Back in Keith County


Book Description

John Janovy "has produced his best book. . . . He gives us a superb example of nature writing and of life in the Great Plains, perhaps surpassing such admired works in the genre as Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac and William Warner's Beautiful Swimmers. Janovy takes us on a journey of intellectual serendipity, deriving extraordinary thoughts from ordinary circumstances".-Washington Post. "This 'human need for wilderness' is the trail winding through Back in Keith County . . . [to] the streams of John Janovy's 'inner cowboy country.' The fourteen essays are a very human mix of biology, sentiment, wandering observation and personal philosophy".-Smithsonian. Janovy's earlier Keith County Journal "met with astonishing success, and some reviewers compared the author to Henry David Thoreau. Back in Keith County returns to the part of Nebraska that Mr. Janovy knows and loves. . . . The book shows the area's wildlife-tiger beetles, toads, swallows, owls and a variety of fish-to be as special as its people. . . . The author also reflects on the intangible aspects of life. . . . The rich ramblings of these 179 pages are fascinating".-Kansas City Star. John Janovy Jr. is Varner Professor at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and director of the Cedar Point Biological Station. He is the author of Keith County Journal and On Becoming a Biologist, also available as a Bison Book.




Keith County Journal


Book Description

To learn from nature, not about nature, was the imperative that took John Janovy Jr. and his students into the sandhills, marshes, grasslands, canyons, lakes, and streams of Keith County in western Nebraska. The biologist explores the web of interrelationships among land, animals, and human beings. Even termites, snails, and barn swallows earn respect and assume significance in the overall scheme of things. Janovy, reminiscent of Henry David Thoreau in his acute powers of observation and search for wisdom, has written a new foreword for this Bison Books edition.John Janovy Jr. is Varner Professor at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and director of the Cedar Point Biological Station. He is the author of Back in Keith County and On Becoming a Biologist, also available as Bison Books.




Ogallala


Book Description

Founded in the late 1800s as the hub of the burgeoning plains cattle trade, Ogallala serves as a microcosm of western history. The town typified western outposts of the age with cowboys—the knights-errant of the plains—ranchers, lawmen, Indians, dance hall girls, cardsharps, drifters, and adventure seekers, and was backdrop to some of the most rowdily lawless days in American history. But as the heady period of grazing cattle on the public domain came to a close, a new era of deeded land, fences, and increased population changed the very heart of Ogallala. The West became a more civilized and more hospitable place for women and children, churches, established newspapers, the Searle Opera House, banks, and fraternal orders and societies. Ogallala: A Century on the Trail details the fascinating history of a small town on the edge of the Nebraska Sandhills from 1823 to 1923 and cannily provides a lens through which we can examine the social, economic, environmental, political, and cultural development of the American West as a whole.




Regionalism and the Humanities


Book Description

Although the framework of regionalist studies may seem to be crumbling under the weight of increasing globalization, this collection of seventeen essays makes clear that cultivating regionalism lies at the center of the humanist endeavor. With interdisciplinary contributions from poets and fiction writers, literary historians, musicologists, and historians of architecture, agriculture, and women, this volume implements some of the most innovative and intriguing approaches to the history and value of regionalism as a category for investigation in the humanities. In the volume’s inaugural essay, Annie Proulx discusses landscapes in American fiction, comments on how she constructs characters, and interprets current literary trends. Edward Watts offers a theory of region that argues for comparisons of the United States to other former colonies of Great Britain, including New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. Whether considering a writer's connection to region or the idea of place in exploring what is meant by regionalism, these essays uncover an enduring and evolving concept. Although the approaches and disciplines vary, all are framed within the fundamental premise of the humanities: the search to understand what it means to be human.




Deep Map Country


Book Description

Taking its name from the subtitle of William Least Heat-Moon's PrairyErth (a deep map), the "deep-map" form of nonfiction and environmental writing defines an innovative and stratigraphic literary genre. Proposing that its roots can be found in Great Plains nonfiction writing, Susan Naramore Maher explores the many facets of this vital form of critique, exploration, and celebration that weaves together such elements of narrative as natural history, cultural history, geography, memoir, and intertextuality. Maher's Deep Map Country gives readers the first book-length study of the deep-map nonfiction of the Great Plains region, featuring writers as diverse as Julene Bair, Sharon Butala, Loren Eiseley, Don Gayton, Linda Hasselstrom, William Least Heat-Moon, John Janovy Jr., John McPhee, Kathleen Norris, and Wallace Stegner. Deep Map Country examines the many layers of storytelling woven into their essays: the deep time of geology and evolutionary biology; the cultural history of indigenous and settlement communities; the personal stories of encounters with this expansive terrain; the political and industrial stories that have affected the original biome and Plains economies; and the spiritual dimensions of the physical environment that press on everyday realities.










Life


Book Description

The long-awaited autobiography of Keith Richards, guitarist, songwriter, singer, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. With The Rolling Stones, Keith Richards created the songs that roused the world, and he lived the original rock and roll life. Now, at last, the man himself tells his story of life in the crossfire hurricane. Listening obsessively to Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters records, learning guitar and forming a band with Mick Jagger and Brian Jones. The Rolling Stones's first fame and the notorious drug busts that led to his enduring image as an outlaw folk hero. Creating immortal riffs like the ones in "Jumping Jack Flash" and "Honky Tonk Women." His relationship with Anita Pallenberg and the death of Brian Jones. Tax exile in France, wildfire tours of the U.S., isolation and addiction. Falling in love with Patti Hansen. Estrangement from Jagger and subsequent reconciliation. Marriage, family, solo albums and Xpensive Winos, and the road that goes on forever. With his trademark disarming honesty, Keith Richard brings us the story of a life we have all longed to know more of, unfettered, fearless, and true.