This book charts the shifting boundaries of Judaism from antiquity to the modern period in order to bring clarity to what scholars mean when they claim that ancient texts or groups are “within Judaism,” as well as exploring how rabbinic Jews, Christians, and Muslims have negotiated and renegotiated what Judaism is and is not in order to form their own identities. Belief in Jesus as the Messiah was seen as part of first-century Judaism, but by the fourth or fifth century, the boundaries had...

These are fishing stories told by three authors about what happens when they go fishing. These tales are about places, boats, bars, trucks, dogs and people. The situations occur in Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, Idaho and Utah and other fishable parts of the world and include details as to parking camping costs, trails, and other interesting notes. Each story is a personal essay description the fishing trip.Michele Murray is a geologist and writer. She is a professional fly fi...

INTRODUCTIONAs a geologist, I travel to remote regions of the world. “Eulogies and Dead Horses” is a collection of some of my travel adventures. The stories focus on the beauty that surrounds us during poignant moments when life is in a fragile state. An underlying theme in this book is the presence of Mortality as an almost sentient, omnipotent being. The situations are described with humor and, in some cases, a bit of geological observation as well. Each story is either ...

Blindness by bird excrement, seven husbands murdered by a love-sick demon, a father with the corpses of his sons-in-law interred in the backyard, and a magical fish. These farcical elements make the book of Tobit a striking work of humorous fiction in a long Jewish tradition of storytelling. But it is more than just an entertaining read. We might well laugh, but we cannot laugh too hard, for we also sympathize with the characters’ sincere struggles to understand God’s plan for their lives....

Brilliant, witty, perceptive essays about fly-fishing, the natural world, and life in general by the acknowledged master of fishing writers.With his inimitable combination of wit and wisdom, John Gierach once again celebrates the fly-fishing life in Standing in a River Waving a Stick and notes its benefits as a sport, philosophical pursuit, even therapy: “The solution to any problem—work, love, money, whatever—is to go fishing, and the worse the problem, t...

Brilliant, witty, perceptive essays about fly-fishing, the natural world, and life in general by the acknowledged master of fishing writers.In No Shortage of Good Days John Gierach takes readers from the Smokies in Tennessee to his home waters in Colorado, from the Canadian Maritimes to Mexico—saltwater or fresh, it’s all fishing and all irresistible. As always he writes perceptively about a wide range of subjects: the charm of familiar waters, the etiquet...

Brilliant, witty, perceptive essays about fly-fishing, the natural world, and life in general by the acknowledged master of fishing writers.Death, Taxes, and Leaky Waders collects forty of John Gierach’s finest essays on fishing from six of his books. Like all his writing, these essays are seasoned by a keen sense of observation and a deep knowledge and love of fishing lore, leavened by a wonderfully wry sense of humor. Gierach often begins with an observa...

In these brilliant, witty, perceptive essays about fly-fishing, the natural world, and life in general, John Gierach, the acknowledged master of fishing writers demonstrates that fishing, when done right, is as much a philosophical pursuit as a sport.Gierach travels to Wyoming and Maine and points in between, searching out new fly-fishing adventures and savoring familiar waters with old friends. Along the way he meditates on the importance of good guides ("Really, ...

Brilliant, witty, perceptive essays about fly-fishing, the natural world, and life in general by the acknowledged master of fishing writers.Fly-fishing’s finest scribe, John Gierach, takes us from a nameless stream on a nameless ranch in Montana to a secret pool off a secret creek where he caught a catfish as a five-year-old, to a brook full of rattlesnakes and a private pond where the trout are all as long as your leg. As Gierach says, “The secret places are the s...

Brilliant, witty, perceptive essays about fly-fishing, the natural world, and life in general by the acknowledged master of fishing writers.If John Gierach is living in a fool’s paradise, then it’s a paradise that his regular readers will recognize and new fans will delight in discovering. Laced with the inimitable blend of wit and wisdom that have made him fly-fishing’s foremost scribe, Fool’s Paradise chronicles the fishing life in all its glory (catchin...

Brilliant, witty, perceptive essays about fly-fishing, the natural world, and life in general by the acknowledged master of fishing writers.Proving that fishing is not just a part-time pursuit, At the Grave of the Unknown Fisherman takes us through a year with America’s favorite fishing scribe, John Gierach, who dedicates himself to his passion despite his belief that “In the long run, fishing usually amounts to a lifetime of pratfalls punctuated by rare m...

Brilliant, witty, perceptive essays about fly-fishing, the natural world, and life in general by the acknowledged master of fishing writers.“Once an angler has become serious about the sport (and ‘serious’ is the word that’s used), he’ll never again have enough tackle or enough time to use it. And his nonangling friends and family may never again entirely recognize him, either.” In other words, he (or she) will have entered Gierach territory. And fishermen who choo...