Literary legend Jim Harrison gives us a brilliant new work that finds him writing at the height of his powers, and in fresh and audacious new directions. The Great Leader is the story of Detective Sunderson, a northern Michigan police detective who has recently retired and has one case he can’t quite shake -- the investigation of a cult leader whom he eventually pursues to Arizona and further afield. Harrison gives readers a unique take on the culture of “Yoopers” (what folks from the rest of Michigan and the Midwest call people from the Upper Peninsula) and cops, in a novel that is wonderfully clever, powerful, and slyly redemptive.

Get the Summary of Jim Harrison's The Search for the Genuine in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. "The Search for the Genuine" by Jim Harrison is a rich tapestry of personal reflections, anecdotes, and musings on nature, hunting, fishing, and the human condition. Harrison intertwines his experiences with broader philosophical considerations, emphasizing the importance of genuine connections to the natural world and the creatures within it. He recounts various hunting expeditions, detailing the camaraderie with fellow hunters, the role of hunting dogs, and the unpredictable nature of the sport...

The first general nonfiction title in thirty years from a giant of American letters, The Search for the Genuine is a sparkling, definitive collection of Jim Harrison's essays and journalism—some never before published New York Times–bestselling author Jim Harrison (1937–2016) was a writer with a poet’s economy of style and a trencherman’s appetites. Praised as a “national treasure” (Chicago Tribune) and published in twenty-seven languages, he was one of this country’s most beloved and critically acclaimed authors. Best known for his poetry and fiction such as Legends of the Fall, Dalva, and Returning to Earth, Harrison was also a prolific nonfiction writer, with columns running in Sports Illustrated and Esquire, and work in Outside, Field & Stream, and others. The first collection of Harrison’s general nonfiction in thirty years, The Search for the Genuine is a sparkling, definitive volume of essays and journalism—from the near-classic to the never-published. With his trademark ribald humor, compassion, and full-throated zest for life, The Search for the Genuine pays tribute to writers from Bukowski to Neruda to Peter Matthiessen, and examines the distance between literary reputation and the work itself; he attains something like satori in the field hunting grouse; he reports on Yellowstone for the park’s hundredth anniversary, when he was merely a tourist to the part of Montana he would eventually call home; he takes to the open sea in pursuit of roosterfish, marlin, tarpon, and, once, to observe a scientific mission tagging sharks; he delivers a heartbreaking essay on life—and, for those attempting to cross in the ever-more dangerous gaps, death—on the US-Mexico border. Always he comes back to the spirit and to connection with the natural world and the people who sustained him; throughout the book his feeling for the American landscape rings out. Lovingly introduced by acclaimed novelist, poet, and essayist Luis Alberto Urrea, The Search for the Genuine is a feast that captures a lifetime of reading, writing, and living to the fullest, from a true “American original” (San Francisco Chronicle).

One of American literature’s most significant authors delivers “a coming-of-age story, a familial saga of estrangement . . . A slow-burning revenge tragedy” (The New York Times Book Review). An epic tale that pits a son against the legacy of his family’s desecration of the earth, and his own father’s more personal violations, Jim Harrison’s True North is a beautiful and moving novel that speaks to the territory in our hearts that calls us back to our roots. The scion of a family of wealthy timber barons, David Burkett has grown up with a father who is a malevolent force and a mother made vague and numb by alcohol and pills. He and his sister Cynthia, a firecracker who scandalizes the family at fourteen by taking up with the son of their Finnish-Native American gardener, are mostly left to make their own way. As David comes to adulthood—often guided and enlightened by the unforgettable, intractable, courageous women he loves—he realizes he must come to terms with his forefathers’ rapacious destruction of the woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, as well as the working people who made their wealth possible. Jim Harrison has given us a family tragedy of betrayal, amends, and justice for the worst sins. True North is a bravura performance from one of our finest writers, accomplished with deep humanity, humor, and redemptive soul. “A provocative tale that explores the roots of wealth and privilege in America . . . Harrison’s writing is superb, as always, rippling with thematic leaps and poetic insights.” —The Oregonian

An anthology of all of the Brown Dog novellas includes a previously unpublished story and follows the down-on-his-luck Michigan Native American's misadventures with an overindulgent lifestyle, his two adopted children and an ersatz activist who steals his bearskin. 35,000 first printing.

Harrison, one of America's most celebrated writers, is considered "a renegade genius" for his poetry.

“A sensitive, powerful love story about a man on the cutting edge of life.” —Richard Brautigan In Farmer, Jim Harrison tells the story of Joseph, a forty-three-year-old farmer-schoolteacher who suddenly finds himself at a crossroads. Forced to choose between two lovers one a tantalizing young student, the other his beautiful childhood friend he must also decide whether or not to stay on the farm or finally seek the wider, more worldly horizons he has avoided all his life. Farmer is a wondrous blend of insight, storytelling, and the author’s uncanny ability to evoke the mysteries and beauties of the natural world. “A beautiful novel”, Farmer serves as the perfect introduction to Harrison’s remarkable insight, storytelling, and evocation of the natural world (The Boston Globe). “A quiet triumph . . . Yes, it is the old story again. Taking it and making it new, as Harrison has done, is a miracle on the order of the loaves and fishes. But then so are all good novels.” —The Washington Post

Twenty-five years of essays from one of America’s most prolific and acclaimed writers, the New York Times–bestselling author of Legends of the Fall. The bestselling author of thirty-nine books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry—including Dalva and Returning to Earth—Jim Harrison was one of our most beloved and acclaimed writers, adored by both readers and critics. In Just Before Dark, Harrison’s essays and articles have been selected from twenty-five years of work, from venues as diverse as Playboy, The Nation, Outside, and the American Poetry Review. They explore the passions and concerns of a classic American writer—from ice fishing to bar pool, nouvelle cuisine and night walks—with keen insight and great humanity. It is an exceptional reminder of why Harrison was one of our most cherished and important writers. “One of the most interesting and entertaining bodies of work by any writer of his generation.” —Alan Cheuse, Chicago Tribune

“The longtime chronicler of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula . . . gives eloquent expression to death and the grieving process.” —Booklist Hailed by The New York Times Book Review as “a master . . . who makes the ordinary extraordinary, the unnamable unforgettable,” beloved author Jim Harrison returns with a masterpiece—a tender, profound, and magnificent novel about life, death, and finding redemption in unlikely places. Donald is a middle-aged Chippewa-Finnish man slowly dying of Lou Gehrig’s Disease. His condition deteriorating, he realizes no one will be able to pass on to his children their family history once he is gone. He begins dictating to his wife, Cynthia, stories he has never shared with anyone as around him, his family struggles to lay him to rest with the same dignity with which he has lived. Over the course of the year following Donald’s death, his daughter begins studying Chippewa ideas of death for clues about her father’s religion, while Cynthia, bereft of the family she created to escape the malevolent influence of her own father, finds that redeeming the past is not a lost cause. Returning to Earth is a deeply moving book about origins and endings, making sense of loss, and living with honor for the dead. It is among the finest novels of Harrison’s long, storied career, and confirms his standing as one of the most important American writers. “A deeply felt meditation on life and death, nature and God, this is one of Harrison’s finest works.” —Library Journal

A collection of novellas from the New York Times–bestselling author—“arguably America’s foremost master of the novella . . . A force of nature on the page” (The Washington Post). The Mark Twain Award–winning author of Legends of the Fall delivers three novellas that highlight his phenomenal range as a writer, shot through with his trademark wit and keen insight into the human condition. Harrison has fun with his own reputation in the title novella, about an aging writer in Montana who weathers the slings and arrows of literary success and tries to cope with the sow he buys on a whim and the unplanned litter of piglets that follows soon after. In Eggs, a Montana woman reminisces about collecting eggs at her grandparents’ country house. Years later, having never had a child, she attempts to do so. And in The Case of the Howling Buddhas, retired Detective Sunderson—a recurring character from Harrison’s New York Times bestseller The Great Leader and The Big Seven—is hired to investigate a bizarre cult that achieves satori by howling along with howler monkeys at the zoo. “Still independent, fierce and feral,” The Ancient Minstrel confirms Jim Harrison as one of the most cherished and important writers in modern America (David Gates, The New York Times).