-PDF Download- The Annual Big Arsenic Fishing Contest EBOOK

The Annual Big Arsenic Fishing Contest!

Author: John Nichols

Publisher: University of New Mexico Press

Published: 2016-09-15

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 0826357210

On the surface this book spins a fisherman’s tall tale about a ribald angling contest between three middle-aged friends who love (and perhaps hate) each other: a preppy trilingual Machiavelli, an intellectual ghetto pool shark, and a brawny Texan who defies his own macho stereotype. All professional writers, the men have met every autumn for eighteen years at the Big Arsenic Springs on the Río Grande to fly-cast for trout and argue about life, literature, marriage, and eco-Armageddon. Their escapades reveal a spirited paean to a beautiful river gorge, and also a poignant cautionary fable about male friendship and cutthroat competition. As aging cripples them all, tragedy mars the tournament. In this insightful and bittersweet love story, masterful storyteller John Nichols brings to life northern New Mexico and three unforgettable characters.

I Got Mine

Author: John Nichols

Publisher: University of New Mexico Press

Published: 2022-05-15

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 0826363806

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

I Got Mine: Confessions of a Midlist Writer is the memoir of Nichols’ extraordinary life, as seen through the lens of his writing. Everything that went into making him a writer and eventually found an outlet in his work—his education, family, wives, children, friends, enemies, politics, and place—is told from the point of view of his daily practice of writing. Beginning with his first novel, The Sterile Cuckoo, published in 1965 when he was just twenty-four, Nichols shares his highs and lows: his ambivalent relationship with money; his growing disenchantment with the hypocrisy of capitalism; and his love-hate relationship with Hollywood—including the years-long struggle of working with director Robert Redford on the film version of The Milagro Beanfield War, which was filmed around Truchas and featured many of Nichols’ northern New Mexico neighbors. Throughout I Got Mine Nichols spins a shining thread connecting his lifelong engagement with progressive political causes, his passionate interest in and identification with ordinary people, and his deep connection to the land.

Casting into Mystery

Author: Robert Reid

Publisher: The Porcupine's Quill

Published: 2020-01-08

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0889844283

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

‘Every time I leave the world of work, family and community to wade into a river with fly rod in hand, I enter a sacred space that sometimes finds expression in the written word.’ In Casting into Mystery, writer Robert Reid and wood engraver Wesley W. Bates—avid anglers, both—put ink to paper in homage to the venerable sport of fly fishing. Through text and image, they recall with fondness the ‘company of rivers’ each is grateful to know, providing a glimpse inside a sporting culture teeming with literature, art and music. Part memoir, part objet d’art and part field guide, Casting into Mystery will delight passionate fly fishing practitioners and armchair anglers alike.

On Top of Spoon Mountain

Author: John Nichols

Publisher: UNM Press

Published: 2012-08-15

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0826352723

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Jonathan Kepler wants to climb Spoon Mountain with his grown son and daughter on his sixty-fifth birthday in three weeks. The kids, Ben and Miranda, think he’s crazy. For starters, Spoon Mountain is almost the tallest alpine peak in New Mexico. Jonathan’s health is terrible. Still reeling from his third, nearly fatal, divorce, he has a rotten heart, serious asthma, and a fed-up girlfriend who is about to drop him like a bad habit. Once a celebrated novelist, Hollywood screenwriter, and environmental activist, Jonathan is now tottering at the ragged end of his career and yearning to make amends to his children for his past sins before it’s too late. Years ago, Spoon Mountain was very special to the Kepler family. They once shared halcyon days in the wilderness. Can they go home again? Does Spoon Mountain offer redemption . . . or annihilation? And why is getting there so laden with pratfalls? John Nichols is at his hilarious and poignant best in this rollicking tale of love, anarchy, and the awesome Rocky Mountains. It is drop-dead comedy with an inspiring and beautiful message.

The Magic Journey

Author: John Nichols

Publisher: Holt Paperbacks

Published: 2013-12-10

Total Pages: 528

ISBN-13: 1466859601

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Spanning forty years, the second book in John Nichols's New Mexico trilogy, The Magic Journey, tells the tale of how relentless progress transformed a rural backwater into a boomtown. Boom times came to the forgotten little southwestern town of Chamisaville just as the rest of America was in the Great Depression. They came when a rattletrap bus loaded with stolen dynamite blew sky-high, leaving behind a giant gushing hot spring. Within minutes, the town's wheeler-dealers had organized, and within a year, Chamisaville was flooded with tourists and pilgrims, and the wheeler-dealers were rich. At first, it was a magic time for Chamisaville—almost as if every day were a holiday. But the euphoria gradually dissipated, and the land-hungry developers, speculators, and interlopers moved in. Finally, the day came when Chamisaville's people found themselves all but displaced, their children no longer heirs to their land or their tradition. With mounting intensity, The Magic Journey reaches a climax that is tragically foreordained. A sensitive, vital, and honest chronicle of life in America's Southwest, it is also an incisive commentary on what America has become on its road to progress. The Magic Journey is part of John Nichols's New Mexico trilogy, which includes The Milagro Beanfield War and The Nirvana Blues.

Beautifully Grotesque Fish of the American West

Author: Mark Spitzer

Publisher: U of Nebraska Press

Published: 2017-03-01

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 1496200063

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Fisherman Mark Spitzer takes readers on an action-packed investigation of the most fierce and fearsome freshwater grotesques of the American West ever to inspire both hatred and fascination. Through the lenses of history, folklore, biology, ecology, and politics, Beautifully Grotesque Fish of the American West depicts the environmental destruction plaguing the most maligned creatures in our midst while subtly interweaving Spitzer’s experiences of personal tragedy and self-discovery. Join Spitzer as he noodles for flathead catfish in Oklahoma, snags paddlefish in Missouri, trotline- and electro-fishes American eels in Arkansas, studies razorback suckers in Arizona, bounty hunts for pikeminnows in Washington State, attends a burbot festival in Utah, stirs up Asian carp in Kansas, and breaks the state record for the largest yellow bullhead ever caught in Nebraska. By examining freakish links in a vital chain and working with specialists in the field, Spitzer portrays a planet in environmental crisis and dispels the illusion that our actions don’t result in long-term, toxic consequences. Spitzer offers models for fisheries and provides other sources of hope in this informative epic of redemption that ultimately celebrates the wild and resilient beauty and remaining possibilities of the American West. Watch a book trailer. Visit the Where in the West is Mark Spitzer? blog series for additional reading and a look at more photographs not included in the book.

The King of Taos

Author: Max Evans

Publisher: University of New Mexico Press

Published: 2020-06-01

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 082636165X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The underground world of con men, winos, prostitutes, laborers, and artists has been an abundant source of material for great writers from Dickens to Bukowski. The underground world of Taos, New Mexico, is no different. In the late 1950s this mountain town was higher, brighter, poorer, and farther removed than London, Paris, or Los Angeles, but it was every bit as rich for the explorations of a young writer. Max Evans, the beloved New Mexican writer of such enduring classics of Western fiction as The Rounders and The Hi-Lo Country, returns to form with The King of Taos. Set in the late 1950s, the novel tells the stories of sharp-witted Zacharias Chacon, aspiring artist Shaw Spencer, and a circle of characters who drink, fight, love, argue, and—mostly—talk. Readers will enjoy this witty and moving evocation of unforgettable characters as they look for work, love, comfort, dignity, and bottomless oblivion.

The Book of the Damned

Author: Charles Fort

Publisher: Library of Alexandria

Published: 2020-09-28

Total Pages: 442

ISBN-13: 1613106424

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

"Time travel, UFOs, mysterious planets, stigmata, rock-throwing poltergeists, huge footprints, bizarre rains of fish and frogs-nearly a century after Charles Fort's Book of the Damned was originally published, the strange phenomenon presented in this book remains largely unexplained by modern science. Through painstaking research and a witty, sarcastic style, Fort captures the imagination while exposing the flaws of popular scientific explanations. Virtually all of his material was compiled and documented from reports published in reputable journals, newspapers and periodicals because he was an avid collector. Charles Fort was somewhat of a recluse who spent most of his spare time researching these strange events and collected these reports from publications sent to him from around the globe. This was the first of a series of books he created on unusual and unexplained events and to this day it remains the most popular. If you agree that truth is often stranger than fiction, then this book is for you"--Taken from Good Reads website.

Man Vs Fish

Author:

Publisher: UNM Press

Published: 2007-11-16

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 9780826332721

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Man vs Fish comprises the highlights of Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame guide Taylor Streit's fifty years of fly-fishing. From New Mexico to Argentina we follow Streit, and his sidekick "superfly," from hooking the tail of a great marlin to getting hooked, barefoot, to the living room carpet. Reading these dramatic tales will inspire the armchair angler to thrash their way to a wild place, don waders, and become part of the action. "Taylor has been to exciting places I'll never visit, and he has written about those places. He's caught peacock bass in Brazil. And he has witnessed people wrestling alligators. He bagged a 28-inch brown trout in Patagonia while red stags kibitzed from the background. . . . All the tales are good fun and great writing. There's some wonderful satire to boot. . . . These stories catch fish. And all of them are hefty lunkers."--John Nichols, from the Foreword

Cabañuelas

Author: Norma Elia Cantú

Publisher: University of New Mexico Press

Published: 2019-02-15

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0826360629

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Nena leaves Laredo, Texas, and moves to Madrid, Spain, to research the historical roots of traditional fiestas in Laredo. Immersing herself in post-Franco Spain and its rich history, its food, music, and fiestas, Nena finds herself falling for Paco, a Spaniard who works in publishing. Nena’s research and experiences teach her about who she is, where she comes from, and what is important to her, but as her work comes to a close, Nena must decide where she can best be true to her entire self: in Spain with Paco or in Laredo, her home, where her job and family await her return.