Verlyn Klinkenborg

When angler and author Stephen Sautner bought a streamside cabin and some land in the heart of fly fishing country in the Catskill Mountains, he thought he had finally reached angling nirvana. Little did he know what loomed: a series of historical floods, a land rush over fracking for natural gas, and constant battles with invasive species, plagues of insects, and other pests. He takes on all of these threats – between casts for wild trout and other gamefish – and along the way gains a better understanding of stewardship and the interconnectedness between angling and the natural world. Praise for A Cast in the Woods:“New York State's ban on fracking was one of the great triumphs of modern environmentalism, and behind it lay a thousand individual stories of resistance. None has been better told than this one, by a worthy Catskills heir to the literary tradition of John Burroughs and a man who has earned his fishing.”--Bill McKibben, author Radio Free Vermont“If you love wild woods and wild trout, Sautner’s word magic will transport you to the best of both. His battle to preserve them from a daunting array of natural and unnatural forces amuses even as it instructs and inspires.” --Ted Williams, outdoor writer and environmental journalist

Noted nature writer Ted Williams invites readers along on a year-long immersion in the wild and fleeting moments of the natural world, from winter candy and spring quackers to summer’s scarlet farewell and autumn reveilles. This beautifully crafted collection of short, seasonal essays combines in-depth information with evocative descriptions of nature’s marvels and mysteries. Williams explains the weather conditions that bring out the brightest reds in autumn leaves, how hungry wolf spiders catch their prey, and why American goldfinches wait until late July or August to build their nests. In the tradition of Thoreau, Carson, and Leopold, Ted Williams’s writing stands as a testament to the delicate balance of nature’s resilience and fragility, and inspires readers to experience the natural world for themselves and to become advocates for protecting and preserving the amazing diversity and activity found there.

"A thorough and generous guide to shaping your world not only to your own happiness, but the world’s as well.”—John Hodgman, host of Judge John Hodgman; author of Vacationland Carving Out a Living on the Land tells the story of how author Emmet Van Driesche navigated changing life circumstances, took advantage of unexpected opportunities, and leveraged new and old skills to piece together an economically viable living on marginal farmland, while at the same time respecting the land’s complex ecological relationships. Van Driesche’s adventure began when he recognized that he could do much more with his land than simply tend rows of perfectly sheared Christmas trees. From spoon carving to scything, coppicing to wreath-making, Carving Out a Living on the Land proves that you don’t need acres of expensive bottomland to start your land-based venture, but rather the creativity and vision to see what might be done with that rocky section or ditch or patch of trees too small to log. You can lease instead of buy; build flexible, temporary structures rather than sink money into permanent ones; and take over an existing operation rather than start from scratch. What matters are your unique circumstances, talents, and interests, which when combined with what the land is capable of producing, can create a fulfilling and meaningful farming life.

"Making Hay takes one of the least common denominators in rural American life and gives it real glory. Klinkenborg is funny, learned, elegant, and accurate every single minute."--Thomas McGuane “Klinkenborg is our modern Thoreau.”—Tom Brokaw "A marvelous picture of rural life and of families at work. This is a fascinating excursion into American farmland."--Publishers Weekly From the wonders of alfalfa, the "miracle plant," to barbed wire and the myriad difficulties of operating tractors and side rakes, renowned author Verlyn Klinkenborg paints a stunning and memorable portrait of life on American family farms. Making Hay gives an unforgettable glimpse of everyday life on the farms of Iowa, Minnesota, and Montana. In beautiful, deceptively simple prose touched with humor and affection, Klinkenborg evokes a way of life at risk, and weaves a marvelous story of the richness of rural living.

An indispensable and distinctive book that will help anyone who wants to write, write better, or have a clearer understanding of what it means for them to be writing, from widely admired writer and teacher Verlyn Klinkenborg. Klinkenborg believes that most of our received wisdom about how writing works is not only wrong but an obstacle to our ability to write. In Several Short Sentences About Writing, he sets out to help us unlearn that wisdom about genius, about creativity, about writer s block, topic sentences, and outline and understand that writing is just as much about thinking, noticing, and learning what it means to be involved in the act of writing. There is no gospel, no orthodoxy, no dogma in this book. Instead it is a gathering of starting points in a journey toward lively, lucid, satisfying self-expression."

“Ducks in a stream, the bridge at St. Anthony Falls, streets of cities and towns, a fish in a net, the glittering lakes seen under low skies. The Face of Minnesota is a fresh, simple, unpretentious statement of a place and time by people who know what Minnesota is because they live there.” -Minor White, Aperture, 1958 “John Szarkowski is the single most important curator that photography has ever had. Looking at his photographs created over the last fifty years makes me want to weep. They are truly American pictures; one feels his desire to show not just what America was but what it still can be.” -Ingrid Sischy, Vanity Fair, 2005 Originally commissioned to commemorate Minnesota’s centennial in 1958 and out of print for nearly forty years, The Face of Minnesota is a lost masterpiece of photography and an eloquent tribute to the people and places of the North Star state. Republished in celebration of the state’s sesquicentennial, this beautifully produced edition includes contemporary essays about John Szarkowski’s impact on American photography and introduces his work to new generations of Minnesotans. Featuring more than 175 arresting photographs as well as essays filled with wit and affection, The Face of Minnesota opens with this statement: “This book is about Minnesota now. But as a mature man carries on his face and in his bearing the history of his past, so does the look of a place today show its past-what it has been and what it has believed in.” Though Minnesota has changed dramatically during the past fifty years, The Face of Minnesota reveals the simple beauty of the imprint of the past and its deep resonance today. John Szarkowski (1925–2007) was director of the photography program at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where he transformed our understanding of the art of photography through influential exhibitions and books, including Looking at Photographs (1973). In 2005 his work was surveyed in a traveling exhibition, accompanied by the book John Szarkowski: Photographs. Verlyn Klinkenborg joined the editorial board of the New York Times in 1997. He is the author of several works, including The Rural Life. Richard Benson has worked as a photographer and printer since 1966. He teaches at Yale University and is the coauthor, with John Szarkowski, of A Maritime Album: 100 Photographs and Their Stories.

Timothy, a tortoise who lives in the garden of eighteenth-century curate Gilbert White, speaks out on his life in the garden, his nine-day adventure outside the gate, his observations of the curious habits and habitations of humans, and the natural world around him. Reprint.

Verlyn Klinkenborg's The Last Fine Time sensitively chronicles the life of a family-owned restaurant in Buffalo, New York, from its days before WWII as a Polish tavern to 1947, when it became a swank nightspot serving highballs and Frenchfried shrimp to a generation of servicemen. In the inevitable disappearance of George & Eddie's, as narrated by Klinkenborg, we see the passing of both an Old World way of life and the end of the postwar exuberance that was Eddie Wenzek's "last fine time." A loving portrait of an era and place, The Last Fine Time is, by turns, an elegy, a celebration, a social history, and a tour de force of lyrical style.

The hugely admired author of "The Last Fine Time" preserves and makes new the sights, smells, sounds, and poetry of country living. Klinkenborg reveals the beauty of the American landscape, not from a scenic overlook, but through a screened-in porch or from the window of a pickup driving down an empty highway in the teeth of an approaching storm.