My thesis for years has been that there are three great 1950’s “Road” books. Two are obvious to the literate: Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, and Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. The other may be MORE obvious to naturalists, many of whom miss one or the other of the first two; Wild America, by Roger Tory Peterson …
Tag: Books
New Coursing Book
To See Them Run: Great Plains Coyote Coursing, with text by Utah folklorist Eric Elaison, splendid photos by Scott Squire, and a long introductory essay by me, is finally out from the University Press of Mississipi… and about time! Our efforts have seen us, for about five years (more?) right through a couple of academic …
Cover
Book is more than half done but not done; cover is. Vadim of course.
Covers
…The kind of covers you may buy a book to get. Despite my limited space I have a few. One book below was bought for its cover and illos, the Ibex story; one excellent series, published by Putnam’s in Boston in the early years of the last century, is made up of good natural history …
Another Quote
Courtesy of Carlos, and probably from his library which makes my good one look rather anemic.. [He was] “… subject to a kind of disease, which at that time they called lack of money.” (Rabelais, chapter 16 of Gargantua). Carlos examining interesting books from the family library in his own collection in Laramie; I am …
Helen Rockstar!
Randy Davis wrote me today to tell me about a signing for Tom McGuane’s new book– I will delay getting it until I can get an inscribed one in Denver. He was at the Strand with Tom Brokaw. “My oldest son went to see/hear the McGuane – Brokaw show at Strand Books in Manhattan. Late …
Coffee Table Still Life
Helen is published in Vogue. It must be the first time the act of befriending a Goshawk has been featured there. (tip from Randy D). She has also gotten a second prestigious literary prize, this time the Costa, I think what used to be called the Whitbread.
When Man Becomes Prey
Cat Urbigkit’s newest, When Man Becomes Prey, is extremely relevant to the matter of the home- invader coyote below.* I rather thoughtlessly quipped “Ask Val Geist” because I have been corresponding with him on such matters for years, and the old zoologist’s theories about too- bold urban predators are bedrock. But Cat is a pastoralist …
On translating Russian
In my Sportsman’s Library, usually called “The Book of books” around here, I wrote about Mikhail Prishvin’s Nature’s Diary, and the problem of translation: “There is also an interesting book by Prishvin, published by Pantheon 1952, called The Lake and the Woods, a handsome volume illustrated by woodcuts. A close read reveals it is the …
Book Review #1: Blood on my Hands by Gerry Cox
Gerry Cox — the “G” is pronounced hard as in his ancestor Gerhard — was an administrator at Cornell until recently. In his previous life he was an English professor, who back in the 70’s at least once wrote for the scholarly journal English Literary Renaissance, where I was an editor. He is also a …