Dumb Luck and the Kindness of Strangers (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781501168581)

Witty, shrewd, and, as always, a joy to read, John Gierach, "America's best fishing writer" (Houston Chronicle) and favorite streamside philosopher, extols the frequent joys and occasional tribulations of the fly-fishing life.

"After five decades, twenty books, and countless columns, John Gierach] is still a master" (Forbes). Now, in his latest fresh and 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." The "voice of the common angler" (The Wall Street Journal), he 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.

Author: John Gierach
ISBN-10: 1501168584
ISBN-13: 9781501168581
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Language: English
Published: 06/02/2020
Pages: 240
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.75lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 1.10d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 12/09/2019
Kirkus Reviews 02/15/2020