One editor, so the story goes, replied, “it has trees in it. Forty years later, the title novella is recognized as one of the great American tales of the twentieth century, and Maclean as one of the most beloved writers of our time. Based on maclean’s own experiences as a young man, the book’s two novellas and short story are set in the small towns and mountains of western Montana.

The finely distilled product of a long life of often surprising rapture—for fly-fishing, for the woods, for the interlocked beauty of life and art—A River Runs through It has established itself as a classic of the American West. When norman maclean sent the manuscript of A River Runs through It and Other Stories to New York publishers, he received a slew of rejections.

By turns raunchy and elegiac, these superb tales express, in Maclean’s own words, “a little of the love I have for the earth as it goes by. ”. It is a world populated with drunks, card sharks, loggers, and whores, but also one rich in the pleasures of fly-fishing, cribbage, logging, and family. This new edition will introduce a fresh audience to Maclean’s beautiful prose and understated emotional insights.

Elegantly redesigned, a river runs through It includes a new foreword by Robert Redford, director of the Academy Award-winning 1992 film adaptation of River.

Young Men and Fire: Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition

As moving and profound as when it was first published, Young Men and Fire honors the literary legacy of a man who gave voice to an essential corner of the American soul. This twenty-fifth anniversary edition of maclean’s later triumph—the last book he would write—includes a powerful new foreword by Timothy Egan, author of The Big Burn and The Worst Hard Time.

Haunted by these deaths for forty years, norman Maclean puts together the scattered pieces of the Mann Gulch tragedy in Young Men and Fire, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Alongside maclean’s now-canonical a river Runs through It and Other Stories, Young Men and Fire is recognized today as a classic of the American West.

A devastating and lyrical work of nonfiction, 1949, young men and fire describes the events of August 5, when a crew of fifteen of the US Forest Service’s elite airborne firefighters, the Smokejumpers, stepped into the sky above a remote forest fire in the Montana wilderness. Two hours after their jump, all but three of the men were dead or mortally burned.

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The Norman Maclean Reader

Perceptive, intimate essays deal with his career as a teacher and a literary scholar, as well as the wealth of family stories for which Maclean is famous. Bringing together previously unpublished materials with incidental writings and selections from his more famous works, the Reader will serve as the perfect introduction for readers new to Maclean, while offering longtime fans new insight into his life and career.

In this evocative collection, Maclean as both a writer and a man becomes evident. Though the 1976 collection a river runs through it and other stories was the only book Maclean published in his lifetime, it was an unexpected success, and the moving family tragedy of the title novella—based largely on Maclean’s memories of his childhood home in Montana—has proved to be one of the most enduring American stories ever written.

The norman maclean Reader is a wonderful addition to Maclean’s celebrated oeuvre. But it was a role he took up late in life, that of writer, that won him enduring fame and critical acclaim—as well as the devotion of readers worldwide. Complete with a generous selection of letters, the norman maclean reader provides a fully fleshed-out portrait of this much admired author, showing us a writer fully aware of the nuances of his craft, as well as excerpts from a 1986 interview, and a man as at home in the academic environment of the University of Chicago as in the quiet mountains of his beloved Montana.

Various and moving, the works collected in the Norman Maclean Reader serve as both a summation and a celebration, giving readers a chance once again to hear one of American literature’s most distinctive voices. In his eighty-seven years, firefighter, Norman Maclean played many parts: fisherman, scholar, logger, teacher.

Legends of the Fall

Legends of the fall may well be the best set of novellas to appear in this country during the last quarter century. Robert houston, new york times book reviewNew York Times bestselling author Jim Harrison is one of America’s most beloved and critically acclaimed writers. Now available in ebook for the first time, the classic Legends of the Fall is Harrison at his most memorable: a striking collection of novellas written with exceptional brilliance and a ferocious love of life.

The title novella, legends of the fall”which was made into the film of the same nameis an epic, moving tale of three brothers fighting for justice in a world gone mad. Moving from the raw landscape of early twentieth-century montana to the blood-drenched European battlefields of World War I and back again to Montana, Harrison’s powerful story explores the theme of revenge and the actions to which people resort when their lives or goals are threatened, painting an unforgettable portrait of the twentieth-century man.

Also including the novellas revenge” and the man who Gave Up His Name, ” Legends of the Fall confirms Jim Harrison’s reputation as one of the finest American voices of his generation.

This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind

A haunting, magnificently written memoir by ivan Doig about growing up in the American West Ivan Doig grew up in the rugged wilderness of western Montana among the sheepherders and denizens of small-town saloons and valley ranches. A powerfully told story, this house of Sky is at once especially American and universal in its ability to awaken a longing for an explicable past.

What he deciphers from his past with piercing clarity is not only a raw sense of land and how it shapes us but also of the ties to our mothers and fathers, independence, love, to those who love us, and our inextricable connection to those who shaped our values in our search for intimacy, and family.

Fifty-Six Counties: A Montana Journey

From joseph kinsey howard's "Montana: High, Wide, and Handsome" to K. Montana has a long and celebrated tradition of artful, reflective nonfiction. To this eminent list we can now add Russell Rowland's "Fifty-Six Counties: A Montana Journey. A native montanan and an applauded novelist "in open spaces, from the stark, rowland spent the better part of a year studying and traveling around his beloved home state, from the mines of Butte to the pine forests of the Northwest, " "High and Inside", wind-scrubbed badlands of the East to the tourist-driven economies of the West.

. Along the way, where we came from, most of all, he considered our state's essential character, and, what we might be in the process of becoming. Ross toole's "montana: an uncommon land, " we've been gifted with a series of erudite and sharp-eyed guides to help show us who we are.

Shopgirl: A Novella

One of our country's most acclaimed and beloved entertainers, Steve Martin has written a novella that is unexpectedly perceptive about relationships and life. Martin is profoundly wise when it comes to the inner workings of the human heart. Mirabelle is the "shopgirl" of the title, a young woman, beautiful in a wallflowerish kind of way, who works behind the glove counter at Neiman Marcus "selling things that nobody buys anymore .

Filled with the kind of witty, discerning observations that have brought Steve Martin critical success, Shopgirl is a work of disarming tenderness. Slightly lost, slightly off-kilter, very shy, not aggressive, Mirabelle charms because of all that she is not: not glamorous, not self-aggrandizing. As they tentatively embark on a relationship, they both struggle to decipher the language of love--with consequences that are both comic and heartbreaking.

Still there is something about her that is irresistible. Mirabelle captures the attention of Ray Porter, a wealthy businessman almost twice her age.

The Longest Silence: A Life in Fishing

A writer of the first magnitude, " as Jonathan Yardley wrote in the New York Times Book Review. As he travels with friends, the classification of anglers according to the flies they prefer, the fish take him to such subjects as "unfounded opinions" on rods and reels, alone, or in the literary company of Roderick Haig-Brown or Isaak Walton, family, with his son, and memory--right down to why fisherman lie.

With ten books over a thirty-year span, Thomas McGuane has proven himself over and over again "a virtuoso. His essay subjects are the stuff of epics, " Geoffrey Wolff has written, "and his narratives can make you laugh out loud. Infused with a deep experience of wildlife and the outdoors, The Longest Silence sets the heart pounding for a glimpse of moving water, dedicated to conservation, reverent and hilarious by turns or at once, and demonstrates what a life dedicated to sport reveals about life.

His sheer writing skill is nothing short of amazing. But he has devoted a couple decades more to another sustaining passion: the pursuit of most every sporting fish known to the angler's hopes and dreams. The quarry--from trout and salmon to striped bass, new zealand, key west, and to such far-flung locales as ireland, Argentina, massive tarpon, and chimerical permit--inhabit these thirty-three essays as surely as the characters of a novel, and on through the stages of his life in San Francisco, and Montana; from the river in his backyard to the holiest waters of the American fishery, luring the author back to childhood haunts in Michigan and Rhode Island, and Russia.

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The River Why

Like gus, the reader emerges utterly changed, stripped bare by the journey Duncan so expertly navigates. Since its publication in 1983, The River Why has become a classic. Taking refuge in a remote cabin, he sets out in pursuit of the Pacific Northwest's elusive steelhead. David james duncan's sweeping novel is a coming-of-age comedy about love, nature, and the quest for self-discovery, written in a voice as distinct and powerful as any in American letters.

But what begins as a physical quarry becomes a spiritual one as his quest for self-knowledge batters him with unforeseeable experiences. Gus orviston is a young fly fisherman who leaves behind his comically schizoid family to find his own path. Profoundly reflective about our connection to nature and to one another, The River Why is also a comedic rollercoaster.

. The classic novel of fly fishing and spirituality republished with a new Afterword by the author.

Study Guide: A River Runs Through It by Norman MacLean SuperSummary

Featured content includes commentary on major characters, 25 important quotes, essay topics, and key themes like Oneness with Nature and Are We Our Brothers Keepers? . This 26-page guide for “a river runs through it” by Norman MacLean includes detailed pages summaries and analysis, as well as several more in-depth sections of expert-written literary analysis.

Supersummary, a modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, offers high-quality study guides for challenging works of literature.

End Zone

Among oddly afflicted and recognizable players, the terminologies of football and nuclear war--the language of end zones--become interchangeable, and their meaning deteriorates as the collegiate year runs its course. During an uncharacteristic winning season, the perplexed and distracted running back Gary Harkness has periodic fits of nuclear glee; he is fueled and shielded by his fear of and fascination with nuclear conflict.

In this triumphantly funny, Don DeLillo explores the metaphor of football as war with rich, deeply searching novel, original zeal. The second novel by don delillo, huge young men, vacuum-packed into shoulder pads and shiny helmets, author of White Noise winner of the National Book Award and Zero KAt Logos College in West Texas, play football with intense passion.

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