From Ridgetops to Riverbottoms takes the reader on a journey down the many winding roads of the outdoor experience in Tennessee. Such a journey requires a seasoned guide, and there can be no better one than journalist Sam Venable, who has written about the woods and waters of his native state for the past twenty-five years.For Venable, the outdoor world is meant to be enjoyed. Whether he is casting popping bugs to bluegills during the frenzy of a willow fly hatch, lying motionless ...

“Carson Brewer at his absolute best.” – Sam VenableCarson Brewer on…Mountain placesSnow was nice and crunchy underfoot. Not crunchy like peanuts or cornflakes. Rather, it was a silky whispery crunchy.Mountain plantsYou can bury your nose deep in the cool violet bed and smell the mix of life and death while pondering the unceasing cycle of each into the other.Mountain PeopleLem Ownby…has plowed oxen, mules, a...

As seen through the eyes of Sam Venable, the world is indeed bizarre and filled with nuttiness. The archives of the Knoxville News Sentinel offer ample evidence that Venable is a bit of the former and has made a career out of drawing attention to the latter.For his latest book, Venable has gathered and organized 139 of his newspaper columns—his biggest collection yet—to create a trove of wit and wisdom. In the spirit of “The Emperor's New Clothes,” he points a finger at hu...

Sam Venable is one of America’s seventy-six million Baby Boomers who are turning into their parents. He can’t quite see without his reading glasses, he thinks the music kids listen to these days is nothing but a loud racket, and his belt is mysteriously creeping up higher and higher on his chest.The way Venable figures it, he’s roaring along the road (at about twenty-seven miles per hour, the average speed for someone his age) to Codgerville. You Gotta Laugh to Keep From Cryin’ hig...

Juliana Jones (JJ) inherited millions of dollars, but paid a huge price by losing both parents when she was only fifteen. She moved in with Jeb, Ann and Carla Conrad. JJ was naive about the ways of the world, but Carla who was the same age was savvy to sex. She introduced JJ to sex with girls. Work became JJ's first passion, but partying with girl's was a close second. Her wealth continued to grow because she was able tp separate the two. Every time something good happened in her life, it ...

Hailed as a masterpiece of American travel writing, Blue Highways is an unforgettable journey along our nation's backroads.William Least Heat-Moon set out with little more than the need to put home behind him and a sense of curiosity about "those little towns that get on the map -- if they get on at all -- only because some cartographer has a blank space to fill: Remote, Oregon; Simplicity, Virginia; New Freedom, Pennsylvania; New Hope, Tennessee; Why, Ari...

* Have you ever walked into a room and couldn't remember what you went there for?* Have you ever grasped the hand of a potential client and then when the handshake broke, the name seemed to disappear from your memory?* Or have you ever left a prospect or an important meeting and as you drove away remembered a key point that you should have shared with them?The problem is NOT with your memory. The problem is with the "Filing System" your brain currently uses to store...

When Dave Barry is on the loose, no one is safe!What Dave Barry did for the men’s movement in his Complete Guide to Guys and for foreign relations when he did Japan he now does for . . . everything in America. The rapacious observer of Tupperware ladies and leisure concept salesmen sounds off on:Football—Football is more than just a game. It is a potential opportunity to see a live person lying on the ground with a bone sticking out of his leg, whi...

"A groundbreaking work about race and the American landscape, and a deep meditation on nature…wise and beautiful."—Helen Macdonald, author of H is for HawkA Foreword Reviews Best Book of the Year and Nautilus Silver Award WinnerIn me, there is the red of miry clay, the brown of spring floods, the gold of ripening tobacco. All of these hues are me; I am, in the deepest sense, colored.Dating back to slavery, Edgefield County...

Whether we live in cities, suburbs, or villages, we are encroaching on nature, and it in one way or another perseveres. Naturalist Susan Shetterly looks at how animals, humans, and plants share the land—observing her own neighborhood in rural Maine. She tells tales of the locals (humans, yes, but also snowshoe hares, raccoons, bobcats, turtles, salmon, ravens, hummingbirds, cormorants, sandpipers, and spring peepers). She expertly shows us how they all make their way in an ever-changing ha...

The beloved bathroom reader series returns with this twenty-sixth edition that's flush with weird facts on a wide array of topics.The twenty-sixth annual edition of Uncle John's wildly successful series is all-new and jam-packed with the BRI's patented mix of fun and information. Open to any page and you may find an interesting origin (like the origin of the snow globe) or a piece of obscure history (like the true story of the man who tried to repeal the law of gra...

The popular bathroom reader series is back with this collection that's flush with laughs.It's new, it's improved, it's the funniest ever! Back by popular demand, this newly revised edition includes plenty of all-time favorites, along with more than twenty-five pages of new content. That's page after page after page of laugh-out-loud dumb jokes, dumb jocks, toasts, pranks, kings, kittens, caboodles, and, of course, poorly translated kung fu movie subtitles such as "...