Lost Generation Bookstore New Books

Other Sections of the Lost Generation
Bookstore:

F. Scott Fitzgerald
James Joyce
Study Guides
New Books
Our Favorites

Easy Search! Type what you're looking for in the search box. Click Go! and you'll have your Amazon.com search results in a flash!

The Lost Generation Bookstore> New Books

Hemingway On Fishing, Edited by Nick Lyons with an afterward by Jack Hemingway, $23.96...you save $5.99!

Amazon.com
When the taciturn hero of Hemingway's "Big Two-Hearted River" returns from the Great War, he heads straight to the northern Michigan woods to begin the process of healing. Camping along the river and fishing for trout, Nick Adams slowly retrieves the elements of a life interrupted, allowing familiar sensations to wash over him:

He stepped into the stream. It was a shock. His trousers clung tightly to his legs. His shoes felt the gravel.... There was a tug on the line. It was his first strike. Holding the now living rod across the current, he brought in the line with his left hand. The rod bent in jerks, the trout pumping against the current.

Later, breaking his leader on a large fish, he reels in, feeling "a little sick, as though it would be better to sit down." More than one critic has called "Big Two-Hearted River" the author's greatest short story. Certainly it's a model of the form, written in the uncluttered prose that Hemingway made his trademark. That he struck such a deep, cathartic chord with what seems on the face of it like a simple fish tale is no accident: Hemingway would return to his love of angling time and again over the course of his career.

Hemingway on Fishing collects the bulk of the author's angling-related writings, including other Nick Adams stories and excerpts from several novels--most notably, the memorable wine-soaked pilgrimage to Spain's Irati River in The Sun Also Rises. However, the lesser-known newspaper and magazine articles may elicit even more interest among readers. A piece that the 21-year-old Hemingway wrote for the Toronto Star Weekly in August 1920 reveals his rather precocious confidence. "At present the best rainbow trout fishing in the world is in the rapids of the Canadian Soo," he announces in the first paragraph, and then proceeds to scotch any hopes of an easy catch:

It is a wild and nerve-frazzling sport and the odds are in favor of the big trout who tear off thirty or forty yards of line at a rush and then will sulk at the base of a rock and refuse to be stirred into action by the pumping of a stout fly rod aided by a fluent monologue of Ojibwayian profanity.

By 1933, Hemingway was writing about his true angling passion--deep-sea big-game fishing--for the likes of Esquire and other large-circulation glossies. In "Marlin of the Morro: A Cuban Letter," he notes that when the northeast trade winds blow, the "marlin come to the top and cruise the wind." To catch a fish, the saying goes, you must think like one--and Papa's perceptive descriptions of piscine behavior show why he was considered one of the premiere anglers of his day. It's true that Hemingway indulged his passions in life and on the page, and that sometimes the former got him into trouble. As for the latter, those of us who enjoy a good fish story are the luckier for it. --Langdon Cook

Hemingway's France: Images of the Lost Generation, Winston Conrad, hardcover, $27.96...you save $6.99!

Hemingway Resource Center From Hemingway's early romantic days in the Lost Generation Paris of the 1920's, to his swashbuckling exploits in the French countryside and his liberation of the Paris Ritz Hotel during World War II, and to his troubled final years when he returned to Europe and France in a failed search for rejuvenation, it is clear that Hemingway truly loved France.

With Hemingway's France: Images of the Lost Generation, it is clear that Winston Conrad loves France as well. Conrad traveled extensively in France to gather the material for this book, and his passion for France and Paris (and of course Hemingway) are evident on every page as he attempts to show the reader why this country and city left such a grand impression on the biggest star of 20th century literature.

Conrad writes a clear, thorough biography of Hemingway, with France serving as a common thread throughout, but the feature that makes this book stand out in a crowded field is the great number of rarely seen photos of Hemingway and friends. We see Hemingway demonstrating deep sea fishing gear in the late 1950's, we see him dressed in dapper travel attire as his driver prepares their car, we see him riding on the back of a sidecar motorcycle during World War II, we see him sitting on the windowsill of his Paris apartment in the late 1920's, we see him in a rocking chair with his infant son Bumby...and for the Hemingway fan who has seen it all, these "new" pictures are like seeing an old friend after a long time apart. Not only do we see him, but we are treated to views of Hemingway's France that give a clear and confirming image of all those wonderful settings that we find in Hemingway's books. Conrad, a photographer of obvious talent, shows us Hemingway's haunts as they appear today, and often contrasts his own beautiful color photos with the vintage black and white photos of the same haunts from Hemingway's day; it makes for an effective mix of nostalgia and immediacy.

Conrad divides the book into nine chapters, each focusing on a different part of the French experience that today would be hard to discuss without mentioning Hemingway's name: The Literary Scene in Paris, Cafes, Restaurants and Nightlife, The Artists, Sports, The South of France, World War II, Bullfights, The Feast Moves On. All are well written, but the chapters on Hemingway's early years in Paris and later, his experiences as a combination soldier/journalist during the second World War stand out.

A pleasant surprise comes in Chapter 4 ("The Artists") with the reprints of some of Gerald Murphy's paintings. Murphy, in most Hemingway and Fitzgerald biographies, always serves as a footnoted rich benefactor to the talented writers and painters in 1920's France. But he was also an accomplished painter, and Conrad shows us some of Murphy's wonderful paintings (particularly Cocktail), revealing a talent that if it were more widely known would certainly elevate him above his current footnote status.

The usual cast of characters show up as well, with F. Scott Fitzgerald in a starring role before his crack-up, and his wife Zelda revealing in many pictures a nervous look that foretells her later mental disintegration. But the true star of this book is France itself. Hemingway always had a knack for selecting interesting places to live and for making those places his own, but of all the places he lived, Paris seemed to be the one that affected him most. It was the city of his earliest successes, and it was the city he chose to write about in A Moveable Feast, when at the end of his life he couldn't write about anything else. In between it was a city and country he could always return to for comfort, inspiration and excitement.

Winston Conrad, in the final chapter, says "If Hemingway could come back to life for a day, he might very well elect to spend it in France." After reading this book it would be hard to argue that Hemingway would choose otherwise.

Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure, hardcover, $20.97...you save $8.98!
Amazon.com
Written while filming his TV series retracing the travels of America's literary titan, Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure is a masterpiece in its own right. And it's just as eye-delighting in book form, thanks to Basil Pao's wanderlust-arousing photography and vibrant design. The witty, literary Palin, a Monty Python alumnus-turned-professional adventurer, takes us on the journey of a lifetime--Papa's and his own. "Hemingway's world was close and uncomfortable and itchy and sweaty and frequently exhausting," writes Palin. "It was, I felt, the real thing. To experience it would require the ability to absorb a little punishment, it would demand an open mind and a degree of recklessness. But it could and should be done."

Ernest Hemingway: Rediscovered paperback, $17.05...you save $1.90. Norberto Fuentes, Roberto Sotolongo

Ernest Hemingway's life was as romantic and exciting as anything in his novels and stories, and this magnificently illustrated large-format volume captures many of his best years. The text, recounting Hemingway's life and times between 1939 and 1960, is a remembrance by Norberto Fuentes, who was Hemingway's good friend during that period. In the book's vivid photographs, we see Hemingway on African safaris, in Venice with his wife Mary Welsh, fishing for marlin in the Gulf Stream, socializing at his favorite cafes, and relaxing at his homes in Cuba, Key West, and Idaho. Still other dramatic candid shots show Hemingway on movie sets with Spencer Tracy, Gary Cooper, and Ingrid Bergman. The more than 150 candid black-and-white photos of Hemingway and friends at work and at play, were taken by his friend and associate, Roberto Herrera Sotolongo, and had never appeared anywhere until the publication of this book. Another 50 full-color photos taken more recently capture the different atmospheres of the writer's several homes.

Hunting With Hemingway: Based on the Stories of Leicester Hemingway, Hilary Hemingway and Jeffrey P. Lindsay, hardcover, $18.36...you save $4.59!

Amazon.com
Hilary Hemingway's father, Leicester Hemingway, committed suicide in 1982, 21 years after his famous older brother, Ernest. In 1997, Hilary's mother died and left her a mysterious audiocassette of Leicester telling hunting stories at the family home in Miami Beach. Are the stories true? Interjections by Leicester's wife and a good friend suggest they are well-polished yarns, designed to deflect Ernest idolaters like the unnamed English professor whose nervous laugh and awkward questions punctuate the recording. Does it matter if they're true? "These stories are really good," says Hilary's 7-year-old daughter. "I even like them and I really hate hunting." Indeed, Leicester's suspenseful tales of stalking crocodiles, ostriches, and tigers with his adored big brother evoke the glamorous Hemingway world of men pitted against beasts as a test of courage and grace under pressure. Listening to the recording on her daughter's purple Barney tape player, the author rediscovers "the big, laughing man" who taught her "to enjoy whatever life might throw at me"; she then comes to terms with his suicide in the face of a debilitating illness. Skillfully interweaving her father's voice with her own reflections in her meditative text, the author reminds us that the Hemingway legacy is not just one of swaggering machismo, but of love for family and pleasure in the physical world. --Wendy Smith

Hemingway's Paris & Pamplona, Then and Now: A Personal Memoir Robert F. Burgess, paperback, $19.95

Book Description Hemingway's Paris and Pamplona is a new look at Hemingway's best of times. Robert F. Burgess, who met Ernest Hemingway at his last Pamplona fiesta, describes that meeting and how close friends related to Hemingway there. Through recently published letters and memoirs we learn new facts about Hemingway's early years in Paris and Pamplona with an intimate look at the real life characters of The Sun Also Rises. Burgess then returns to Hemingway's favorite haunts in Paris and Spain today in search of Papa's literary legacy. Following descriptions in The Sun Also Rises, he buses and backpacks into the Spanish Pyrenees, where he uncovers evidence that the Nobel Prize winning Hemingway wrote more fact than fiction into his novels. These facts and those individuals who are carrying on his legacy reveal why Hemingway will always be with us.

Be sure to check out the authors own website by clicking here! Some great extra information about this and many of his other books.

Ernest Hemingway: A Literary Reference by Robert Trogdon $15.40

A fantastic reference of Hemingway's life and work. Great timelines and a wide selection of reviews and criticism of Hemingway's writing that you wont find in any other book.