Tim Olsen is the son of arguably Australia's greatest living artist, Dr John Olsen. Son of the Brush is his fascinating, candid memoir of what it was like to grow up in the shadow of artistic genius, with all its wonder, excitement and bitter disappointments. Tim's childhood was dominated by his father's work, which took the family to Europe and to communities around Australia as John sought inspiration and artistic fellowship. Wine, food, conversation and the emerging sexual freedom of the 1960s wove a pattern of life for the family. It was both the best and worst of childhoods, filled with vibrancy and stimulation, yet fraught with anxiety and eventual sadness as John separated from Tim's mother Valerie and moved away from the family. The course of Tim's life has been set by the experiences of his childhood, and by the passion for art he inherited from both his parents (his mother was an acclaimed painter in her own right). His life has always been about art, although he has followed a different path from his parents. Having overcome and recovered from addiction, Tim is today one of Australia's most respected gallery owners, with a knowledge of art and artists forged from what is literally a lifetime immersed in the art world. Son of the Brush is a memoir about a son and his father, and what it takes to forge your own identity and chart your own course in life, but it is also about the wider world of art, artists and the joy, inspiration and sacrifices of the creative life.
Congenial, unassuming, Adam Thompson’s job is to scour the countryside to identify weeds that must be destroyed. Around his hometown, he is well-received. When he ventures into a remote corner of the county, he meets the Hudson brothers and learns routine friendliness is not always the way of things. He becomes an unwitting focal point in the county’s crime of the decade. The story winds its way through a small town in Nebraska to Mount Rushmore to Rodeo Week in Stampede, Montana, and back again. It’s a raucous, unpredictable journey, which underscores the importance of change, the influence of family, and the risk of squandered human potential. A scarred eyebrow becomes an ever-present reminder of Adam’s run-in with Rufus Hudson and his brothers. His granddaughter runs her fingers over his dented eyebrow and asks if the scar will that ever go away. “No,” he answers. “It’s just a part of who I am. A very important part, I think.”
Perhaps no other area in fly fishing has experienced as much sensation, and growth, as “Euro Nymphing.” This term, which is actually not the most accurate but has been the one that has stuck, describes a broad category of nymphing (fishing flies under the water as opposed to on top of the water) techniques from around the world—Czech, Polish, Spanish, French, as well as American—brought to the forefront by the rise of fly fishing competitions. This pioneering fly tying book focuses on teaching the most popular patterns in this category and includes approximately 15 flies with over 350 full-color tying steps.
In the year when Manchester City, managed by Pep Guardiola, swept its way to the Premier League title, Caught Beneath the Landslide examines another, very different club, also called Manchester City. In the words of Uwe Rosler: “It was a different club, a working-class club supported by the people of Manchester”. Run, not by a faceless sheikh, but by men like Peter Swales and Francis Lee who ran the gauntlet of supporters’ anger as season after season ran out of control.
The Pergau dam in Malaysia was the most controversial project in the history of British aid. Because of its high cost, it was a poor candidate for aid funding. It was provided in part to honour a highly irregular promise of civil aid in connection with a major arms deal. After two parliamentary inquiries and intense media coverage, in a landmark judgement the aid for Pergau was declared unlawful. Tim Lankester offers a detailed case study of this major aid project and of government decision-making in Britain and Malaysia. Exposing the roles played by key politicians and other stakeholders on both sides, he analyses the background to the aid/arms linkage, and the reasons why the British and Malaysian governments were so committed to the project, before exploring the response of Britain’s Parliament, and its media and NGOs, and the resultant legal case. The main causes of the Pergau debacle are carefully drawn out, from conflicting policy agendas within the British government to the power of the business lobby and the inability of Parliament to provide any serious challenge. Finally, Lankester asks whether, given what was known at the time and what we know now, he and his colleagues in Britain’s aid ministry were correct in their objections to the project. Pergau is still talked about as a prime example of how not to do aid. Tim Lankester, a key figure in the affair, is perfectly placed to provide the definitive account. At a time when aid budgets are under particular scrutiny, it provides a cautionary tale.
Anthropology is a disciplined inquiry into the conditions and potentials of human life. Generations of theorists, however, have expunged life from their accounts, treating it as the mere output of patterns, codes, structures or systems variously defined as genetic or cultural, natural or social. Building on his classic work The Perception of the Environment, Tim Ingold sets out to restore life to where it should belong, at the heart of anthropological concern. Being Alive ranges over such themes as the vitality of materials; what it means to make things; the perception and formation of the ground; the mingling of earth and sky in the weather-world; the experiences of light, sound and feeling; the role of storytelling in the integration of knowledge; and the potential of drawing to unite observation and description. Our humanity, Ingold argues, does not come ready-made but is continually fashioned in our movements along ways of life. Starting from the idea of life as a process of wayfaring, Ingold presents a radically new understanding of movement, knowledge and description as dimensions not just of being in the world, but of being alive to what is going on there. This edition includes a new preface by the author.
An enthralling collection of short fiction and nonfiction that draw upon McLoughlin's three-decade career in the criminal justice system. “A wistful Irish sensibility and memories from a 30-year career as a peace officer in the New York City criminal justice system haunt this solid collection . . . With spare prose, McLoughlin creates memorable vignettes of urban life. Fans of Kent Anderson’s Liquor, Guns & Ammo will want to check this out.” —Publishers Weekly “Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms couldn’t be more New York. Tim McLoughlin drops a ton of big-city knowledge and wisdom, rich in lived-in detail, with humor that’s hard as the sidewalk.” —John Strausbaugh, author of City of Sedition In Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, Tim McLoughlin draws upon his three-decade career in the criminal justice system with his characteristic wit and his fascination with misfits and malfeasance. A lifetime immersed in New York City feeds short stories that evoke a landscape of characters rife with personal arrogance and misjudgment; and nonfiction essays about toeing the line when the line keeps disappearing. An opioid-addicted catsitter electronically eavesdrops on his neighbors only to hear devastating truths. A degenerate gambler stakes his life on a long shot because he sees three lucky numbers on the license plate of a passing car. In the nonfiction essays, we learn that the system plays a role in supporting vice, as long as it gets a cut. Altar boys compete to work weddings and funerals for tips in the shadow of predatory priests. Cops become robbers, and a mob boss just might be a civil rights icon. McLoughlin shines a light on worlds that few have access to. A recurring theme in his urban, often New York–centric work is chronic displacement, people standing still in a city that is always changing. These are McLoughlin’s ghosts, these casualties of progress, and he holds them dear and celebrates them.
Guided by the fastidious journals of an eminent Victorian adventurer by the name of Lord Dufferin, Time Moore sets off to prove his mettle in the most stunningly inhospitable place on Earth-the Arctic. Armed only with his searing wit, wicked humor, and seasickness pills, our pale suburbanite-wracked by second thoughts of tactical retreat-confronts mind-numbing cold, blood-thirsty polar bears, a convoy of born-again Vikings, and, perhaps most chilling of all, herring porridge. When he is not humiliating himself through displays of ignorance and incompetence, Moore casts a sharp eye on the local flora and fauna, immersing readers in the splendors and wonders of this treacherously beautiful region. A deliciously and inexhaustibly funny book, Frost on My Moustache deserves to be placed alongside those by Evelyn Waugh, Eric Newby, and Bill Bryson.
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