Mark Sundeen receives a call from a big city publisher with an offer to write a book about bullfighting in Spain. Sundeen agrees, assuming that this is his best and last chance to follow the trajectory of his literary heroes, despite the fact that he has never been to a bullfight, doesn't speak Spanish, and is not even a particularly good reporter. After squandering most of the book advance, Sundeen can't afford a trip to Spain, so he settles for nearby Mexico. But the bullfighting he finds there is tawdry and comical, and there's little of the passion and bravery that he'd hoped to employ in exhibiting his literary genius to the masses. To compensate for his own shortcomings as an author, Sundeen invents an alter ego, Travis LaFrance, a swashbuckling adventure writer in the tradition of Sundeen's idol, Ernest Hemingway. When LaFrance steps in, our narrator goes blundering through the landscape of his own dreams and delusions, propelled solely by the preposterous insistence that his own life story, no matter how crummy, is worth being told in the pages of Great Literature. The Making of Toro is a unique comic classic and a sly, poignant tale of the hazards of trying too hard to turn real life into high art.

At the heart of Portland’s red-hot food scene is Toro Bravo, a Spanish-inspired restaurant whose small plates have attracted a fiercely loyal fan base. But to call Toro Bravo a Spanish restaurant doesn’t begin to tell the whole story. For chef John Gorham, each dish reflects a time, a place, a moment. For Gorham, food is more than mere sustenance. The Toro Bravo cookbook is an honest look behind the scenes: from Gorham’s birth to a teenage mother who struggled with drug addiction, to time spent in his grandfather’s crab-shack dance club, to formative visits to Spain, to becoming a father and opening a restaurant. Toro Bravo also includes 95 of the restaurant’s recipes, from simple salads to homemade chorizo, along with an array of techniques that will appeal to both the home cook and the most seasoned, forearm-burned chef.

Grand Prize Winner of the 2015 Green Book Festival Mark Sundeen's new book, The Unsettlers, is coming in January 2017 from Riverhead Books In 2000, Daniel Suelo left his life savings-all thirty dollars of it-in a phone booth. He has lived without money-and with a newfound sense of freedom and security-ever since. The Man Who Quit Money is an account of how one man learned to live, sanely and happily, without earning, receiving, or spending a single cent. Suelo doesn't pay taxes, or accept food stamps or welfare. He lives in caves in the Utah canyonlands, forages wild foods and gourmet discards. He no longer even carries an I.D. Yet he manages to amply fulfill not only the basic human needs-for shelter, food, and warmth-but, to an enviable degree, the universal desires for companionship, purpose, and spiritual engagement. In retracing the surprising path and guiding philosophy that led Suelo into this way of life, Sundeen raises provocative and riveting questions about the decisions we all make, by default or by design, about how we live-and how we might live better.

Explore the creation of Guillermo del Toro’s early masterpiece through this visually stunning and insightful look at the spine-chilling classic. Released in 2001, Guillermo del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone announced the director as a singular talent with a unique ability to mix the macabre with the sublime. A spiritual companion piece to his Oscar-winning Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), the film shares similar themes and is also set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War, a brutal conflict that turned ordinary men into monsters. Through a series of in-depth and extremely candid interviews with the director, this deluxe volume not only explores the shooting of the film but also delves into a range of other topics with del Toro, including his influences, his uniquely nuanced approach to filmmaking, and the traumatic personal events that colored the creation of The Devil’s Backbone. The book also draws on interviews with key contributors in the film’s creation, including cinematographer Guillermo Navarro and composer Javier Navarrete, to give readers an exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at how this gothic horror masterpiece was crafted. Featuring a wealth of exquisite concept art and rare unit photography, Guillermo del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone is the ultimate behind-the-scenes look at an unforgettable Spanish-language classic.

Toro is the heartfelt story of a cow who desperately wants to run with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain to prove herself noble and brave to her family.

A tale packed with adventure, The Book of Life celebrates the power of friendship and family, and the courage to follow your dreams. To determine whether the heart of humankind is pure and good, two godlike beings engage in an otherworldly wager during Mexico's annual Day of the Dead celebration. They tether two friends, Manolo and Joaquin, into vying for the heart of the beautiful and fiercely independent Maria, with comical and sometimes dangerous consequences. This volume is an inspirational behind-the-scenes look at the making of the animated feature film The Book of Life, from visionary producer Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth) and director Jorge R. Gutierrez (El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera).

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark: Blackwood’s Guide to Dangerous Fairies is a dark and disturbing illustrated novel based on the world of Guillermo del Toro’s film “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark.” Taking place a hundred years before the movie begins, the book chronicles the travels and explorations of Emerson Blackwood, a young and ambitious natural scientist who quickly discovers there is a mysterious world beyond what his education and peers understand. Follow Blackwood as he travels, discovering more and more about this secret world and the creatures that inhabit it -- creatures that Blackwood quickly realizes are just as interested in him as he is in them, particularly a long-lived and dangerous group of beings that have had centuries of encounters with humanity, creatures that live by eating enamel and bone.... The book, co-written by del Toro and the award-winning Christopher Golden, features illustrations by the director of “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” Troy Nixey.

“An in-depth and compelling account of diverse Americans living off the grid.” —Los Angeles Times The radical search for the simple life in today’s America. On a frigid April night, a classically trained opera singer, five months pregnant, and her husband, a former marine biologist, disembark an Amtrak train in La Plata, Missouri, assemble two bikes, and pedal off into the night, bound for a homestead they've purchased, sight unseen. Meanwhile, a horticulturist, heir to the Great Migration that brought masses of African Americans to Detroit, and her husband, a product of the white flight from it, have turned to urban farming to revitalize the blighted city they both love. And near Missoula, Montana, a couple who have been at the forefront of organic farming for decades navigate what it means to live and raise a family ethically. A work of immersive journalism steeped in a distinctively American social history and sparked by a personal quest, The Unsettlers traces the search for the simple life through the stories of these new pioneers and what inspired each of them to look for -- or create -- a better existence. Captivating and clear-eyed, it dares us to imagine what a sustainable, ethical, authentic future might actually look like.

A stunning novel of hopes and dreams, guilt and love—a book that offers a resonant new definition of what it means to be American and "illuminates the lives behind the current debates about Latino immigration" (The New York Times Book Review). When fifteen-year-old Maribel Rivera sustains a terrible injury, the Riveras leave behind a comfortable life in Mexico and risk everything to come to the United States so that Maribel can have the care she needs. Once they arrive, it’s not long before Maribel attracts the attention of Mayor Toro, the son of one of their new neighbors, who sees a kindred spirit in this beautiful, damaged outsider. Their love story sets in motion events that will have profound repercussions for everyone involved. Here Henríquez seamlessly interweaves the story of these star-crossed lovers, and of the Rivera and Toro families, with the testimonials of men and women who have come to the United States from all over Latin America.