New Releases by Brian Doyle

Prose poems, chants, litanies, simple songs, cadenced prayers, brief bursts of rhythmic observation, elegies to little moments that are not little at all in the least whatsoever—welcome to the melodic world of Brian Doyle’s “proems,” swirling with voices unreeling tales, souls telling stories, moments photographed with ink. Accessible, easy to read, blunt, brief, and sometimes unforgettable, “these are not poems,” says the author, “but life set to the music of poetry.” In A Shimmer of Something, Brian Doyle’s characteristic humor and sincerity combine to make this collection a delight to read. From his conviction that miracles breed ripples that do not cease, to his lack of faith about the life of an elderberry bush, to the amusing story of a friend’s experience of driving the Dalai Lama to Seattle, to the humorous experience of his second Confession, to an intimate story of love and loss, Doyle’s lean stories of spiritual substance inspire, entertain, and captivate.

"Novelist and essayist Brian Doyle describes encounters with astounding beings of every sort and shape in this collection of short vignettes. The book gathers previously unpublished work along with selections that have been published in Orion, The Sun, and The American Scholar, among others"--

What if a man who lost his foot in a war decides, many years later, to find it? "It was a good foot, and we parted so hurriedly I never had a chance to really think about it as a foot, so off I went " So begins this lean little novel a quest, a wandering, a contemplation of the immense foolishness of war. Terse but filled with adventure and wonder, Cat''s Foot is surely the most unusual fiction you will read this year or perhaps any year "Along Cat''s implausible journey to find something impossible to find, you hear him say things you never heard before, told in ways that make you marvel. Cat''s eyes have seen everything it seems. Forgotten nothing." Bill Gunlocke, Editor, a city reader

In this spirited collection of essays, Brian Doyle employs his wit, wisdom, and gusto for life as he shares with readers his thoughts on Jesus, the Mass, Birds, Bees, and so much more. What would be a good alternative name for Jesus? What does a honeybee at Mass have to tell us about Christ? What is, after all, the real point of saying prayers when someone is suffering? Through the good and the bad, the serious and the hilarious, Doyle finds just the right story and just the right words to help us better understand life and love—and to help us see our faith in a whole new light.

Best-selling and award-winning essayist Brian Doyle knows that the heartbeat of Catholicism is found not in papal decrees and pageantry, but in the parish halls, potluck dinners, and the believing community. In this spirited collection of more than 40 essays, Doyle employs his trademark wit, candor, and gusto for life and faith to reignite readers’ excitement for Catholicism as he plumbs some of the stickier and trickier elements of the Catholic character. From preparing for his first confession with a fake laundry list of sins to his young observations of President Kennedy’s assassination, Doyle’s passionate writing makes for a heartfelt, genuine, and often laugh-out-loud read. The Thorny Grace of It reaffirms that the Catholic faith—imperfect as it is—is wildly aflame in hearts and lives everywhere. “It is a boon, a blessing, to have Brian Doyle’s vagabond essays now rubbing elbows in a single, handy, and altogether delightful volume." - Kenneth L. Woodward, author of The Book of Miracles

A collection of humorous short stories from the award-winning author of The Plover and Mink River. Welcome to the peculiar, headlong world of Brian Doyle’s fiction, where the odd is happening all the time, reported upon by characters of every sort and stripe. Swirling voices and skeins of story, laughter and rage, ferocious attention to detail and sweeping nuttiness, tears and chortling—these stories will remind readers of the late giant David Foster Wallace, in their straightforward accounts of anything-but-straightforward events; of modern short story pioneer Raymond Carver, a bit, in their blunt, unadorned dialogue; and of Julia Whitty, a bit, in their willingness to believe what is happening, even if it absolutely shouldn’t be. Funny, piercing, unique, memorable, this is a collection of stories readers will find nearly impossible to forget. “To read Brian Doyle is to apprehend, all at once, the force that drives Mark Twain, and Walt Whitman, and James Joyce, and Emily Dickinson, and Francis of Assisi, and Jonah under his gourd. Brian Doyle is an extraordinary writer whose tales will endure. The sublime ‘Waking the Bishop’ is going to inhabit American anthologies forever and ever.” —Cynthia Ozick, New York Times–bestselling author of Heir to the Glimmering World “What I like about Brian Doyle’s writing is that it’s real—it’s got mud and blood and tears but it’s also got earthly angels who teach him to grasp on to each small epiphany as it opens before him.” —Martin Flanagan, author of The Call and The Art of Pollination

A collection of anecdotes about friends from the life of John Coyle Beckman.

In Encore! The Renaissance of Wisconsin Opera Houses, Brian Leahy Doyle chronicles the histories of ten Wisconsin opera houses and theaters, from their construction to their heydays as live performance spaces and through the periods when many of these stages went dark. All but one of the featured theaters has been restored to its original splendor. Just as the beginnings of these theaters were often the result of the efforts of local citizens, Doyle discovers that their restoration is due to the commitment of dedicated and passionate people. More than one of these revived theaters has spurred the revitalization of its surrounding downtown business district as well.

This article discusses the legal risks that would emerge if the National Basketball Association ("NBA") and National Football League ("NFL") decide to expand into Europe. Part I of this article explains the differences in operating structure between U.S. and European professional sports leagues. Part II discusses the differences in competition law between the United States and European Community. Part III explains why the legal status of age and education requirements (age/education requirements) is more favorable to professional sports leagues under U.S. law than under EC law. Part IV explains why the legal status of league drafts and reserve systems also might be more favorable to professional sports leagues under U.S. law.

Brian Doyle is the editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland, in Oregon. He is the author of nine books of essays, nonfiction, and "proems," and his work has appeared in The Best American Essays collections of 1998, 1999, 2003, and 2005. In Australia his work appears in Eureka Street and The Age. Oddly enough he barracks for Geelong, does he not have enough tension in his life or what?"Strangers pour their stories into Brian Doyles'' attentive ear; with a self-effacing craft, and a reverence for what''s holy in the every day, he shapes them into poems of bounding energy and surprising moral depth."- Helen Garner.

Martin O''Boy finally has a home and a job--at the Pure Spring soft drink factory--but not everything is perfect, as sometimes Grandpa Rip''s mind wanders, he gets involved with a crooked coworker, and his memories of the past overwhelm him.

Epiphanies & Elegies is a collection of delightful, accessible poems shot through with wonder, humor, faith, and Irish Catholic heritage. Brian Doyle illuminates seemingly ordinary, everyday events in poems that will immediately touch with the reader with their truth. These warm and insightful pieces are sometimes funny, sometimes poignant takes on the small wonders and inevitable tragedies of life.

After witnessing a murder on the coldest day of the year, Spud Sweetgrass becomes the target of both Detective Kennedy of the police department and the murderer himself. Reprint.

John "Spud" Sweetgrass tries to find out who has been dumping rancid cooking oil into the storm drain at a polluted beach, and a troublesome teacher meets an ironic fate. Reprint.

When Ryan''s father leaves the family during a midlife crisis, his mother sends him to spend the summer with his aunt in Peggy''s Cove, Nova Scotia, where he learns to fish and gets into trouble.

"From the red clay hills of Dundee, Oregon, come increasingly world-renowned pinot noir wines. After being startled and delighted by one winery''s elixir, and the shaggy humor of the father and son who made it, Brian Doyle set out to spend a year in one Willamette Valley vineyard, chronicling the creative and chaotic labor as the winemakers chase after the perfect pinot noir." "A self-described "wine doofus," Doyle follows closely at the elbow of Jesse Lange, son of Lange Winery founder Don Lange, peppering the young winemaker with questions about the growing of grapes and making of wine. With dry wit and otherworldly patience, Jesse Lange offers his interlocutor a primer on pinot, describing how acres of tiny black grapes are turned into complex and superb wines." "Doyle serves as a tour guide through the world of wine, alert to the stories that swirl around its creation and consumption. In The Grail, he collects and shares dozens of these stories - about the natural history of the vineyard, the fussiness of the pinot vine, the boom in pinot noir around the world, the surprising buying habits of tasting room visitors, and the subtle craft of winemakers who know, as Jesse Lange says, grinning, "how to get out of the way of great grapes.""--BOOK JACKET.

The heart: it is known as the seat of the soul, the power house of the body, the essence of spirituality.

Centered on the theme of cherishing the past, "Covered Bridge" pits earnest Hubbo O''Driscoll against two determined, cynical land developers. Hubbo is beginning to enjoy the pleasures of country life while staying with his guardian aunt and uncle, and he even has a job as curator of the area''s rustic covered bridge. When the old bridge -- home to a wayward ghost and her lovelorn postman -- is suddenly threatened by builders Ovide and Prootoo Proulx, Hubbo searches for a way to save it. Accompanied by his personable dog, Nerves, Hubbo tries to reconcile the charms of days gone by with the profit-driven demands of the present. At the last minute, help arrives in unexpected form: Foolish Father Foley from Farrelton, the two ghosts, and a crazy goat. But will it be enough to keep the old bridge of Mushrat Creek from demolition?

In this remarkable collection of essays, acclaimed writer Brian Doyle offers “resurrections, restorations, reconsiderations, appreciations, enthusiasms, headlong solos, laughing prayers, imaginary meetings with most unusual and most interesting men.” Geographically and chronologically diverse—Plutarch of Greece; William Blake of England; Robert Louis Stevenson of Scotland; James Joyce and Van Morrison of Ireland; and others—Doyle sees them as men of “immense spiritual substance, prayerful fury, enormous grace,” men concerned with “the moral grapple” and “the sinuous crucial puzzle of love.” In telling the stories of these talented, troubled, and extraordinary men, Doyle discerns clues about how to be a good man, headlong in the pursuit of love and capable of greatness.

A cast of motley characters helps Young Tommy and Baby Bridget discover that there are many ways to love and heal and die.

Shortly after World War II, Hubbo O''Driscoll lives in a shelter outside Ottawa with a distant relative who works as a cleaning woman at his school, tries to make friends with a girl at the shelter and with the rich kids in the Hi-Y club, and reads "War and Peace" to wealthy Miss Collar-Cuff.

In 1895, to escape his violent father, Mickey is sent to stay with his Uncle Ronald and his twin aunts in the hills north of Ottawa and learns to feel safe for the first time in his life.

Winner of the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year, the Geoffrey Bilson Award, the Ruth Schwartz Award, and an ALA Notable Books List selection Martin O''Boy''s life is not easy. His beloved Granny has just died, his pregnant mother and father fight all the time and his twin, Phil, is completely incapacitated. Martin is the one his mother counts on. But life in Ottawa''s Lowertown is not all bad. He has his best friend, Billy Batson (a.k.a. Captain Marvel), the movies, his cat Cheap and there''s the glamorous Buz from next door, who is off at the war.As the war comes to an end with the bombing of Hiroshima -- on Martin''s birthday -- Ottawa is in a state of turmoil. Returning soldiers, parties, fights and drunks fill the streets. It would all be very exciting, except for one thing. In their endless pursuit of more funds Martin and Billy have joined the church choir -- as summer boys. And the organist, Mr. T.D.S. George, is awfully fond of Martin. But Martin, despite his hardships, has a pure soul and his Granny''s love, Billy''s friendship, Buz''s imminent return, and even his mother''s reliance on him, which help him to deliver a kind of justice to Mr. George, and to heal himself and others.

In 1945 in Ottawa''s Lowertown, Tommy, also known as "The Shadow," and two of his friends, one French Canadian, one Irish, try to find out who attacked the father of their Jewish friend Sammy. Reprint.

When a new project is presented to dam up the Gatineau River, Mary Ann Alice McCrank and her teacher, Patchy Drizzle, know that many fossils and rocks will be lost forever and experience mixed feelings like others in the community.