This once banned book is the first colonial-era Vietnamese novel to be translated into English and published in the West

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.

After 17-year-old Brandon falls out of a tree onto his head--and survives--his doctor suggests he's had such luck he should buy a lottery ticket. So Brandon does, and he wins three million dollars--and that's last happy moment he has for some time.

Influenced by the Chinese and Japanese masters, Hamill's Dumb Luck affirms his ability to give us back the world and all its vicissitudes. Here you will find Zen fables, elegies and haiku, bluesy riffs, and poems that celebrate births, marriages, the liberating exile of the poet, as well as verses that present the dumb luck that has peppered the poet's life. Sam Hamill is the author of a dozen volumes of original poetry, as well as three collections of essays. He is the Founding Editor of Copper Canyon Press, director of the Port Townsend Writers' Conference, and contributing editor at The American Poetry Review.

Presents a collection of the artist's paintings, illustrations, photographs, and artwork from his animated television program.

Tom Ludwig and Mark Carlino are two top notch detectives. Mostly they handle hard driving cases that take them to the far corners of their precinct. For a change, they are assigned to the seemingly innocent death of an elderly bellhop at one of the most exclusive hotels in town. Innocent until the medical examiner speaks. This innocuous beginning leads them to eight murders in the span of one week. The cast of characters they will meet includes a backroom politico, who can raise money or order hits, an alcoholic hit man, a middle aged spinster, an embezzler, an Italian opera star and a hotel owner going broke, among others. Come travel with them as they spend their week in relative luxury looking for their suspect in the better parts of town while solving a spree of murders.