Left Out In The Rain

“The reading is something like archeology, sifting the layers that have built up over the years to find the source of a familiar voice . . . Left Out in the Rain shows us the footsteps in the wet meadow grass.” —Los Angeles Times “A fascinating case study and verse autobiography of a man who long ago staked his claim as one of America’s finest poets.” —Boston Herald When Gary Snyder was in his twenties working as a forester and logger, one of the old loggers told him, “If you’re gonna work these woods, don’t want nothing that can’t be left out in the rain.” Borrowing the phrase, Left Out in the Rain charts the journeys of the poet from 1947 to 1985. From the mountains and shores of the Pacific Northwest to the city streets of San Francisco, New York, and Kyoto, Snyder’s reflections are as much about the human experience as they are about the environment that encompasses it. Sensual, sardonic, meditative, epigrammatic, formalist—whatever the subject, tone, or structure, these poems all bear the indelible stamp of a master. A villanelle for Finnish folklore, riffs on the neo–formalist poems trendy in the 1950s, a sestina on the philosophical dilemmas of anthropology and linguistics, a transformation of the third century BC Daoist essay “Discourse on Swords” into a satire on contemporary warlike administrations and governments—the experiments in this collection place Snyder among the most diverse of contemporary poets. Left Out in the Rain means to include items carefully chosen to outlast the elements and remain useful for years. In his new preface to this edition, Snyder notes, “This complicated gathering of many poems, tight and loose together is like an understory ecosystem of the Old Growth. It needs rain.” On the wooded coast, eating oysters Looking off toward China and Japan “If you’re gonna work these woods Don’t want nothing That can’t be left out in the rain—”

Sixty-something Southerner MacLaren Yarbrough keeps busy as a county magistrate, a co-owner of Yarbrough’s Feed, Seed and Nursery, and a loving wife and mother. But her penchant for snooping around in other people’s business often lands her up to her neck in murder… In Hopemore, Georgia, good ol’ boy Skye MacDonald lives life large––as a dedicated family man, back-slapping civic leader, and flamboyantly successful owner of a local automobile empire. Very little happens in this cozy town without Skye’s full knowledge and participation. So the whole community is shocked when his body is found in a muddy road, run over by his own car. Judge MacLaren Yarbrough and her husband, Joe Riddley, have known the MacDonalds for years. So they can’t help but get involved in this baffling murder investigation, especially when it produces more questions than answers: Why has Skye’s son skipped town? How many secrets was Skye keeping? And… Who Left That Body in the Rain?

A poetic autobiography that traces the author's life from his boyhood in Oregon to San Francisco, Kyoto and New York, and to his home in the Sierra foothills of northern California.

New York Times bestselling author and former NFL player Tim Green tells a heartfelt and moving story about a deaf boy’s journey to change how others see him—both on and off the football field. Perfect for fans of Mike Lupica. Landon Dorch wants to be like everyone else. But his deafness and the way he talks have always felt like insurmountable obstacles. But now he finally sees his chance to fit in. Bigger and taller than any other seventh grader in his new school, Landon plans to use his size to his advantage and join the school’s football team. But the same speech problems and the cochlear implants that help him hear continue to haunt him. Just when it looks like Landon will be left out of football for good, an unlikely friend comes along. But in the end only Landon can fight his way off the bench and through a crowded field of bullies bent on seeing him forever left out.

"Novelistic, perfectly plotted and quite possibly the best pop-star autobiography yet written." - The Wall Street Journal Jimmy Webb’s words have been sung to his music by a rich and deep roster of pop artists, including Glen Campbell, Art Garfunkel, Frank Sinatra, Donna Summer and Linda Ronstadt. He’s the only artist ever to win Grammy Awards for music, lyrics, and orchestration, and his chart-topping career has, so far, lasted fifty years, most recently with a Kanye West rap hit and a new classical nocturne. Now, in his first memoir, Webb delivers a snapshot of his life from 1955 to 1970, from simple and sere Oklahoma to fast and fantastical Los Angeles, from the crucible of his family to the top of his longed-for profession. Webb was a preacher’s son whose father climbed off a tractor to receive his epiphany, and Jimmy, barely out of his teen age years, sank down into the driver’s seat of a Cobra to speed to Las Vegas to meet with Elvis. Classics such as “Up, Up and Away”, “By the Time I Get to Phoenix”, “Wichita Lineman”, “Galveston”, “The Worst that Could Happen”, “All I Know”, and “MacArthur Park” were all recorded by some of the most important voices in pop before Webb’s twenty-fifth birthday: he thought it was easy. The sixties were a supernova, and Webb was at their center, whipsawed from the proverbial humble beginnings into a moneyed and manic international world of beautiful women, drugs, cars and planes. That stew almost took him down—but Webb survived, his passion for music and work among his lifelines. The Cake and The Rain is a surprising and unusual book: Webb’s talent as a writer and storyteller is here on every page. His book is rich with a sense of time and place, and with the voices of characters, vanished and living, famous and not, but all intimately involved with him in his youth, when life seemed nothing more than a party and Webb the eternal guest of honor.

When the effects of a hypnosis-inducing drug fade, April slowly begins a conscious awakening. Memories of her past are unclear, and she has no recollection of her identity or whereabouts. As the days slip by, April realizes there is more to life than existing when she is introduced to an occupant who does just that - her sister. The more she learns about her environment, the more she wants to escape. But can April remember her past, and her sister? Will she have the courage to leave - and if she does, where can she go? A riveting story of suspense set in a post-apocalyptic world, 'Playing In The Rain' is the first book in Sandra J. Jackson's Escape Series.

"First Gallery Books trade paperback edition"--Copyright page.

This is a simple poetry book intended for young readers to start with their poetry interests. This is also a basic introduction and easy read for people interested in Greek-American poetry. I wrote this as a modern mid-Western approach to poetry—just some simple stuff I have done in my spare time. I hope you enjoy this new approach to American poetry.

Rain is elemental, mysterious, precious, destructive. It is the subject of countless poems and paintings; the top of the weather report; the source of the world's water. Yet this is the first book to tell the story of rain. Cynthia Barnett's Rain begins four billion years ago with the torrents that filled the oceans, and builds to the storms of climate change. It weaves together science—the true shape of a raindrop, the mysteries of frog and fish rains—with the human story of our ambition to control rain, from ancient rain dances to the 2,203 miles of levees that attempt to straitjacket the Mississippi River. It offers a glimpse of our "founding forecaster," Thomas Jefferson, who measured every drizzle long before modern meteorology. Two centuries later, rainy skies would help inspire Morrissey’s mopes and Kurt Cobain’s grunge. Rain is also a travelogue, taking readers to Scotland to tell the surprising story of the mackintosh raincoat, and to India, where villagers extract the scent of rain from the monsoon-drenched earth and turn it into perfume. Now, after thousands of years spent praying for rain or worshiping it; burning witches at the stake to stop rain or sacrificing small children to bring it; mocking rain with irrigated agriculture and cities built in floodplains; even trying to blast rain out of the sky with mortars meant for war, humanity has finally managed to change the rain. Only not in ways we intended. As climate change upends rainfall patterns and unleashes increasingly severe storms and drought, Barnett shows rain to be a unifying force in a fractured world. Too much and not nearly enough, rain is a conversation we share, and this is a book for everyone who has ever experienced it.