Cajun history preservationist Jim LaBove steps back into the salt marshes of Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana within the pages of Splendor in the Salt Grass, the third and final chapter in his Salt Marsh Trilogy of books about bayou Cajun culture. This time, Jim sets aside the Cajun recipes that have framed his previous books to focus on detailed, intensely personal accounts of the people, traditions, and circumstances that shaped his youth and which defined a little-understood time and place in American history. Within the pages of Splendor in the Salt Grass, you'll learn about the hunting and fishing habits of the ancestors of the Acadian diaspora who settled along the Gulf, along with stories of specific people in Jim's life who exemplify the Cajun people's challenging but fulfilling lives. Jim's stories about nature, humanity, and persistence in the face of harship echo from the past and predict the current troubles of our present. As always, Jim's stories are complemented by his gorgeous field sketches of the animals, tools, and objects of everyday mid-20th-century Cajun life, taking you out of the pages of his book and deep into his remarkable past. You may even find some revelations about the origins of some of your favorite Cajun food within its chapters. In the salt marsh, things aren't always what they seem. Splendor in the Salt Grass completes the Salt Marsh Trilogy of books Jim has written to celebrate untold stories in Cajun culture. The first book in the series (Cotton's Seafood) was released in 2016. It focused on Jim's recollections of his parents' lives, work, and recipes, and took its name from his father Cotton's seafood business. In 2017, this was followed by Sketches of My Cajun life, an art book and supplemental entry in the series featuring a new collection of Jim's grouped field sketches, grouped by subjects relevant to Cajun interests. Along with a second art book, 2018 saw the release of his second trilogy entry: Sunrise Over Keith Lake, a meditation on the lives of his aunt, uncle, and cousins framed by the fate of the "Sabine Light" lighthouse, a once-important resource for marine commerce that is at a risk of being lost to the past.

One of the most important Italian poets of the last century, Vittorio Sereni (1913–83) wrote with a historical awareness unlike that of any of his contemporaries. A poet of both personal and political responsibility, his work sensitively explores life under fascism, military defeat and imprisonment, and the resurgence of extreme right-wing politics, as well as the roles played by love and friendship in the survival of humanity. The first substantial translation of Sereni’s oeuvre published anywhere in the world, The Selected Poetry and Prose of Vittorio Sereni is a unique guide to this twentieth-century poet. A bilingual edition, reissued in paperback for the poet’s centenary, it collects Sereni’s poems, criticism, and short fiction with a full chronology, commentary, bibliography, and learned introduction by British poet and scholar Peter Robinson.

Cotton's Seafood is a Cajun autobiographical cookbook. From crawfish boils to cooking shows, from folk art to family traditions, interest in Cajun culture has never been greater. But how Cajun do you really want to be? Spanning five years of research, interviews, writing, and planning, Cotton's Seafood is a cookbook like no other. Throughout the book, Jim LaBove recounts the story of his childhood in the mid-20th century, documenting an oft-overlooked segment of Cajun culture: Bayou Cajuns, the descendants of Acadian immigrants who settled in the marshy coasts of Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana. Along the way, Jim shares a wide variety of authentic Cajun recipes from his mother Cora, using the ingredients and methods available to the people in the area at the time. The dishes are deeply tied to Jim's memory of bayou Cajun life in the salt marshes of Southeast Texas. As you learn to cook gumbo, court-bouillon, peach cobbler, and much more like a true Cajun, you will also learn about the rough but rewarding lifestyle that inspired the people who codified these dishes. The book is named after Cotton's Seafood, a locally-renowned fishing and shrimping company that Jim's father Cotton founded in the early 20th century. Gorgeously illustrated with Jim's field sketches, contemporary photographs, and maps of bayou Cajun territory. Exhaustively researched. Lovingly detailed. This is our family legacy, printed and bound. We could not be more proud of it, and we cannot wait to share it with you.

Set in Galveston during the 1900 storm, the most devastating natural disaster in the history of the United States, this sweeping novel follows the fates of several richly drawn characters. It is the story of Sal, the little girl who is wise beyond her years and who holds out as much hope for the world as she does for her father, the ruined son of a respected father. It is the story of Sister Zilphia, the nun who helps run the St. Mary's Orphanage. The only thing separating the two long buildings of the orphanage is a fragile line of sand dunes; the only thing separating Zilphia from the world is the brittle faith that she has been sent there to consider. A faith that has never been truly tested. Until now. And it is the story of Galveston herself, the grand old lady of the Gulf Coast, with her harbor filled with ships from the world over; her Victorian homes and her brothels and her grand pavilions set in their own parks; and her stately mansions along Broadway, the highest ground on the island, at eight feet above sea level. All must face their darkest night now, as nature hurls the worst she can muster at the narrow strip of sand and saltgrass that is doomed to become, for a time, part of the ocean floor. This is the story of heroes and villains, of courage and sacrifice and, most of all, of people trying desperately to survive. And it is the story of an era now gone, of splendor and injustice, filled with the simple joy of living. Prologue It started raining after midnight. At first a few heavy drops, as large as pebbles, splattered against windows, and spotted the dry pavement of the streets. They plinked into half-full troughs of dirty water outside the saloons on Post Office Street; horses tied there winced against the stings. People inside the saloons-sailors and dock workers and whores-paid no attention to the steadily quickening tattoo being pelted out on the tin sheets or slates of the roofs but kept to the business at hand: the drinking, and gambling, and the sweaty, brief stabbing away at the very oldest of human exertions. Some of Galveston's people, in other parts of the city, listened to the rain from their beds. A few, who had looked up that day at the Levy Building on Market Street and noticed the pair of warning flags that flew from the fourth-floor offices of the Weather Bureau, knew that this was the first, slow calling card of a tropical storm. Isaac Cline, the chief of the bureau, had hoisted the flags on Friday morning, and they had danced and popped in the brisk north wind all day. The red one, with the black box in its middle, meant that a particularly malevolent storm was a possibility. The white one, above it, meant that if it came, it would come from the northwest. But not too many people had seen the flags. And now the first big drops of rain plopped into the sand dunes and salt grass of the island and slid through the muted light of the gas street lights in town, and nobody paid much attention to them. Those in bed closed their eyes and let the tapping of the rain sing them to sleep. It had come a long way, this storm. Almost two weeks before, somewhere on the immense, swaying surface of the eternal Atlantic, a small portion of the sea had rebelled against the unremitting late summer heat, and heaved itself up in protest. Africa lay a thousand miles to the east, over the vast, bowl­like curve of the world, and many more thousands of miles of ocean and sky stretched endlessly to the west. The air above the place had become suddenly full of new, burdensome moisture.

In this eloquent plea for compassion and respect for all species, journalist and gardener Nancy Lawson describes why and how to welcome wildlife to our backyards. Through engaging anecdotes and inspired advice, profiles of home gardeners throughout the country, and interviews with scientists and horticulturalists, Lawson applies the broader lessons of ecology to our own outdoor spaces. Detailed chapters address planting for wildlife by choosing native species; providing habitats that shelter baby animals, as well as birds, bees, and butterflies; creating safe zones in the garden; cohabiting with creatures often regarded as pests; letting nature be your garden designer; and encouraging natural processes and evolution in the garden. The Humane Gardener fills a unique niche in describing simple principles for both attracting wildlife and peacefully resolving conflicts with all the creatures that share our world.

Born in Minnesota in 1890 and raised and educated in Massachusetts, Marjory Stoneman Douglas came to Florida in 1915 to work for her father, who had just started a newspaper called the Herald in a small town called Miami. In this "frontier" town, she recovered from a misjudged marriage, learned to write journalism and fiction and drama, took on the fight for feminism and racial justice and conservation long before those causes became popular, and embarked on a long and uncommonly successful voyage into self-understanding. Way before women did this sort of thing, she recognized her own need for solitude and independence, and built her own little house away from town in an area called Coconut Grove. She still lives there, as she has for over 40 years, with her books and cats and causes, emerging frequently to speak, still a powerful force in ecopolitics. Marjory Stoneman Douglas begins this story of her life by admitting that "the hardest thing is to tell the truth about oneself" and ends it stating her belief that "life should be lived so vividly and so intensely that thoughts of another life, or a longer life, are not necessary." The voice that emerges in between is a voice from the past and a voice from the future, a voice of conviction and common sense with a sense of humor, a voice so many audiences have heard over the years—tough words in a genteel accent emerging from a tiny woman in a floppy hat—which has truly become the voice of the river.