Dumb Luck

After 17-year-old Brandon falls out of a tree onto his head--and survives--his doctor suggests he's had such luck he should buy a lottery ticket. So Brandon does, and he wins three million dollars--and that's last happy moment he has for some time.

This once banned book is the first colonial-era Vietnamese novel to be translated into English and published in the West

Mucking up the pages of the New Yorker, the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Forbes, the Atlantic Monthly, Blab, and more, Gary Baseman has populated the finest publications with his inimitable brand of illustration. Now Dumb Luck, presents the first complete collection of his work, spanning more than ten years. According to Baseman himself, his art inhabits "that muddy spot where the line between genius and stupidity has been smudged beyond recognition." Dark and dopey, hokey and heartbreaking, his world is populated with freaky folks, maimed bunnies, weird wiener dogs, and anthropomorphic ice-cream cones that yearn and burn just like we do. Baseman's particular genius lies in capturing those ridiculous and all-too-often appalling aspects of being human. Hilarious testimony to the mind of its creator, Dumb Luck is both an art manifesto and a raw celebration of idiocy.

Tom Ludwig and Mark Carlino are two top notch detectives. Mostly they handle hard driving cases that take them to the far corners of their precinct. For a change, they are assigned to the seemingly innocent death of an elderly bellhop at one of the most exclusive hotels in town. Innocent until the medical examiner speaks. This innocuous beginning leads them to eight murders in the span of one week. The cast of characters they will meet includes a backroom politico, who can raise money or order hits, an alcoholic hit man, a middle aged spinster, an embezzler, an Italian opera star and a hotel owner going broke, among others. Come travel with them as they spend their week in relative luxury looking for their suspect in the better parts of town while solving a spree of murders.

Ted and Roberta Vagaline live in a run down mobile home park near Los Angeles international airport. Roberta's constant need for excitement, always leads to some kind of trouble. Her neurotic husband, Ted, is obsessed with being a model employee after taking the oath and memorizing every word of Burger World's company handbook. An unplanned encounter with one of the world's richest men, results in their unremarkable lives being so radically changed, that what was previously unimaginable, become possible. Mark resides in Northern California with his wife Karen and their Yorkshire terrier, Truffles. In addition to being a writer, Mark composes music and plays the piano. Mark discovered the joys of reading at a very young age and later in life, the happiness of creative escapism that can only come through writing. Some of his favorite authors and greatest influences include James Michener, Arthur C. Clark, Robert Heinlein and C.S. Lewis.

Witty, shrewd, and always a joy to read, John Gierach, “America’s best fishing writer” (Houston Chronicle) and favorite streamside philosopher, has earned the following of “legions of readers who may not even fish but are drawn to his musings on community, culture, the natural world, and the seasons of life” (Kirkus Reviews). “After five decades, twenty books, and countless columns, [John Gierach] is still a master” (Forbes). Now, in his latest original collection, Gierach shows us why fly-fishing is the perfect antidote to everything that is wrong with the world. “Gierach’s deceptively laconic prose masks an accomplished storyteller…His alert and slightly off-kilter observations place him in the general neighborhood of Mark Twain and James Thurber” (Publishers Weekly). In Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers, Gierach looks back to the long-ago day when he bought his first resident fishing license in Colorado, where the fishing season never ends, and just knew he was in the right place. And he succinctly sums up part of the appeal of his sport when he writes that it is “an acquired taste that reintroduces the chaos of uncertainty back into our well-regulated lives.” Lifelong fisherman though he is, Gierach can write with self-deprecating humor about his own fishing misadventures, confessing that despite all his experience, he is still capable of blowing a strike by a fish “in the usual amateur way.” “Arguably the best fishing writer working” (The Wall Street Journal), Gierach offers witty, trenchant observations not just about fly-fishing itself but also about how one’s love of fly-fishing shapes the world that we choose to make for ourselves.

When a teenaged girl goes missing, her mother calls Kit Colbana, scion of an ancient line of warriors -- unfortunately, Kit's heritage doesn't impress the local wererats much. They're determined to make the girl one of their own, and Kit is going to need a big sword, a bright flashlight, and a helpful vampire to get her back. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.