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

Witty, shrewd, and, as always, a joy to read, John Gierach, “America’s best fishing writer” (Houston Chronicle) and favorite streamside philosopher, extols the frequent joys and occasional tribulations of the fly-fishing life. “After five decades, twenty books, and countless columns, [John Gierach] is still a master” (Forbes). Now, in his latest fresh and 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.” The “voice of the common angler” (The Wall Street Journal), he 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.

The startling economic and political answers behind Europe's historical dominance Between 1492 and 1914, Europeans conquered 84 percent of the globe. But why did Europe establish global dominance, when for centuries the Chinese, Japanese, Ottomans, and South Asians were far more advanced? In Why Did Europe Conquer the World?, Philip Hoffman demonstrates that conventional explanations—such as geography, epidemic disease, and the Industrial Revolution—fail to provide answers. Arguing instead for the pivotal role of economic and political history, Hoffman shows that if certain variables had been different, Europe would have been eclipsed, and another power could have become master of the world. Hoffman sheds light on the two millennia of economic, political, and historical changes that set European states on a distinctive path of development, military rivalry, and war. This resulted in astonishingly rapid growth in Europe's military sector, and produced an insurmountable lead in gunpowder technology. The consequences determined which states established colonial empires or ran the slave trade, and even which economies were the first to industrialize. Debunking traditional arguments, Why Did Europe Conquer the World? reveals the startling reasons behind Europe's historic global supremacy.

Ted and Roberta Vagaline live in a run down mobile home park near Los Angeles international airport. Roberta's constant need for excitement, always leads to some kind of trouble. Her neurotic husband, Ted, is obsessed with being a model employee after taking the oath and memorizing every word of Burger World's company handbook. An unplanned encounter with one of the world's richest men, results in their unremarkable lives being so radically changed, that what was previously unimaginable, become possible. Mark resides in Northern California with his wife Karen and their Yorkshire terrier, Truffles. In addition to being a writer, Mark composes music and plays the piano. Mark discovered the joys of reading at a very young age and later in life, the happiness of creative escapism that can only come through writing. Some of his favorite authors and greatest influences include James Michener, Arthur C. Clark, Robert Heinlein and C.S. Lewis.

When a teenaged girl goes missing, her mother calls Kit Colbana, scion of an ancient line of warriors -- unfortunately, Kit's heritage doesn't impress the local wererats much. They're determined to make the girl one of their own, and Kit is going to need a big sword, a bright flashlight, and a helpful vampire to get her back. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.