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THE OPTIMIST

A CASE FOR THE FLY FISHING LIFE

A wise, affectionate chronicle of a passion pursued.

Have rod, will travel: the education of a devoted fly fisherman.

“Angling is about anticipation and planning trips far in the future, but it also has a storied history,” writes Coggins. “This sport has been practiced since Izaak Walton’s Compleat Angler was published in 1653, in ways that are, to the naked eye, fairly unchanged today, like a Shakespeare play performed on a thrust stage.” Coggins, who writes about fishing for the Robb Report, adds to the canon with this reflective, leisurely travelogue about some of his favorite fishing spots. Because anglers, like gamblers, are addicted to the “chance of winning,” they must be optimists: The “angler is master of a kingdom that always threatens to crumble.” Coggins reminiscences about when he went fly-fishing for smallmouth bass in Wisconsin with his grandfather’s friends and learned the fine arts of casting and maneuvering a canoe and the vernacular of bobbers, leaders, and flies. Then the author takes us to see the cutthroat trout in the “mecca of American angling,” Montana, a state that “calls the faithful like the Louvre calls painters.” Of course, there were plenty of mistakes—e.g., a broken rod and the humiliation of losing a trout that “broke me off”—before he caught “a perfect fish.” Coggins also recounts his trip to the “wonderfully isolated and remote” flats of the Bahamas to experience saltwater fishing and to catch a fish he’s never seen before, the “silver phantom” bonefish. In Patagonia, the author sought rainbow trout, the “golden retriever of fish,” whose luminous color “mirrors the joy of catching one.” Among the author’s many other adventures: chasing striped bass in New York’s Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, running with Atlantic salmon in New Brunswick, Canada (“many shattered dreams lay at the altar of this revered fish”), and pond fishing for brook trout in the Maine North Woods, “a 3.5-million-acre wilderness that extends all the way to Canada.”

A wise, affectionate chronicle of a passion pursued.

Pub Date: May 4, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-982152-50-5

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021

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SHOT READY

“Protect your passion,” writes an NBA star in this winning exploration of how we can succeed in life.

A future basketball Hall of Famer’s rosy outlook.

Curry is that rare athlete who looks like he gets joy from what he does. There’s no doubt that the Golden State Warriors point guard is a competitor—he’s led his team to four championships—but he plays the game with nonchalance and exuberance. That ease, he says, “only comes from discipline.” He practices hard enough—he’s altered the sport by mastering the three-point shot—so that he achieves a “kind of freedom.” In that “flow state,” he says, “I can let joy and creativity take over. I block out all distractions, even the person guarding me. He can wave his arms and call me every name in the book, but I just smile and wait as the solution to the problem—how to get the ball into the basket—presents itself.” Curry shares this approach to his craft in a stylish collection that mixes life lessons with sharp photographs and archival images. His dad, Dell, played in the NBA for 16 years, and Curry learned much from his father and mother: “My parents were extremely strict about me and my little brother Seth not going to my pops’s games on school nights.” Curry’s mother, Sonya, who founded the Montessori elementary school that Curry attended in North Carolina, emphasized the importance not just of learning but of playing. Her influence helped Curry and his wife, Ayesha, create a nonprofit foundation: Eat. Learn. Play. He writes that “making reading fun is the key to unlocking a kid’s ability to be successful in their academic journeys.” The book also has valuable pointers for ballers—and those hoping to hit the court. “Plant those arches—knees bent behind those 10 toes pointing at the hoop, hips squared with your shoulders—and draw your power up so you explode off the ground and rise into your shot.” Sounds easy, right?

“Protect your passion,” writes an NBA star in this winning exploration of how we can succeed in life.

Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025

ISBN: 9780593597293

Page Count: 432

Publisher: One World/Random House

Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025

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THE BACKYARD BIRD CHRONICLES

An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.

A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.

In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”

An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.

Pub Date: April 23, 2024

ISBN: 9780593536131

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024

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