On the Water: A Fishing Memoir by Guy de la Valdene (English) Hardcover Book

Description: On the Water by Guy de la Valdene From the acclaimed author of Fragrance of Grass, comes a meditation onwater andnature, fishingand growing older.On the Water, is agorgeously writtencollection of essays that all take place on or near the water and pay tribute to the flora and fauna associated with thoseecosystems. There are essays about the finer points of tickling rainbow trout in the streams of Normandy, and of eagles and ospreys fishing for basswhile barely breaking the surface of the water. There are stories ofdroughts and floods, of dogs and boats, of worms and rattlesnakes and even of catching and cooking soft-shell turtles that taste like osso-bucco.There is fishing and diving in the Bahamas, tarpon fishing in the Florida Keys, and fly fishing for sailfish in Central America. And there are larger-than-life personalities that are bigger than the fish tales they tell!On the Wateris a finely honed and well crafted collection of tales for the true sportsman and makes for a perfect companion volume to la Valdene s celebrated collection of essays on hunting." FORMAT Hardcover LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description From the acclaimed author of Fragrance of Grass comes a meditation on water and nature, fishing and growing older. On the Water is a gorgeously written collection of essays that all take place on or near the water and pay tribute to the flora and fauna associated with those ecosystems. There are essays about the finer points of tickling rainbow trout in the streams of Normandy, and of eagles and ospreys fishing for bass while barely breaking the surface of the water. There are stories of droughts and floods, of dogs and boats, of worms and rattlesnakes and even of catching and cooking soft-shell turtles that taste like osso-bucco. There is fishing and diving in the Bahamas, tarpon fishing in the Florida Keys, and fly fishing for sailfish in Central America. And there are larger-than-life personalities that are bigger than the fish tales they tell! On the Water is a finely honed and well crafted collection of tales for the true sportsman and makes for a perfect companion volume to la Valdenes celebrated collection of essays on hunting. Author Biography Guy de la Valdene was born and raised in France His previous books include The Fragrance of Grass, For a Handful of Feathers, Making Game and a novel, Red Stag. His numerous articles have appeared in Sports Afield, Field & Stream and Grays Sporting Journal. In addition, La Valdene is the director and producer of the highly acclaimed documentary Tarpon. Filmed in Key West in 1973 and featuring Richard Brautigan, Tom McGuane, and Jim Harrison, the film was recently restored and re-released. La Valdene lives on an 800-acre farm near Tallahassee, Florida. Review "Guy de la Valdenes sublime On the Water is the spiritual yin to The Old Man and the Seas yang. De la Valdene engages with water, its creatures, and the fishing of them as a profound expression of connection and even love, a way into the self and into the wider universe that illuminates the deep nature of both. On the Water is an instant classic of a memoir."—Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain"One doesnt know whether to envy Guy de la Valdene more for the life he has had or the books he writes. This one, like Walden and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, pulls a catch of big, finely scrutinized and rendered observations on man and nature from small water—interspersing an acutely-studied account of the natural history and seasonal life of a 27-acre lake on Valdenes property with exuberant fishing adventures from around the world. The resultant mixture of memory and desire, of wit and wisdom, is nothing less than a classic."—Charles Gaines, author of the National Book Award finalist Stay Hungry"Guy de la Valdenes On The Water is more than a fishing memoir. He remembers his wild youth in the Caribbean, handling sharks at night and chasing waterspouts, and his intense days flyfishing in salt water with literary legends. He contrasts them both with wise and sometimes melancholy thoughts at the pond he made on his farm, seeing nature in this microcosm like a earthier version of an old Zen sage. Shake your head at the recklessness of youth, revel and laugh with the writers, and learn from his hard-won wisdom." - Steve Bodio, author of Field & Forest, Eternity of Eagles and many more.Guy de la Valdenes On The Water is more than a fishing memoir. He remembers his wild youth in the Caribbean, handlining sharks at night and chasing waterspouts, and his intense days flyfishing in salt water with literary legends. He contrasts them both with wise and sometimes melancholy thoughts at the pond he made on his farm, seeing nature in this microcosm like a earthier version of an old Zen sage. Shake your head at the recklessness of youth, revel and laugh with the writers, and learn from his hard-won wisdom. * Field & Stream *"Guy de la Valdenes On The Water is more than a fishing memoir. He remembers his wild youth in the Caribbean, handining sharks at night and chasing waterspouts, and his intense days flyfishing in salt water with literary legends. He contrasts them both with wise and sometimes melancholy thoughts at the pond he made on his farm, seeing nature in this microcosm like a earthier version of an old Zen sage. Shake your head at the recklessness of youth, revel and laugh with the writers, and learn from his hard-won wisdom." - Steve Bodio, author of Field & Forest, Eternity of Eagles and many more.This utterly charming book is ostensibly about a man and his pond. . . .Valdènes observations about the pond he built on his northern Florida property, though, are merely the starting point, segueing seamlessly into autobiographical details of a life well lived, and one that has been centered around water. Valdène relates enchanting anecdotes about his boyhood, spent partly living in a castle in Normandy (Valdène is an actual French count), where he appears to have spent most of his time out-of-doors, chasing various finned creatures, from trout (some of which he manages, at one point, to actually tickle) to the ferocious and moody pike. . . .Valdène is refreshingly unsentimental. This is not a finger-wagging book. Instead, Valdène views his life in the same way he does his pond: All of the different seasons warrant careful observations of their varied virtues and hardships. The book is almost worth it for Carl Hiaasens beautiful introduction alone, truly one of the best Ive ever read. * Forbes *Hippo- 4 StarsDe la Valdène promises a fishing memoir, but it is more than that, a meditation on nature similar to the work of Thoreau or Henry Beston. …There is comfort and inspiration on the water; de la Valdène masterfully shares it here. Jennifer Graham Grays Sporting Journal – 4 ½ starsYou will savor La Valdènes On the Water: A Fishing Memoir… , easily the best such book of our times, reminiscent in its passion for angling of Roderick Haig-Brown (still the only standard word considering). .. .The pond, which begins as an affair of surveying flags and bulldozers, becomes a gracefully wrought literary device that wanes and waxes through drought and rain across the pages of this extraordinary book, creating an intense meditation on nature and the seasons." - Christopher CamutoGuy de la Valdène has quietly published a small handful of books that may go down as the best outdoor sport writing of his generation, his praises spoken among the cognoscenti of woods and water and, increasingly, among a larger audience for whom passages on fishing and nature form a backdrop for reflections on memory, aging, and mortality. A companion of sorts to La Valdènes The Fragrance of Grass, a collection of essays on hunting and nature, On The Water (with a foreword from the authors friend Carl Hiaasen) is an assemblage of pitch-perfect vignettes so aphoristic that to open the book anywhere is to be delighted and instructed by a writer whose work speaks to the power of earned experience. Critics compare La Valdènes writing to that of Aldo Leopold, Vladimir Nabokov, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, and Henry David Thoreau. Good company, that. And were they still with us, theyd be equally pleased to be counted in this. - Bookmark Long Description From the acclaimed author of Fragrance of Grass comes a meditation on water and nature, fishing and growing older. On the Water is a gorgeously written collection of essays that all take place on or near the water and pay tribute to the flora and fauna associated with those ecosystems. There are essays about the finer points of tickling rainbow trout in the streams of Normandy, and of eagles and ospreys fishing for bass while barely breaking the surface of the water. There are stories of droughts and floods, of dogs and boats, of worms and rattlesnakes and even of catching and cooking soft-shell turtles that taste like osso-bucco. There is fishing and diving in the Bahamas, tarpon fishing in the Florida Keys, and fly fishing for sailfish in Central America. And there are larger-than-life personalities that are bigger than the fish tales they tell! On the Water is a finely honed and well crafted collection of tales for the true sportsman and makes for a perfect companion volume to la Valdenes celebrated collection of essays on hunting. Review Quote Praise for The Fragrance of Grass "The Fragrance of Grass is an exquisite, big-hearted celebration of a life grandly spent outdoors. Any novelist whod try to invent a character like Guy de la Valdene would be doomed to fall short. He is a unique philosopher-scoundrel with a wise, gentle heart, and he writes like a dream." --Carl Hiaasen "Guy de la Valdenes portraiture of French farmers, landowners, and sportsmen is flawless, his appreciation of dogs profound. He writes with a lyric toughness that gives his work the tonal richness of literature. The Fragrance of Grass feels as though it was descanted rather than written, one eloquent sentence flowing into another. His view of hunting is, at its deepest level, a joyous, melancholy meditation on life and death." --Christopher Camuto, Grays Sporting Journal Feature A meditation on water and nature, fishing and growing older, and of the sporting life well-lived. Excerpt from Book "Proximity to water has always been part of my life. Where I grew up in Normandy there were two mapped rivers, a dozen streams and rivulets, subordinate farm ponds, and a moat that girdled the castle. Later it was on the saltwater flats of the Bahamas and then in the shallow waters of the Florida Keys where I learned to appreciate fish I could see and stalk, fish I could cast at, and fish that fought back. Once I knew how to use a fly rod, I added to my angling settings the Pacific Ocean and a number of the rivers around the world. Now, as an older man with an aversion to crowded airports, it is once again a freshwater pond that gathers my attention."--From On the Water Details ISBN1493007939 ISBN-10 1493007939 ISBN-13 9781493007936 Format Hardcover Publisher Rowman & Littlefield Pages 192 Imprint The Lyons Press Subtitle A Fishing Memoir Place of Publication Guilford Country of Publication United States DEWEY 799.1 Short Title ON THE WATER Language English Media Book Year 2015 UK Release Date 2015-03-01 NZ Release Date 2015-03-01 Alternative 9781493039647 Audience General AU Release Date 2015-03-14 Publication Date 2015-02-01 US Release Date 2015-02-01 Author Guy de la Valdene We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:137149357;

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