Finding Abbey

Finding Abbey
Author: Sean Prentiss
Publisher: UNM Press
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2015-05-01
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0826355927

When the great environmental writer Edward Abbey died in 1989, four of his friends buried him secretly in a hidden desert spot that no one would ever find. The final resting place of the Thoreau of the American West remains unknown and has become part of American folklore. In this book a young writer who went looking for Abbey’s grave combines an account of his quest with a creative biography of Abbey. Sean Prentiss takes readers across the country as he gathers clues from his research, travel, and interviews with some of Abbey’s closest friends—including Jack Loeffler, Ken “Seldom Seen” Sleight, David Petersen, and Doug Peacock. Along the way, Prentiss examines his own sense of rootlessness as he attempts to unravel Abbey’s complicated legacy, raising larger questions about the meaning of place and home.

Edward Abbey

Edward Abbey
Author: James M. Cahalan
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2003-03-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780816522675

Delves into the private life of twentieth-century American novelist and environmentalist Edward Abbey, or "Cactus Ed," showing the man behind the persona he put forth as a writer and a public speaker.

The Far Edges of the Fourth Genre

The Far Edges of the Fourth Genre
Author: Sean Prentiss
Publisher: MSU Press
Total Pages: 239
Release: 2014-03-01
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1628950234

Though creative nonfiction has been around since Montaigne, St. Augustine, and Seneca, we’ve only just begun to ask how this genre works, why it functions the way it does, and where its borders reside. But for each question we ask, another five or ten questions roil to the surface. And each of these questions, it seems, requires a more convoluted series of answers. What’s more, the questions students of creative nonfiction are drawn to during class discussions, the ones they argue the longest and loudest, are the same ideas debated by their professors in the hallways and at the corner bar. In this collection, sixteen essential contemporary creative nonfiction writers reflect on whatever far, dark edge of the genre they find themselves most drawn to. The result is this fascinating anthology that wonders at the historical and contemporary borderlands between fiction and nonfiction; the illusion of time on the page; the mythology of memory; poetry, process, and the use of received forms; the impact of technology on our writerly lives; immersive research and the power of witness; a chronology and collage; and what we write and why we write. Contributors: Nancer Ballard, H. Lee Barnes, Kim Barnes, Mary Clearman Blew, Joy Castro, Robin Hemley, Judith Kitchen, Brenda Miller, Ander Monson, Dinty W. Moore, Sean Prentiss, Lia Purpura, Erik Reece, Jonathan Rovner, Bob Shacochis, and Joe Wilkins.

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)
Author: Edward Abbey
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Total Pages: 128
Release: 1991-08-15
Genre: Humor
ISBN: 9780312064884

For the first time in softcover, Edward Abbey's last book, a collection of unforgettable barbs of wisdom from the best-selling author of The Monkey Wrench Gang. Notes from a Secret Journal Edward Abbey on: Government-"Terrorism: deadly violence against humans and other living things, usually conducted by a government against its own people." Sex-"How to Avoid Pleurisy: Never make love to a girl named Candy on the tailgate of a half-ton Ford pickup during a chill rain in April out of Grandview Point in San Juan County, Utah." New York City-"New Yorkers like to boast that if you can survive in New York, you can survive anywhere. But if you can survive anywhere, why live in New York?" Literature-"Henry James. Our finest lady novelist."

Desert Cabal

Desert Cabal
Author: Amy Irvine
Publisher: Torrey House Press
Total Pages: 59
Release: 2018-11-06
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1937226964

"Amy Irvine implores us to trade in our solitude for solidarity, to recognize ourselves in each other and in the places we love, so that we might come together to save them." —PAM HOUSTON As Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness turns fifty, its iconic author, who has inspired generations of rebel-rousing advocacy on behalf of the American West, is due for a tribute as well as a talking to. In Desert Cabal: A New Season in the Wilderness, Amy Irvine admires the man who influenced her life and work while challenging all that is dated—offensive, even—between the covers of Abbey’s environmental classic. From Abbey’s quiet notion of solitude to Irvine’s roaring cabal, the desert just got hotter, and its defenders more nuanced and numerous.

While We Were Watching Downton Abbey

While We Were Watching Downton Abbey
Author: Wendy Wax
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2013-04-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1101599391

From the bestselling author of My Ex-Best Friend's Wedding comes a novel about four friends who share a passion for a beloved British television show that will change all of their lives. When the concierge of The Alexander, a historic Atlanta apartment building, invites his fellow residents to join him for weekly screenings of Downton Abbey, four very different people find themselves connecting with the addictive drama, and—even more unexpectedly—with each other... Samantha Davis married young and for the wrong reason: the security of old Atlanta money—for herself and for her orphaned brother and sister. She never expected her marriage to be complicated by love and compromised by a shattering family betrayal. Claire Walker is now an empty nester and struggling author who left her home in the suburbs for the old world charm of The Alexander, and for a new and productive life. But she soon wonders if clinging to old dreams can be more destructive than having no dreams at all. And then there’s Brooke MacKenzie, a woman in constant battle with her faithless ex-husband. She’s just starting to realize that it’s time to take a deep breath and come to terms with the fact that her life is not the fairy tale she thought it would be. For Samantha, Claire, Brooke—and Edward, who arranges the weekly gatherings—it will be a season of surprises as they forge a bond that will sustain them through some of life’s hardest moments—all of it reflected in the unfolding drama, comedy, and convergent lives of Downton Abbey.

The Monkey Wrench Gang

The Monkey Wrench Gang
Author: Edward Abbey
Publisher: Rosetta Books
Total Pages: 461
Release: 2011-08-19
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0795317360

A motley crew of saboteurs wreaks havoc on the corporations destroying America’s Western wilderness in this “wildly funny, infinitely wise” classic (The Houston Chronicle). When George Washington Hayduke III returns home from war in the jungles of Southeast Asia, he finds the unspoiled West he once knew has been transformed. The pristine lands and waterways are being strip mined, dammed up, and paved over by greedy government hacks and their corrupt corporate coconspirators. And the manic, beer-guzzling, rabidly antisocial ex-Green Beret isn’t just getting mad. Hayduke plans to get even. Together with a radical feminist from the Bronx; a wealthy, billboard-torching libertarian MD; and a disgraced Mormon polygamist, Hayduke’s ready to stick it to the Man in the most creative ways imaginable. By the time they’re done, there won’t be a bridge left standing, a dam unblown, or a bulldozer unmolested from Arizona to Utah. Edward Abbey’s most popular novel, The Monkey Wrench Gang is an outrageous romp with ultra-serious undertones that is as relevant today as it was in the early days of the environmental movement. The author who Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove) once dubbed “The Thoreau of the American West” has written a true comedic classic with brains, heart, and soul that more than justifies the call from the Los Angeles Times Book Review that we should all “praise the earth for Edward Abbey!” “Mixes comedy and chaos with enough chase sequences to leave you hungering for more.”—The San Francisco Chronicle

The Misfit's Manifesto

The Misfit's Manifesto
Author: Lidia Yuknavitch
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2017-10-24
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 1501120069

The author explores the status of being a misfit as something to be embraced, and social misfits as being individuals of value who have a place in society, in a work that encourages people who have had difficulty finding their way to pursue their goals.

A Deep and Subtle Joy

A Deep and Subtle Joy
Author: Luke Bell
Publisher: Gracewing Publishing
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2006
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780852446768

"A Deep and Subtle Joy is an introduction to Benedictine - and indeed Christian - spirituality. It takes the reader on a twenty-four-hour personal tour of Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight, England, the monastery where Father Joe, the subject of Tony Hendra's best-selling book, lived. The reader is invited to share in the lives of the monks and enter into their rhythm of worship, work, reading, prayer, and recreation."--BOOK JACKET.

Finding Sanctuary

Finding Sanctuary
Author: Christopher Jamison
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 122
Release: 2008-09-18
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 0297856871

Abbot Christopher Jamison, from BBC2's THE MONASTERY and new show THE SILENCE, suggests ways in which the teachings of St Benedict can be helpful in everyday life. Have you ever wondered why everybody these days seems so busy? In FINDING SANCTUARY, Father Christopher Jamison offers practical wisdom from the monastic tradition on how to build sanctuary into your life. No matter how hard you work, being too busy is not inevitable. Silence and contemplation are not just for monks and nuns, they are natural parts of life. Yet to keep hold of this truth in the rush of modern living you need the support of other people and sensible advice from wise guides. By learning to listen in new ways, people's lives can change and the abbot offers some monastic steps that help this transition to a more spiritual life. In the face of many easy assumptions about the irrelevance of religion today, Father Christopher makes religion accessible for those in search of life's meaning and offers a vision of the world's religions working together as a unique source of hope for the 21st century.