Thursday, June 5, 2014
Of a Predatory Heart
Kevin Coolidge
Joe Parry, a Vietnam vet and an outdoor writer, has written for the Pennsylvania Game News, Field and Stream, Fins and Feathers, Turkey Magazine, Sports Afield, Readers Digest, Northwest Outdoors, the Philadelphia Daily News, and the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, and our very own Wellsboro Gazette.
These stories on hunting, fishing, and the outdoor lifestyle run from snort-milk-through-your nose funny, to bringing a tear to a seasoned woodsman’s eye. It’s a memoir of a lifelong outdoorsman, starting from his return from the Vietnam War, with tales ranging from archery hunting, fly-fishing, introducing children to woodcraft, and the bond that forms between generations through appreciation of the woodlands.
Joe Parry, a Vietnam vet and an outdoor writer, has written for the Pennsylvania Game News, Field and Stream, Fins and Feathers, Turkey Magazine, Sports Afield, Readers Digest, Northwest Outdoors, the Philadelphia Daily News, and the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, and our very own Wellsboro Gazette.
These stories on hunting, fishing, and the outdoor lifestyle run from snort-milk-through-your nose funny, to bringing a tear to a seasoned woodsman’s eye. It’s a memoir of a lifelong outdoorsman, starting from his return from the Vietnam War, with tales ranging from archery hunting, fly-fishing, introducing children to woodcraft, and the bond that forms between generations through appreciation of the woodlands.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Funny Trail Tales, 2nd: Outdoor Humor for All Ages
A portable, family-friendly collection of some of the most classic and entertaining funny stories--perfect to share around the campfire Whether read aloud to friends or read alone, this collection will tickle your funny bone in the backcountry.
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
You're Not from Around Here, Are You?: A Lesbian in Small-Town America
This is a funny, moving story about life in a small town, from the point of view of a pregnant lesbian. Louise A. Blum, author of the critically acclaimed novel Amnesty, now tells the story of her own life and her decision to be out, loud, and pregnant. Mixing humor with memorable prose, Blum recounts how a quiet, conservative town in an impoverished stretch of Appalachia reacts as she and a local woman, Connie, fall in love, move in together, and determine to live their life together openly and truthfully.
The town responds in radically different ways to the couple’s presence, from prayer vigils on the village green to a feature article in the family section of the local newspaper. This is a cautionary, wise, and celebratory tale about what it’s like to be different in America—both the good and the bad. A depiction of small town life with all its comforts and its terrors, this memoir speaks to anyone who has ever felt like an outsider in America. Blum tells her story with a razor wit and deft precision, a story about two "girls with grit," and the child they decide to raise, right where they are, in small town America.
Monday, June 2, 2014
Sony to Kobo
Kasey Cox
Readers may be surprised to know the first time I felt competition from ereaders, it wasn’t in the form of a Kindle. In the summer of 2008, a customer came to the bookstore to trade in some of her books. She had several long-running series by favorite authors, and had, over the months, enjoyed collecting these books a few at a time until she had the set. I asked her why she wanted to trade in all these books now. Her reply shocked me.
She didn’t have room in her small apartment for all the books she loved to read. So, she was replacing many of the series she’d collected in paperback with digital editions on her new ereader. I had, at that point, only heard a few rumors about Amazon’s new digital reading device, the Kindle. (The very first model had been released, but it wasn’t making a lot of waves yet, even in the techie world, and even less had been said about it in the publishing world.) I asked her if she was getting one of those new gizmos from Amazon – because it’s the only one I’d even heard mentioned. But, no, this customer said she found a much less expensive one at Walmart. She was very pleased with her new Sony ereader: it was easy to use, lightweight, and not glitchy.
Fast forward to spring 2014. We’ve all been through the conflagration of a variety of Kindles; the Google ebook; the Nook; and a storm of “apps” for iPads and Smart Phones. The digital revolution shook the music industry before it swept through the publishing industry, but it’s safe to say, even in this technology world with new developments arriving in the marketplace at an exponential rate, that the book world is quite different from what it was even five years ago.
Here’s a piece of news that a lot of book people don’t know: there are more choices than the Kindle and the Nook. You don’t have to have a Smart Phone to read digital books. You don’t even have to be all that tech-savvy. While Amazon has been trumpeting from the rooftops about how awesome their Kindle is, while trying to run down and run out competitors in every industry from books to diapers, a Canadian company called Kobo has steadily been making gains in the digital market. If you’ve heard of Kobo, you may recall they started as the small, digital division of a bookstore chain in Canada – just a few folks, nearly a decade ago, who realized they should focus on having a digital library available for their customers, the same way their bookstore already offered audio books, paperbacks, and hardcovers. Ebooks, just as one more choice.
Kobo never intended to sell ereaders – digital devices to use in order to read from the Kobo library. The Kobo library has always been designed in open format – these digital books can be read on any device, including your plain old computer. As the market advanced, and Amazon developed their proprietary devices, Kobo found out, along with the rest of us, that if a consumer buys a Kindle from Amazon, they can only ever buy Amazon’s Kindle books. A Kindle only downloads Kindle format. Kobo’s books, on the other hand, can be read on the Nook, your laptop, an iPad, a Sony ereader, a Smart Phone… but Amazon doesn’t want to play nice with others. And they don’t advertise that fact.
Kobo has since partnered with a Rakuten, a Japanese company, to make top-of-the-line, award-winning devices. Since then, Google has gone through several transitions and their ebook projects have fallen off. Just recently, Sony announced they would no longer be dealing in ereaders, and are transitioning all their ereading customers to the Kobo company, with its enormous digital library of over 4 million titles.
If you are interested in reading digitally, be certain to scrape beyond the surface of the superficial, loud advertisements from your television set, and update your horizons before plunking down your credit card info. Fifteen years ago, even twenty years ago, Amazon and Barnes & Noble made names for themselves in the book business because they were focused on being good stewards in the publishing industry. Now, Amazon wants to take over the world, and Barnes & Noble is really struggling. Am I a biased reporter on this situation? Certainly. Does it make these statements less true? Not in this case. Check out Kobo, both the devices and the digital library available. Pay less attention to the Great and Powerful Oz, and more attention to the man behind the curtain and what he’s really doing.
Readers may be surprised to know the first time I felt competition from ereaders, it wasn’t in the form of a Kindle. In the summer of 2008, a customer came to the bookstore to trade in some of her books. She had several long-running series by favorite authors, and had, over the months, enjoyed collecting these books a few at a time until she had the set. I asked her why she wanted to trade in all these books now. Her reply shocked me.
She didn’t have room in her small apartment for all the books she loved to read. So, she was replacing many of the series she’d collected in paperback with digital editions on her new ereader. I had, at that point, only heard a few rumors about Amazon’s new digital reading device, the Kindle. (The very first model had been released, but it wasn’t making a lot of waves yet, even in the techie world, and even less had been said about it in the publishing world.) I asked her if she was getting one of those new gizmos from Amazon – because it’s the only one I’d even heard mentioned. But, no, this customer said she found a much less expensive one at Walmart. She was very pleased with her new Sony ereader: it was easy to use, lightweight, and not glitchy.
Fast forward to spring 2014. We’ve all been through the conflagration of a variety of Kindles; the Google ebook; the Nook; and a storm of “apps” for iPads and Smart Phones. The digital revolution shook the music industry before it swept through the publishing industry, but it’s safe to say, even in this technology world with new developments arriving in the marketplace at an exponential rate, that the book world is quite different from what it was even five years ago.
Here’s a piece of news that a lot of book people don’t know: there are more choices than the Kindle and the Nook. You don’t have to have a Smart Phone to read digital books. You don’t even have to be all that tech-savvy. While Amazon has been trumpeting from the rooftops about how awesome their Kindle is, while trying to run down and run out competitors in every industry from books to diapers, a Canadian company called Kobo has steadily been making gains in the digital market. If you’ve heard of Kobo, you may recall they started as the small, digital division of a bookstore chain in Canada – just a few folks, nearly a decade ago, who realized they should focus on having a digital library available for their customers, the same way their bookstore already offered audio books, paperbacks, and hardcovers. Ebooks, just as one more choice.
Kobo never intended to sell ereaders – digital devices to use in order to read from the Kobo library. The Kobo library has always been designed in open format – these digital books can be read on any device, including your plain old computer. As the market advanced, and Amazon developed their proprietary devices, Kobo found out, along with the rest of us, that if a consumer buys a Kindle from Amazon, they can only ever buy Amazon’s Kindle books. A Kindle only downloads Kindle format. Kobo’s books, on the other hand, can be read on the Nook, your laptop, an iPad, a Sony ereader, a Smart Phone… but Amazon doesn’t want to play nice with others. And they don’t advertise that fact.
Kobo has since partnered with a Rakuten, a Japanese company, to make top-of-the-line, award-winning devices. Since then, Google has gone through several transitions and their ebook projects have fallen off. Just recently, Sony announced they would no longer be dealing in ereaders, and are transitioning all their ereading customers to the Kobo company, with its enormous digital library of over 4 million titles.
If you are interested in reading digitally, be certain to scrape beyond the surface of the superficial, loud advertisements from your television set, and update your horizons before plunking down your credit card info. Fifteen years ago, even twenty years ago, Amazon and Barnes & Noble made names for themselves in the book business because they were focused on being good stewards in the publishing industry. Now, Amazon wants to take over the world, and Barnes & Noble is really struggling. Am I a biased reporter on this situation? Certainly. Does it make these statements less true? Not in this case. Check out Kobo, both the devices and the digital library available. Pay less attention to the Great and Powerful Oz, and more attention to the man behind the curtain and what he’s really doing.
The 1972 Flood in New York's Southern Tier
In June 1972, Hurricane Agnes hit the East Coast with a monstrous and devastating force, bringing a deluge across multiple states and slamming four counties in the Southern Tier: Steuben, Chemung, Tioga, and Broome. Dozens died and property damage ran into the millions as Corning, Elmira, Owego, Binghamton, and other communities suddenly found themselves under water.
The flood destroyed the Erie Lackawanna Railroad, staggered the Penn Central, shut down Corning Glass Works for weeks, and devastated the Corning Museum of Glass--a major cultural resource. Lives and landscapes were forever changed when homes and businesses washed away in a matter of minutes.
Henceforth, the region's history became permanently divided into the times before and the times after the 1972 flood. Through stunning images, The 1972 Flood in New York's Southern Tier chronicles the extraordinary destruction of twisted rail lines, devastated streets, exhausted recovery workers, rivers bursting their banks, cars on houses, and houses on cars, all while capturing the communities' rebuilding efforts and recovery of the glass museum treasures.
Population: 485
Welcome to New Auburn, Wisconsin, where the local vigilante is a farmer's wife armed with a pistol and a Bible, the most senior member of the volunteer fire department is a cross-eyed butcher with one kidney and two ex-wives (both of whom work at the only gas station in town), and the back roads are haunted by the ghosts of children and farmers. Against a backdrop of fires and tangled wrecks, bar fights and smelt feeds, Population: 485 is a comic and sometimes heartbreaking true tale leavened with quieter meditations on an overlooked America.
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Hiking Pennsylvania
A guide to fifty of Pennsylvania's top hiking destinations. Heavily illustrated with maps, elevation profiles, and photos, this book provides detailed directions, mile-by-mile trail descriptions, and quick-reference boxes for trail specifications and summary information. Each trail is graded by difficulty. Recommendations for accommodations and restaurants round out this exceptionally detailed guide book.
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