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List price: $40.00 (that's 30% off!)
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List price: $22.50 (that's 30% off!)
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This truly beautiful gift book contains duotone photographs by William Guion of Southern live oaks. He has been reverencing them in his native Louisiana for more than 15 years. In the introduction, Guion refers to the spiritual significance of oaks to Greeks, Celts, and Native Americans. He appreciates them a wise elders and profound spiritual teachers. Guion's evocative photographs reveal how the trees seem to draw out and convey the spirit of a place whether standing in state parks, plantations, or gardens. There are oak alleys, oaks caught in the diffuse haze of early morning, oaks with branches intertwining in the shadows, solitary oaks poised like sentries in the middle of fields. The light as it plays on the branches and illuminates the areas around the oaks is another theme worth your attention. Alongside these oaks are 30 brief poems by the Sufi mystical poet Rumi, with translations by poet Coleman Barks in collaboration with Persian scholar John Moyne. Guion, who has been a teacher of Transcendental Meditation for almost 20 years, has perfectly matched these poems and the varied trees with themes such as longing, love, mystery, gratitude, eternity sacredness, and silence. Our favorite, a leaning oak reflected in a pond-it appears on the hardcover jacket of our book "Spiritua Literacy"--is complemented by a Rumi quatrain including the lines "Turn as the earth and the moon turn, / circling what they love." This enchanting book draws a bead on the deep connection between nature and the soul's delight. It would make a wonderful gift for any lover of trees or poetry. Guion lives in Utah where he is working on future book projects utilizing his photographs and writing.
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Miami >> Carl Hiassen (Lucky You, Stormy Weather), James Hall Louisiana >> James Lee Burke New Mexico >> Tony Hillerman Los Angeles >> James Ellroy, Gar Anthony Haywood San Francisco >> Joe Gores (32 Cadillacs) Missoula, MT >> James Crumley (Bordersnakes) Chicago >> Sara Partesky, Eugene Izzi Detroit >> Elmore Leonard (Be Cool, Cuba Libre, Pronto, Pagan Babies, Riding the Rap) Boston >> George V. Higgins New York >> Andrew Vachss
Williams is clearly a believer in detective fiction as social portraiture and commentary, and like myself, he's most interested in what is generally classified under the catchall terms "hard-boiled" or "noir." That is to say, crime novels about the everyday criminal world, as opposed to semi-mythical world of "The Godfather," the serial-killer world of Hannibal Lechter, or the cozy world of crime-solving cats or little old ladies. Williams tends to stay in the cheaper, and thus seedier, parts of the places he visits, and tries to get the writers to show him around, show him their world. In addition to touring the seedy side of America, Williams often takes side-trips of a musical nature--as befits his music journalist career. His contrasting of a (white) cajun fete with a (black) zydeco dance is one of the truly telling parts of his journey. The conversations with the writers are intermittently interesting, although it's interesting to note that many of them came from impoverished backgrounds and came to writing by accident. Another similarity is their rough treatment at the hands of Hollywood. Most of the writers are extremely forthcoming and open with Williams, the most notable exception being Higgins, who comes off as a pompous ass in comparison to the rest of the book's subjects.
Some twelve years after Williams' trip, it's rather amazing to find that 12 of the 13 writers are still going strong, with a string of books to their credit from the intervening years. Indeed some, like Carl Hiassen, James Lee Burke, James Ellroy, and Elmore Leonard have gotten considerably more famous. The one writer who isn't still producing is Eugene Izzi, who was found dead in 1997, hanging from his 14th-story office window in what was ruled a bizarre suicide...
Since writing this book, Williams has gone on to write crime fiction himself, including the 1983-set London novel Faithless, and a collection of stories set in the Cardiff underworld, Five Pubs, Two Bars and a Nightclub.
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