and boundaries in more ways than one, and many are from Canadian First Nation groups, along with their native counterparts in the States. Among many key issues discussed in this thought-provoking book, Ostrowitz explores the impact of modernity on Indian art, and the extraordinary use of the Internet to establish an Indian territory there. This has to do with complex issues dealing with construction of self-identity, and a wacky update to what was previous known as Indian Country. Native American art is becoming more and more familiar to the mainstream art world, and Ostrowitz offers what is being called “an invaluable and timely contribution to the increasingly complex debates around Northwest Coast Native Art” (Charlotte Townsend-Gault, University of British Columbia). Janet Catherine Berlo of University of Rochester pegged it when she said Ostrowitz’s “first-rate” book “brings many intellectual worlds together.” “Interventions” appears to be an apt title for this ground-breaking book.
Streissguth Gardens is a hillside park in the City of Seattle that was founded by a couple who work at University of Washington there. Daniel Streissguth is a Architecture and Urban Planning professor, and his wife Ann is a professor in the School of Medicine, and an avid gardener. Together with their son Benjamin, the Streissguth family worked diligently over 40 years to convert a steep forested hillside in the heart of Seattle into a beautiful woodland garden with vistas of the city and lake. In an engaging narrative, In Love With a Hillside Garden, they discuss their philosophy of creating a green park in the middle of the city, and they describe the process in detail about how they achieved their dreams. There are 147 color illustrations in an oversize 7 x 10 format, with 128 pages in paperback. This beautiful book should travel well beyond the city limits of Seattle, and be a source of inspiration for readers in cities around the globe who would like to try this very thing.
There are several books published every year about the American civil rights movement in the 1950s and 60s and the various things occurred during that tumultuous time period. The High Museum of Art in Atlanta is publishing a riveting photography book on the period called Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956-1968 by Julian Cox, a curator at the museum. The introduction is by Charles Johnson, a professor at University of Washington, and Congressman John L. Lewis, a key civil rights leader at the time, provides the afterword. The 120 unforgettable images in the book are by many different photographers – photojournalists, artists, activists and amateurs. This book is a significant visual record of some of the key events that took place then, such as the Freedom Rides of 1961, the Birmingham hosings of 1963, and the Selma to Montgomery March of 1965. This is a fascinating collection of images that speaks directly to the struggle of another generation as they helped to change the nation for themselves and their children.
The Shan people in Myanmar (formerly Burma) are one of the largest and most influential ethnic groups in the country. They settled in the rugged eastern part of the country, the Shan Plateau in the first century, CE from their native China. Sai Aung Tun, a historian and native of the Shan, is writing a useful and fascinating history of the region and its people. History of the Shan State: From Its Origins to 1962, published by Silkworm Books, describes how the Shan dominated the political stage in the country for several years, and how they played an important part after World War II in gaining independence from the British and creating an autonomous state. Sai Aung Tun does a remarkable job of tracing the cultural and political history of the Shan from their immigrant origins to the constitutional crisis of 1962. He highlights the period of 1946 to 1962, and discusses the historic Second Pang Long Conference in 1947 where all nationalities in Myanmar agreed to work together for independence. He concludes with an account of the military coup in 1962. This book provides a sorely needed historical perspective on Myanmar, and will help readers gain a greater understanding and insight to current events unfolding there today.
Readers of all stripes are encouraged to get a hard copy of Washington’s Fall 2008 catalog, or go to their website http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/ to view some really cool books.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
The Underground Railroad Comes to Vibrant Life in a New Book from Mississippi
Passage on the Underground Railroad is an arresting book of color photographs by Stephen Marc, a professor of art in the Herberger College of Art at Arizona State University. Click here for a sample of these remarkable photographs: http://herbergercollege.asu.edu/marc/montages.html -- some are montages and others are composites, and you can view samples of both on this cool website. Mississippi aptly describes Marc’s digital photographs as “thought-provoking, unconventional, and haunting.” Detailed captions and multilayered narrative photographs weave together various elements from the landscape of slavery. The freedom sites along the Underground Railroad are also depicted in this book, and there is an essay by Diane Miller, director of the Network to Freedom division of the National Park Service. There is also an interview with Marc by Carla Williams, editor of the journal exposure. An essay by Keith Griffler, a professor of African American Studies at SUNY - Buffalo, rounds out the book. The horror and historical drama of slavery is rendered powerfully in this book, as Marc embarked on a seven year journey photographing the route of runaway slaves. This is one photographer’s evocative interpretation of the history and places along the slave’s path to freedom. This book is a potent combination of photographic innovation and historical documentation.
Iowa Press Celebrates Its Very Own
In November 2008, University of Iowa Press is publishing two fascinating reprints by Iowa native sons. The first is Prairie City, Iowa: Three Seasons at Home by novelist/teacher Douglas Bauer. This was originally published in 1982 by the now defunct Iowa State University Press. The book is a memoir of returning home to Prairie City, a town East of Des Moines in central Iowa. Philip Lopate called this book “one of the finest books about place I know.” Bauer spent time in Des Moines working for Better Homes and Gardens, and then in Chicago working as an editor and writer for Playboy Magazine. In 1975 he returned home to work on his father’s farm and to mingle with people in his hometown. The reviews say it all, this book is a regional classic: -- according to Bill Bryson, “Kindly, shrewd and endlessly absorbing – this is as good as a book gets.” The Des Moines Sunday Register said, “Bauer’s book is, at least, the most brilliant report of an Iowa small town ever written …” This book is neither wistful nostalgia nor a harsh look at those who choose to stay on in a small town (so-called Stay Morons), but a unsentimental and loving account of life in a small Midwestern town. This could be a town anywhere.
John Madson is considered to be the father of the modern prairie restoration movement, and his book Out Home is a collection of essays on hunting, fishing and wildlife management, originally published in 1979. Iowa previously reprinted Madson’s brilliant book, Where the Sky Began: Land of the Tallgrass Prairie, called “a lovely little study” by the New York Times, and “instructive and entertaining” by the New Yorker, and now they are following up with this gem of a book. The essays herein were originally penned for such venues as Sports Afield, Outdoor Life, Audubon, and Guns and Ammo. Madson died in 1995, and the Kansas City Star said of his books, “Reading Madson is like reading some of his more illustrious and heady predecessors in the American experience … namely Emerson and Thoreau.” This is the first paperback edition of these ageless wilderness tales. All readers and writers of natural history need to take notice of this amazing book.
John Madson is considered to be the father of the modern prairie restoration movement, and his book Out Home is a collection of essays on hunting, fishing and wildlife management, originally published in 1979. Iowa previously reprinted Madson’s brilliant book, Where the Sky Began: Land of the Tallgrass Prairie, called “a lovely little study” by the New York Times, and “instructive and entertaining” by the New Yorker, and now they are following up with this gem of a book. The essays herein were originally penned for such venues as Sports Afield, Outdoor Life, Audubon, and Guns and Ammo. Madson died in 1995, and the Kansas City Star said of his books, “Reading Madson is like reading some of his more illustrious and heady predecessors in the American experience … namely Emerson and Thoreau.” This is the first paperback edition of these ageless wilderness tales. All readers and writers of natural history need to take notice of this amazing book.
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