The Beast God Forgot to Invent

The Beast God Forgot to Invent
Author: Jim Harrison
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2007-12-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1555847927

An unforgettable collection of novellas from the author of Legends of the Fall explores the line between civilization and the “wild men.” Jim Harrison is an American master. The Beast God Forgot to Invent offers stories of culture and wildness, of men and beasts and where they overlap. A wealthy man retired to the Michigan woods narrates the tale of a younger man decivilized by brain damage. A Michigan Indian wanders Los Angeles, hobnobbing with starlets and screenwriters while he tracks an ersatz Native-American activist who stole his bearskin. An aging alpha canine, the author of three dozen throwaway biographies, eats dinner with the ex-wife of his overheated youth, and must confront the man he used to be. “Harrison’s intricate symbolism and scathing observations of urban foibles, his sly humor and vibrant language remind readers that he is one of our most talented chroniclers of the masculine psyche, intellectual or not.” —Publishers Weekly

Falling in Love

Falling in Love
Author: Grant Allen
Publisher: Graphic Arts Books
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2020-12-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1513266977

Falling in Love (1889) is a brilliant collection of essays by innovative Canadian writer Grant Allen. His wide-ranging interests and unique, personal tone present science in a style that not only makes difficult concepts digestible to the average reader, but also presages the popularity of New Journalism in the latter half of the twentieth century. In the title essay, Allen moves from analysis of the evolutionary implications of love to a blistering critique of the institution of marriage. Central to this piece is a rejection of matchmaking according to religion, race, and rank, which Allen makes with the hope that “marriage for love...will last for ever.” Allen was a writer unafraid of ruffling feathers, a tireless individual who delighted in dissecting and ejecting convention. In “British and Foreign,” Allen looks at the non-indigenous nature of so much of Britain’s environment to argue that, in the end, “there is nothing really and truly British.” Allen was also, perhaps more than anything else, a deeply curious man, a person for whom no topic was unworthy of questioning. In “Honey-Dew,” as though under a microscope, he examines the remarkable coexistence between ants and aphids to not only highlight the intricate webs that make up the natural world, but to expose humanity’s outsized, and often helpless, role in the life of the planet. Other essays in Falling in Love find Allen espousing on the nonexistence of thunderbolts, composing a treatise on the sociopolitical history of the banana, and saying what he would have said on an archaeological expedition (had he been asked). For Allen, humor is never too far from insight, and insight is always within reach. Falling in Love is both a pleasure to read and intoxicating, a work for readers intrigued by science or looking for a fresh voice to cut through the world’s confusion. Grant Allen was not just a novelist and essayist, but a writer’s writer whose words read as clearly as though they were written yesterday. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this new edition of Grant Allen’s Falling in Love is an understated classic of literary nonfiction reimagined for modern readers.

Boys' Life

Boys' Life
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 64
Release: 1920-01
Genre:
ISBN:

Boys' Life is the official youth magazine for the Boy Scouts of America. Published since 1911, it contains a proven mix of news, nature, sports, history, fiction, science, comics, and Scouting.