Ruin is a thoroughly engrossing novel about a young couple’s struggle back from financial catastrophe that so many of us dread. Having fled their urban life, they begin to build a new life together in a rural setting, far from former friends and colleagues—only to have it fall apart all over again in ways that could never be predicted. Frank Campbell, a thirty-something former founding owner of a high-flying New York City-based hedge fund, has gone bankrupt, losing not only all his own money but the entire inherited fortune of his artist wife, Francy. The couple take refuge in an abandoned Hudson Valley farm shared with a resident herd of congenial goats. Frank is deeply shaken by the life-changing loss that has so thoroughly ruined their life together. Frank tries to build a new microbrewery business on a shoestring but is haunted by the memory of passages from literature he revered as an undergraduate at Yale before jumping into finance. For Francy, her altered circumstances, after a lifetime of privilege, have galvanized her work as an artist and she distances herself from her struggling husband. In the midst of it all, Frank takes up fly fishing on the nearby river, aspiring to join the local fishing club. Tragedy ensues during a fishing contest, further framing Frank as a “loser loner” in life. Only when he turns to fly fishing in earnest, traveling the world in search of the ever more perfect and elusive trout (and one memorable carp), does he find his way forward in “the yowling madness” of the world.

This vivid story opens with every couple’s nightmare—the disappearance of their comfortable known world. Ruin’s adventure explores the unpredictable progression of character and chance for Francy and Frank Campbell, newly destitute in their early thirties, along with their lovers and foes. And a murder investigator . . . . Frank is another dreamer whose life is suddenly burned to the ground. More a disillusioned literature Ph.D. than an experienced financier, he had naively agreed to join his wife’s inheritance with his own personal guarantee of a college friend’s private equity partnership debt. ­The business implosion and subsequent bankruptcy took all their assets. Francy, an orphaned European heiress, now finds herself homeless, still married to pleasant, witty Frank—who had failed to protect them from disaster. ­The couple flees Manhattan to live at a desolate non-working Hudson Valley farm. Frank starts an artisanal brewery with a charismatic new eccentric friend. And, central to the heart of the story, he takes up fly fishing. A local doctor, perceiving Frank’s depression, prescribes that he gain some confidence through self-taught fishing. Frank’s perceptions on the water are fresh and acute, sometimes colored by his memory of the words of famous writers, now painfully ironic in his life’s new context. ­ The novel weaves together fly fishing and life experiences that ultimately turn shockingly deadly. And throughout, there is Francy’s story. Now in exile, she re-approaches painting with new and darkly complex emotional energy. Painting in reclusive concentration, she cuts Frank off, tacitly becoming her own woman. Her work’s enigmatic intensity attracts a wealthy neighbor who offers Francy a show in his Manhattan gallery and that attracts a great deal of trouble indeed.

“His presentation of the what, how, when, where and why of the sport is eloquent in the clarity and precision of his writing. He provides a wealth of practical information, embellished with personal observations, and quotes from past masters.” -Richard Robinson, Master professional golf instructor, author, and fisherman “This book is an excellent resource for beginning anglers, and a very entertaining read even for those with decades of experience on the water.” -Justin Witt, International outfitter, guide, contributor to “The Flyfish Journal” ________________________________________________________________________ With fifty years of fly-fishing experience, Al Simpson has written an engaging book about fly-fishing for trout. It is packed with information helpful to anglers of all skill levels. Insights are frequently presented through a streamside experience. Topics include getting started, equipment, casting, trout feeding behavior, flies, reading the water, presentation, and seasons. He also discusses controversial topics like etiquette, stocking, and restoration of native trout. The work is richly enhanced with over 200 color photos and line drawings. It joins the short list of must-reads for trout anglers. The author began fly-fishing in 1962. He lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, and has fished the mid-Atlantic’s trout streams extensively. Summers have always included fishing in the northern Rockies. Now retired from the University of Virginia where he practiced and taught cardiology, he and wife Ginny spend their summers in Montana. They frequently travel to trout venues about the globe. A lifetime member of Trout Unlimited, he served as vice president on Virginia’s state council. He works part-time for Orvis as a fly-fishing retail specialist, and teaches fly-fishing. Local sports clubs frequently invite him to speak and conduct fly-fishing clinics. An avid blogger on all things related to fly- fishing for trout, he has an international following.

Praise for the previous edition:Booklist/RBB "Twenty Best Bets for Student Researchers"RUSA/ALA "Outstanding Reference Source"" ... useful ... Recommended for public libraries and undergraduates."

The authoritative account of the rise of Amazon and its intensely driven founder, Jeff Bezos, praised by the Seattle Times as "the definitive account of how a tech icon came to life." Amazon.com started off delivering books through the mail. But its visionary founder, Jeff Bezos, wasn't content with being a bookseller. He wanted Amazon to become the everything store, offering limitless selection and seductive convenience at disruptively low prices. To do so, he developed a corporate culture of relentless ambition and secrecy that's never been cracked. Until now. Brad Stone enjoyed unprecedented access to current and former Amazon employees and Bezos family members, giving readers the first in-depth, fly-on-the-wall account of life at Amazon. Compared to tech's other elite innovators -- Jobs, Gates, Zuckerberg -- Bezos is a private man. But he stands out for his restless pursuit of new markets, leading Amazon into risky new ventures like the Kindle and cloud computing, and transforming retail in the same way Henry Ford revolutionized manufacturing. The Everything Store is the revealing, definitive biography of the company that placed one of the first and largest bets on the Internet and forever changed the way we shop and read.

Are you a witless cretin with no reason to live? Would you like to know more about every piece of knowledge ever? Do you have cash? Then congratulations, because just in time for the death of the print industry as we know it comes the final book ever published, and the only one you will ever need: The Onion's compendium of all things known. Replete with an astonishing assemblage of facts, illustrations, maps, charts, threats, blood, and additional fees to edify even the most simple-minded book-buyer, The Onion Book of Known Knowledge is packed with valuable information -- such as the life stages of an Aunt; places to kill one's self in Utica, New York; and the dimensions of a female bucket, or "pail." With hundreds of entries for all 27 letters of the alphabet, The Onion Book of Known Knowledge must be purchased immediately to avoid the sting of eternal ignorance.

Building on experience from 60 countries worth of independent travel, the author takes you on three journeys to places you may never have considered visiting, although you probably should and you definitely could. Learn about a low-budget cruise to Antarctica, understand what the Trans-Siberian Railway really is like, enjoy the natural wonders of Southern Africa. The book is a fun read, but you will also learn about far-away destinations and about how to travel independently anywhere. It's not a travel guide or a travel journal, it's both!More details, including free downloads, available from http://bjornfree.com/

“They’re still trying to hide the weenie,” thought Sherron Watkins as she read a newspaper clipping about Enron two weeks before Christmas, 2001. . . It quoted [CFO] Jeff McMahon addressing the company’s creditors and cautioning them against a rash judgment. “Don’t assume that there is a smoking gun.” Sherron knew Enron well enough to know that the company was in extreme spin mode… Power Failure is the electrifying behind-the-scenes story of the collapse of Enron, the high-flying gas and energy company touted as the poster child of the New Economy that, in its hubris, had aspired to be “The World’s Leading Company,” and had briefly been the seventh largest corporation in America. Written by prizewinning journalist Mimi Swartz, and substantially based on the never-before-published revelations of former Enron vice-president Sherron Watkins, as well as hundreds of other interviews, Power Failure shows the human face beyond the greed, arrogance, and raw ambition that fueled the company’s meteoric rise in the late 1990s. At the dawn of the new century, Ken Lay’s and Jeff Skilling's faces graced the covers of business magazines, and Enron’s money oiled the political machinery behind George W. Bush’s election campaign. But as Wall Street analysts sang Enron’s praises, and its stock spiraled dizzyingly into the stratosphere, the company’s leaders were madly scrambling to manufacture illusory profits, hide its ballooning debt, and bully Wall Street into buying its fictional accounting and off-balance-sheet investment vehicles. The story of Enron’s fall is a morality tale writ large, performed on a stage with an unforgettable array of props and side plots, from parking lots overflowing with Boxsters and BMWs to hot-house office affairs and executive tantrums. Among the cast of characters Mimi Swartz and Sherron Watkins observe with shrewd Texas eyes and an insider’s perspective are: CEO Ken Lay, Enron’s “outside face,” who was more interested in playing diplomat and paving the road to a political career than in managing Enron’s high-testosterone, anything-goes culture; Jeff Skilling, the mastermind behind Enron’s mercenary trading culture, who transformed himself from a nerdy executive into the personification of millennial cool; Rebecca Mark, the savvy and seductive head of Enron’s international division, who was Skilling’s sole rival to take over the company; and Andy Fastow, whose childish pranks early in his career gave way to something far more destructive. Desperate to be a player in Enron’s deal-making, trader-oriented culture, Fastow transformed Enron’s finance department into a “profit center,” creating a honeycomb of financial entities to bolster Enron’s “profits,” while diverting tens of millions of dollars into his own pockets An unprecedented chronicle of Enron’s shocking collapse, Power Failure should take its place alongside the classics of previous decades – Barbarians at the Gate and Liar’s Poker – as one of the cautionary tales of our times.

In this thrilling entry in Edgar Award finalist Paul Doiron's bestselling series, a deadly attack on one of Maine's last wild wolves leads Game Warden Mike Bowditch to an even bigger criminal conspiracy. While on vacation, Warden Investigator Mike Bowditch receives a strange summons from Billy Cronk, one of his oldest friends and a man he had to reluctantly put behind bars for murder. Billy wants him to investigate a new female prison guard with a mysterious past, and Mike feels honor-bound to help his friend. But when the guard becomes the victim in a brutal attack at the prison, he realizes there may be a darker cover-up at play—and that Billy and his family might be at risk. Then Mike receives a second call for help, this time from a distant mountain valley where Shadow, a wolf-hybrid he once cared for, has been found shot by an arrow and clinging to life. He searches for the identity of the bowman, but his investigation is blocked at every turn by the increasingly hostile community. And when Billy’s wife and children are threatened, Mike finds himself tested like never before. How can he possibly keep the family safe when he has enemies of his own on his trail? Torn between loyalties, Mike Bowditch must respond in the only way he knows how: by bending every law and breaking every rule to keep his loved ones safe and the true predators at bay.