Robert Ruark (1915-1965) ranks, in the minds of most discerning readers, as the finest outdoor writer ever to grace the American literary scene. His is an enduring fame, thanks primarily to three books, The Old Man and the Boy, The Old Man s Boy Grows Older, and an African classic, Horn of the Hunter. Of course, Ruark was also the author of several blockbuster novels, an immensely popular newspaper columnist, a satirist of considerable skill, and a tireless bon vivant. Fame and the ability to crunch out a prodigious amount of first-rate prose on his battered portable typewriter brought him considerable fortune. Now, some two generations after the Ruark s death, Sporting Classics will release a brand new book on the great author. Just recently discovered, the text was written more than forty years ago by Alan Ritchie, who faithfully served as Ruark s personal secretary and advisor for the last fourteen years of his life. The book starts out with a wonderful foreword by legendary African professional hunter Harry Selby who guided Ruark on a number of his safaris. It also features a number of photographs of Ruark that have never before appeared in any book.

Packed with revelations, this is the first complete account of a career built on raw talent, sheer willpower--and criminal connections. Anthony Summers--bestselling author of Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe--and Robbyn Swan unveil stunning new information about Sinatra’s links to the Mafia, his crowded love life and his tangled relationships with U.S. presidents. Exclusive breakthroughs include the discovery of how the Mafia connection began--in a remote Sicilian village--and moving interviews with his lovers. Never-before-published conversations with Ava Gardner get to the core of the tragic passion that dominated his life, came close to destroying him, and made his best work heartbreakingly personal. Sinatra delivers the full life story of a complex, flawed genius.

Journalist Robert Ruark tells of the friendship between a young boy and his grandfather as they hunt and fish in North Carolina

Africa has long gripped the American imagination. From the Edenic wilderness of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan novels to the 'black Zion' of Garvey's Back-to-Africa movement, all manner of Americans - whether white or black, male or female - have come to see Africa as an idealized stage on which they can fashion new, more authentic selves. In this remarkable, panoramic work, David Peterson del Mar explores the ways in which American fantasies of Africa have evolved over time, as well as the role of Africans themselves in subverting American attitudes to their continent. Spanning seven decades, from the post-war period to the present day, and encompassing sources ranging from literature, film and music to accounts by missionaries, aid workers and travel writers, African, American is a fascinating deconstruction of 'Africa' as it exists in the American mindset.

Fierce, menacing, and mysterious, badgers have fascinated humans as living animals, abstract symbols, or commercial resources for thousands of years—often to their detriment. With their reputation for determined self-defense, they have been brutalized by hunters and sportsmen, while their association with the mythic underworld has made them idealized symbols of earth-based wisdom and their burrowing habits have resulted in their widespread persecution as pests. In this highly illustrated book, Daniel Heath Justice provides the first global cultural history of the badger in over thirty years. From the iconic European badger and its North American kin to the African honey badger and Southeast Asian hog badger, Justice considers the badger’s evolution and widespread distribution alongside its current, often-imperiled status throughout the world. He travels from natural history and life in the wild to the folklore, legends, and spiritual beliefs that badgers continue to inspire, while also exploring their representation and exploitation in industry, religion, and the arts. Tracing the complex and contradictory ways in which this fascinating animal endures, Badger will appeal to anyone interested in a deeper understanding of these much-maligned creatures.

When Captain John Smith stepped ashore in the New World to found the Jamestown Settlement in 1607, the Chickahominy Indians were there. If you have wondered what life was like in the 1600s from the perspective of the First Americans, this brief ethnohistory will tell you the truth you may not have read in your school history books. The Chickahominy Indians-Eastern Division are the 21st century ancestors of the Indians who kept the colonizers alive and showed them how to grow the tobacco that made them rich. Four hundred years later, the ancestors of those Indians live in relative obscurity in the Tidewater area of Virginia. Find out what life was like then and how the modern Indians have survived in an often hostile and unfriendly world.

In this unforgettable space opera, #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin presents a chilling vision of eternal night—a volatile world where cultures clash, codes of honor do not exist, and the hunter and the hunted are often interchangeable. A whisperjewel has summoned Dirk t’Larien to Worlorn, and a love he thinks he lost. But Worlorn isn’t the world Dirk imagined, and Gwen Delvano is no longer the woman he once knew. She is bound to another man, and to a dying planet that is trapped in twilight. Gwen needs Dirk’s protection, and he will do anything to keep her safe, even if it means challenging the barbaric man who has claimed her. But an impenetrable veil of secrecy surrounds them all, and it’s becoming impossible for Dirk to distinguish between his allies and his enemies. In this dangerous triangle, one is hurtling toward escape, another toward revenge, and the last toward a brutal, untimely demise. Praise for Dying of the Light “Dying of the Light blew the doors off of my idea of what fiction could be and could do, what a work of unbridled imagination could make a reader feel and believe.”—Michael Chabon “Slick science fiction . . . the Wild West in outer space.”—Los Angeles Times “Something special which will keep Worlorn and its people in the reader’s mind long after the final page is read.”—Galileo magazine “The galactic background is excellent. . . . Martin knows how to hold the reader.”—Asimov’s “George R. R. Martin has the voice of a poet and a mind like a steel trap.”—Algis Budrys