New Releases by Norman MacLean

Victory out of Ruin, is a classical book and has been considered important throughout the human history. So that this book is never forgotten we at Alpha Editions have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this again in a modern format book for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies of their original work and hence the text is clear and readable.

Le 5 août 1949, aux portes des Rocheuses, l’incendie de Mann Gulch tourne à la tragédie : dix pompiers parachutistes périssent dans les flammes. Norman Maclean a consacré plus de dix ans de sa vie à essayer de comprendre le déroulement des faits minute par minute, se mettant à la place des douze victimes, des secouristes et des forestiers, mais aussi du feu, de l’eau, du vent, bref de tous les éléments du drame. Dix ans qui ont abouti à ce modèle de journalisme narratif, d''autant plus passionnant aujourd’hui, alors que les méga-feux rythment nos étés. « La Part du feu est un monument de vérité édifié par un vieil homme à la mémoire de douze gamins. Il est rare qu''un écrivain parvienne à nous faire sentir aussi physiquement l’intensité de la chose réelle", Le Monde

Sam feels like he''s always in the shadows. While his peers excel in academics, sports, or charm, he struggles to find his place. To make matters worse, his seemingly clueless younger brother, Gobby, is a hidden prodigy, excelling in almost everything. As if navigating the treacherous waters of adolescence wasn''t hard enough, Sam grapples with his parents'' crumbling marriage and the sting of his crush pairing up with his best friend. But life has a way of teaching lessons when least expected. Through an unforeseen accident, Sam learns that growing up isn''t just about age - it''s about maturity, understanding, and perspective. Dive into Sam''s journey as he discovers that sometimes, the most significant growth happens in the mind and heart.

This book describes the religious aspects of WWI as they seemed in Great Britain and Scotland in particular at the time. The author feels that the War brought with it a renewed interest in all things spiritual; that it strengthened people''s faith and revived feelings of patriotism.

Set in the ancient Mediterranean the narrator and protagonist is Kleitos, a Hellenized Jew who eventually finds himself exiled to the Aegean island of Patmos where he encounters one, Yohanan, (John) another imperial exile. The man is a fanatic, engaged in writing a long letter in code to the seven urban communities of Asia Minor. This is the acknowledged content of Revelation, the Biblical book which historians have long realized is allegory, cipher and an amalgam of apocalyptic literature, reflecting the political and social upheavals of the 1st century C.E. that saw the rise of Christianity. Not a book for Christian conservatives, it explores the ways in which doctrines were shaped at this time especially in the Revelation, still mistakenly considered by millions as some form of prophetic handbook to a future slipping towards cosmic conclusion.

Victory out of Ruin is a book by Norman Maclean. Maclean was a Scottish-American professor and author, here delving into the reasons behind wars - especially WWI- while analyzing the effects these wars had on numerous societies and the wellbeing of people.

A fresh and challenging appraisal of Judaeo-Christian traditions, New Age fascinations, and other contemporary topics. These essays address commonly recognised, but little understood aspects of the Judaeo-Christian tradition: the creation myth; patriarchal biblical figures; sainthood; Heaven above and Hell below; the Marys¿virgin and whore; New Age fascinations; apocalyptic prophecies and several other topics of contemporary interest. The urge to shape belief is instinctive, culturally nurtured, and draws strands from multiple sources. Myth-making, Norman Maclean says, thrives even in a secular age. He writes in a conversational tone to engage with readers and inspire in depth study from the mass of available literature. But rarely is an overview presented in a single volume that permits a casual inquirer to pick their way through and come back to areas of interest.

Norman Maclean, l''auteur de La Rivière du sixième jour, raconte ici l''été de ses dix-sept ans. Le jeune garçon fait partie d''une équipe de gardes forestiers chargés de parer aux risques d''incendie en montagne. En fin de saison, tout le monde, y compris les mulets, redescend à Hamilton, Montana, et... la ville n''a qu''à bien se tenir. Une tempête de neige en plein mois d''août. un serpent à sonnettes, un cuisinier antipathique grand escamoteur de cartes, un bordel ambulant, et une partie de poker qui tourne en bagarre, tels sont quelques-uns des ingrédients de ce récit épique, dans la grande tradition de Mark Twain et des conteurs de l''Ouest américain.

"Et au milieu coule une rivière "est plus qu''un roman autobiographique, c''est un récit imprégné d''une lumineuse nostalgie, un livre qui défend une philosophie inspirante. Norman Maclean y raconte son enfance dans les Rocheuses, au sein de paysages magnifiques dont chaque relief influence en profondeur ceux qui y vivent. Comme dans les romans de Pete Fromm, la pêche n''est pas qu''un simple loisir, c''est un art de vivre, une discipline, une chanson de geste qui apprend tout et qui poursuivra Norman dans toutes les étapes importantes de son existence. Préface de Robert Redford, metteur en scène du célèbre film inspiré du récit de Maclean.

The New York Times–bestselling classic set amid the mountains and streams of early twentieth-century Montana, “as beautiful as anything in Thoreau or Hemingway” (Chicago Tribune). When Norman Maclean sent the manuscript of A River Runs Through It and Other Stories to New York publishers, he received a slew of rejections. One editor, so the story goes, replied, “it has trees in it.” Today, the title novella is recognized as one of the great American tales of the twentieth century, and Maclean as one of the most beloved writers of our time. The finely distilled product of a long life of often surprising rapture—for fly-fishing, for the woods, for the interlocked beauty of life and art—A River Runs Through It has established itself as a classic of the American West filled with beautiful prose and understated emotional insights. Based on Maclean’s own experiences as a young man, the book’s two novellas and short story are set in the small towns and mountains of western Montana. It is a world populated with drunks, loggers, card sharks, and whores, but also one rich in the pleasures of fly-fishing, logging, cribbage, and family. By turns raunchy and elegiac, these superb tales express, in Maclean’s own words, “a little of the love I have for the earth as it goes by.” “Maclean’s book—acerbic, laconic, deadpan—rings out of a rich American tradition that includes Mark Twain, Kin Hubbard, Richard Bissell, Jean Shepherd, and Nelson Algren.” —New York Times Book Review Includes a new foreword by Robert Redford, director of the Academy Award–winning film adaptation

In "Eavesdropping on Myself," Norman chronicles his boyhood in Glasgow and explores the push-pull of two cultures: working-class Glaswegian and first-generation Hebridean This is Norman Maclean at his best - by turns sharp, funny and melancholic. The original lad o'' pairts, Maclean has a literary voice shaped, but never confined, by the places and languages of his youth. "Eavesdropping on Myself" finds him picking over his childhood with an unsparing eye. We knew he was a master storyteller; only now are we getting the measure of his own story. No reader could forget it. - Fraser MacDonald Norman Maclean is one of the most resonant voices in Scotland. With one voice he articulates the tangled dualities of Scottish experience today: of tradition and modernity, highland and lowland, rural and urban, working class and middle class, local and worldly. His perspective straddles different classes, different languages and different lives, at once divided and unifi ed. If Norman is speaking, then we should be listening. - Jamie Chambers

En «El río de la vida», la primera y más extensa de las tres historias autobiográficas que forman este libro, un padre estricto transmite a sus dos hijos -Norman y Paul− su pasión por la pesca con mosca. Los ríos tienen su orden y los chicos aprenden a conocerlo, pero las aguas siempre esconden algún misterio. La vida, como los ríos, fluye sin que muchas veces podamos resolver los interrogantes que ésta nos plantea; al final de la suya, Norman rememora los acontecimientos del último verano en que pescó junto a su padre y su hermano tratando de buscar en ellos las respuestas. «Leñadores, proxenetas, y «Tu camarada, Jim» y «Servicio forestal de Estados Unidos, 1919» completan un libro que es ya un clásico de la literatura norteamericana reciente. La pesca con mosca, el trabajo de los guardabosques, la naturaleza y la vida en Montana a principios de siglo son algunos de los temas que el autor aborda en estas inolvidables historias en las que retrata su aprendizaje vital; con ellas quiso expresar, según sus propias palabras, «un poco de ese amor que siento por la tierra». Robert Redford adaptó este libro al cine en 1992 en un largometraje homónimo. «Un libro pequeño por fuera pero inmenso por dentro.» Rodrigo Fresán «Un libro con halo mítico, un espléndido ejercicio de memoria afectiva, una notable contribución al topos de la vida como un río que va a dar al mar, que es el morir, una novela de aprendizaje a la vieja usanza y una lección en toda regla de cómo esgrimir la primera persona como si se tratase de un estilete emocional, entre la introspección y la observación del entorno.» Javier Aparicio Maydeu (El País) «Maclean escribió un libro hermoso sobre cómo serían las cosas si las volviéramos a vivir; y es ahí, en la transcripción poética y directa del sueño colectivo del volver a empezar, donde hay que encontrar la razón por la que ya se le incluye en la literatura intemporal de Estados Unidos.» Juan Marín (El País) «Bellísima por el poder de sus sentimientos (...) Tan bella como cualquier texto de Thoreau o de Hemingway.» Alfred Kazin (Chicago Tribune Book World) «Un relato embrujado (...) He leído la historia tres veces y cada vez es más perfecta.» Roger Sale (New York Review of Books) «Más o menos una vez al año, releo mi maltrecha copia de El río de la vida y nunca pierde un ápice de su fuerza ni de su misterio.» Philip Connors (The Nation) «Una elegía autobiográfica que cautiva a los lectores aunque no hayan sostenido jamás en su vida una caña de pescar. En él, el arte de lanzar una mosca se convierte en un ritual de gracia, una metáfora del intento del ser humano de adentrarse en la naturaleza.» Andrew Rosenheim (The Independent) «El libro de Maclean -mordaz, lacónico− surge de una rica tradición norteamericana (...) Adoro su sonido.» James R. Frakes (New York Times Book Review)

In his eighty-seven years, Norman Maclean played many parts: fisherman, logger, firefighter, scholar, teacher. But it was a role he took up late in life, that of writer, that won him enduring fame and critical acclaim—as well as the devotion of readers worldwide. When he died in 1990, Maclean left behind an earlier unfinished project, on a topic that had held his attention for decades: General Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The portions of that writing that remain reveal a deep interest not only in the battle itself but also its afterlife—how historical events influence popular culture and how retellings revise the past. Summarizing the events from the various perspectives of the Americans, the Sioux, and the Cheyenne, Maclean explains why the battle lives on in our imagination. Custer’s “last stand” provides all the elements—the characters, the plot, and the backdrop—of the perfect dramatic tragedy. And the way we retell history, argues Maclean, is intimately tied to how we choose to memorialize defeat.

In ''Contracts'', the concluding novel of his highly acclaimed comedy trilogy, Norman Maclean writes with insight and elan about the birth and horrible growing pains of a new creature: Gaelic television. Get to know the greedy - mainly male - apparatchiks of the Gaelic Broadcasting Fund and all the deluded and vain hustlers which are in a frenzy to join the feeding trough of public money provided by the government''s injection of 10 million into Gaelic broadcasting. Norman Maclean''s brilliant and hilarious satire is another virtuoso performance on the perennial themes of greed, lust and folly.

Selected works and incidental writings by the celebrated author of A River Runs Through It, plus excerpts from a 1986 interview. In his eighty-seven years, Norman Maclean played many parts: fisherman, logger, firefighter, scholar, teacher. But it was a role he took up late in life, that of writer, that won him enduring fame and critical acclaim—as well as the devotion of readers worldwide. Though the 1976 collection A River Runs Through It and Other Stories was the only book Maclean published in his lifetime, it was an unexpected success, and the moving family tragedy of the title novella—based largely on Maclean’s memories of his childhood home in Montana—has proved to be one of the most enduring American stories ever written. The Norman Maclean Reader is a wonderful addition to Maclean’s celebrated oeuvre. Bringing together previously unpublished materials with incidental writings and selections from his more famous works, the Reader will serve as the perfect introduction for readers new to Maclean, while offering longtime fans new insight into his life and career. In this evocative collection, Maclean as both a writer and a man becomes evident. Perceptive, intimate essays deal with his career as a teacher and a literary scholar, as well as the wealth of family stories for which Maclean is famous. Complete with a generous selection of letters, as well as excerpts from a 1986 interview, The Norman Maclean Reader provides a fully fleshed-out portrait of this much admired author, showing us a writer fully aware of the nuances of his craft, and a man as at home in the academic environment of the University of Chicago as in the quiet mountains of his beloved Montana. Various and moving, the works collected in The Norman Maclean Reader serve as both a summation and a celebration, giving readers a chance once again to hear one of American literature’s most distinctive voices. Praise for The Norman MacLean Reader “A solid, satisfying, well-made body of work by a patient craftsman.” —Chicago Tribune “The Norman Maclean Reader fills out and makes more human the impressions of the restless, inquiring storyteller we saw in previously published works. In his writings, at their best, we too feel the thrusts and strains. He is a writer of great beauty, in his own terms.” —Financial Times “Weltzien has not only done great service for Norman Maclean’s readers, he has rightly expanded Maclean’s place in American literature . . . . For me, The Norman Maclean reader is discovered treasure.” —Bloomsbury Review

A comedian, singer, composer, musician, linguist, actor, author and a favourite of Sean Connery and Billy Connolly''s, Norman MacLean is a living legend in the Gaelic world. Based in the Uists in the Outer Hebrides, with side trips to Glasgow, Hamburg and Amsterdam, this dotty adventure embraces frustrated sex, drugs, eightsome reels and a memorable cast of oddball characters: three inept would-be criminals, a demented care-home resident, an ex-communicant of the Free Church of Scotland who moonlights as an enforcer, a pair of Russian weight-lifters who raise ostriches by day and mud-wrestle by night, and a formidable woman lawyer determined to cleanse the island of wrongdoing before HM The Queen arrives on her annual visit. Something akin to a mad Gaelic version of The Sopranos as directed by the Coen Brothers, this novella is a masterclass of understatement, pitch-perfect dialogue and confident narration.

A comedian, singer, composer, musician, linguist, actor, author and a favourite of Sean Connery and Billy Connolly''s, Norman MacLean is a living legend in the Gaelic world and a household name across the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Yet for all his creative genius Norman MacLean is virtually anonymous outside this ribbon of northern Scotland. His career has been etched with enormous highs and lows - a reflection of the turmoil of his private life, where a lifelong battle with alcohol has had a crippling effect on everything that he has touched, and which has arguably prevented him from achieving the global recognition that his undoubted talent so merited. In The Leper''s Bell, an erudite, analytical and frank autobiography of this wonderful, unique, but ultimately little-known star, Norman MacLean reveals the man behind the comedy and the crippling horrors of alcoholism. It is in turns tragic and uplifting, devastating and hilarious, elegant and heartbreaking, and one of the most compelling and moving memoirs to appear in recent years.

Jesus On Our Own Ground is a synthesis of prevailing historical views on the life of Jesus Christ, examining what is known and generally accepted about the man''s life including the process by which he became the prevailing deity of the Roman Empire, and how the man may be regarded in terms of contemporary mysticism.

A comedian, singer, composer, musician, linguist, actor, author and a favourite of Sean Connery and Billy Connolly''s, Norman MacLean is a living legend in the Gaelic world. Tricksters takes the reader on a rambunctious journey around Scotland with endearing but oddly-matched couple, Murdo and Rachel. Murdo is a semi-pro thespian struggling with an alcohol problem; Rachel is constantly on the brink of ending their relationship. And there''s the truly appalling television director, Sam, whose Machiavellian schemes are aided by a heavy-drinking Presbyterian heretic from Lewis. When all converge in the Tartan Pagoda Hotel, Uist, what could possibly go right? A hilarious page-turner, Tricksters blends the high style of John Lanchester and the low-life snappy dialogue of George V. Higgins - and it''s beautifully translated for the Teuchters by the author.

On August 5, 1949, a crew of fifteen of the United States Forest Service''s elite airborne firefighters, the Smokejumpers, stepped into the sky above a remote forest fire in the Montana wilderness. Two hours after their jump, all but three of these men were dead or mortally burned. Haunted by these deaths for forty years, Norman Maclean puts back together the scattered pieces of the Mann Gulch tragedy. Young Men and Fire won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992. "A magnificent drama of writing, a tragedy that pays tribute to the dead and offers rescue to the living.... Maclean''s search for the truth, which becomes an exploration of his own mortality, is more compelling even than his journey into the heart of the fire. His description of the conflagration terrifies, but it is his battle with words, his effort to turn the story of the 13 men into tragedy that makes this book a classic."—from New York Times Book Review Editor''s Choice, Best Books of 1992 "A treasure: part detective story, part western, part tragedy, part elegy and wholly eloquent ghost story in which the dead and the living join ranks cheerfully, if sometimes eerily, in a search for truth and the rest it brings."—Joseph Coates, Chicago Tribune "An astonishing book. In compelling language, both homely and elegant, Young Men and Fire miraculously combines a fascinating primer on fires and firefighting, a powerful, breathtakingly real reconstruction of a tragedy, and a meditation on writing, grief and human character.... Maclean''s last book will stir your heart and haunt your memory."—Timothy Foote, USA Today "Beautiful.... A dark American idyll of which the language can be proud."—Robert M. Adams, The New York Review of Books "Young Men and Fire is redolent of Melville. Just as the reader of Moby Dick comes to comprehend the monstrous entirety of the great white whale, so the reader of Young Men and Fire goes into the heart of the great red fire and comes out thoroughly informed. Don''t hesitate to take the plunge."—Dennis Drabelle, Washington Post Book World "Young Men and Fire is a somber and poetic retelling of a tragic event. It is the pinnacle of smokejumping literature and a classic work of 20th-century nonfiction."—John Holkeboer, The Wall Street Journal "Maclean is always with the brave young dead. . . . They could not have found a storyteller with a better claim to represent their honor. . . . A great book."—James R. Kincaid, New York Times Book Review

Authoritative and easily accessible account of the wildlife of Britain and Ireland, what is declining, what is not, and why.

Just as Norman Maclean writes at the end of "A River Runs through It" that he is "haunted by waters," so have readers been haunted by his novella. A retired English professor who began writing fiction at the age of 70, Maclean produced what is now recognized as one of the classic American stories of the twentieth century. Originally published in 1976, A River Runs through It and Other Stories now celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary, marked by this new edition that includes a foreword by Annie Proulx. Maclean grew up in the western Rocky Mountains in the first decades of the twentieth century. As a young man he worked many summers in logging camps and for the United States Forest Service. The two novellas and short story in this collection are based on his own experiences—the experiences of a young man who found that life was only a step from art in its structures and beauty. The beauty he found was in reality, and so he leaves a careful record of what it was like to work in the woods when it was still a world of horse and hand and foot, without power saws, "cats," or four-wheel drives. Populated with drunks, loggers, card sharks, and whores, and set in the small towns and surrounding trout streams and mountains of western Montana, the stories concern themselves with the complexities of fly fishing, logging, fighting forest fires, playing cribbage, and being a husband, a son, and a father. By turns raunchy, poignant, caustic, and elegiac, these are superb tales which express, in Maclean''s own words, "a little of the love I have for the earth as it goes by." A first offering from a 70-year-old writer, the basis of a top-grossing movie, and the first original fiction published by the University of Chicago Press, A River Runs through It and Other Stories has sold more than a million copies. As Proulx writes in her foreword to this new edition, "In 1990 Norman Maclean died in body, but for hundreds of thousands of readers he will live as long as fish swim and books are made."