Annie Proulx - Böcker

A brilliant novel from Pulitzer Prize-winning Annie Proulx, author of ‘The Shipping News’ and ‘Brokeback Mountain’.‘That Old Ace in the Hole’ is a richly textured story of one man's struggle to make good in the inhospitable ranch country of the Texas panhandle, told with razor-sharp wit and a masterly sense of place.Some folks in the Texas panhandle do not like hog farms. But Bob Dollar, the newly hired hog site scout for Global Pork Rind, intends to do his job. Bob must contend with tough men and women like ancient Freda Beautyrooms, who controls a ranch he covets, and Ace Crouch, the windmiller who defies the hog farms. As Bob settles in at La Von Fronk’s bunkhouse and lends a hand at Cy Frease’s Old Dog Café, he is forced to question everything.

A remarkable collection of short stories set in Wyoming from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of ‘The Shipping News’ and ‘Brokeback Mountain’.‘Bad Dirt’ is filled with the vivid and willful characters for which Proulx has become known. Each story occupies a community or landscape described in rich and robust language, with an eye for detail unparalleled in American fiction.In ‘The Contest’, the men of Elk Tooth, Wyoming, vow to put aside their razors for two seasons and wait to see who has the longest beard come the 4th of July. Deb Sipple, the moving protagonist of ‘That Trickle Down Effect’, finds that his opportunism – and his smoking habit – lead to a massive destruction. And ‘What Kind of Furniture Would Jesus Pick?’ is the story of Gilbert Wolfscale, whose rabid devotion to his ranch drives off his wife and sons.Proulx displays her wit in every story of this stunning collection, as well as her knowledge of the West, of history, of ranching and of farming. Her profound sympathy for characters who must use sheer will and courage to make it in tough territory makes this collection extraordinarily compelling.

The book behind Ang Lee's Oscar-winning film, Brokeback Mountain, which celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2025. ‘These are tales we can almost feel in our bones’ SUNDAY TIMES A collection of short stories inspired by the harsh and unforgiving landscape of Wyoming, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Shipping News. Originally published in The New Yorker in 1997, Proux's short story, 'Brokeback Mountain' is set in the beautiful, wild landscape of Wyoming where cowboys live as they have done for generations. Hard, lonely lives in an unforgiving country. Jack Twist and Ennis del Mar are two ranch hands, glad to have found each other’s company where none had been expected. But companionship becomes something else on Brokeback Mountain, something not looked for – an intimacy neither can forget.In 2005, ‘Brokeback Mountain’ was made into an Academy Award-winning film by Ang Lee, and starred Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway.

Annie Proulx, one of America's finest writers, invites us to share her experience in the building of her new home on a rich plot of untouched, unspoilt prairie and her pleasure in uncovering of the layers of American history locked beneath the topsoil.‘Bird Cloud’ is the name Annie Proulx gave to 640 acres of Wyoming wetlands and prairie and 400 foot cliffs plunging down to the North Platte River. On the day she first visited, a cloud in the shape of a bird hung in the evening sky. Proulx also saw pelicans, bald eagles, golden eagles, great blue herons, ravens, scores of bluebirds, harriers, kestrels, elk, deer and a dozen antelope. She knew she had to purchase the land, then owned by the Nature Conservancy, and she knew what she would build on it – a house in harmony with her work, her appetites and her character – a library surrounded by bedrooms and a kitchen.Proulx's first non-fiction in more than twenty years, Bird Cloud is the story of building that house – solar panels, a Japanese soak tub, a concrete floor, elk horn handles on kitchen cabinets – and an enthralling natural history and archeology of the region, inhabited for millennia by Ute, Arapaho and Shoshone Indians. It is also a family history, going back to nineteenth century Mississippi river boat captains and Canadian settlers, and an illuminating autobiography. Proulx, a writer with extraordinary powers of observation and compassion, turns her lens on herself. We understand how she came to be living in a house surrounded by wilderness, with shelves for thousands of books and long worktables on which to heap manuscripts, research materials and maps, and how she came to be one of the great American writers of her time.

LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILEYS WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2017 NOW A MAJOR TELEVISION SERIES From Annie Proulx, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Shipping News and Brokeback Mountain, comes her masterwork: an epic, dazzling, violent, magnificently dramatic novel about the taking down of the world’s forests.In the late seventeenth century two penniless young Frenchmen, René Sel and Charles Duquet, arrive in New France. Bound to a feudal lord, a “seigneur,” for three years in exchange for land, they become wood-cutters – barkskins. René suffers extraordinary hardship, oppressed by the forest he is charged with clearing. He is forced to marry a Mi’kmaw woman and their descendants live trapped between two inimical cultures. But Duquet, crafty and ruthless, runs away from the seigneur, becomes a fur trader, then sets up a timber business. Proulx tells the stories of the descendants of Sel and Duquet over three hundred years – their travels across North America, to Europe, China, and New Zealand, under stunningly brutal conditions; the revenge of rivals; accidents; pestilence; Indian attacks; and cultural annihilation. Over and over again, they seize what they can of a presumed infinite resource, leaving the modern-day characters face to face with possible ecological collapse.Proulx’s inimitable genius is her creation of characters who are so vivid – in their greed, lust, vengefulness, or their simple compassion and hope – that we follow them with fierce attention. Annie Proulx is one of the most formidable and compelling American writers, and Barkskins is her greatest novel, a magnificent marriage of history and imagination.

The fantastic new collection of stories from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of ‘The Shipping News’ and ‘Brokeback Mountain’.‘Fine Just The Way It Is’ marks Annie Proulx's return to the Wyoming of ‘Brokeback Mountain’ and the familiar cast of hardy, unsentimental prairie folk. The stories are cast over centuries, and capture the voices and lives of the settlers this sagebrushed and weatherworn country has known, from the native Indian tribes to the modern day ranch owners and politicians, and their cowboy forebears.In ‘A Family Man’, an old man nearing the end of his life unburdens himself of the weighty family secrets that were his father’s unwelcome legacy. ‘Them Old Cowboy Songs’ follows Archie and Rosie, a young pioneer couple, and their hardships in their attempt to homestead in the exposed wintry expanses of the prairie, and ‘Testimony of the Donkey’ finds a young international couple, Marc and Caitlin, struggling with much more modern concerns, and confronting uncertainty as their relationship comes to its end.These are stories of desperation and hard times, often marked by an inescapable sadness, set in a landscape both brutal and magnificent. Enlivened by folk tales, flights of fancy, and details of ranch and rural work, they juxtapose Wyoming’s traditional character and attitudes – confrontation of tough problems, prejudice, persistence in the face of difficulty – with the more benign values of the new west. These are bold, elegant and memorable pieces, and once more confirm Annie Proulx as one of the most talented, unique short story writers in the language.

A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week‘A subject that could not be more important. A compact classic!’ Bill McKibben‘I learned something new – and found something amazing – on every page’ Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See From Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Proulx – whose novels are infused with her knowledge and deep concern for the earth – comes an urgent and riveting history of wetlands, their ecological role and how the loss of them threatens the planet. Fens, bogs, swamps and marine estuaries are the earth’s most desirable and dependable resources, and in four illuminating parts Proulx documents the emergence of their systemic destruction in the pursuit of profit and the consequent release of their stored carbon. Wide-ranging and idiosyncratic, Proulx’s explanation of wetlands takes readers to the fens of sixteenth-century England, Canada’s Hudson Bay Lowlands, Russia’s Great Vasyugan Mire and America’s Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge and introduces the nineteenth-century explorers who launched the ravaging of the Amazon rainforest.Proulx was born in the 1930s, a time, as she says, when ‘in the ever-continuing name of progress, Western countries busily raped their own and other countries of minerals, timber, fish and wildlife.’ Fen, Bog & Swamp is both a revelatory history and an urgent plea for wetland reclamation from a writer whose passionate devotion to observing and preserving the environment is on glorious display. ‘Magnificent, bringing to life hitherto overlooked habitats’ Guardian ‘Proulx's sparkling book will open your eyes to humanity's reckless trashing of wetlands’ Telegraph ‘A haunting tribute … Proulx’s poetic description of these places, and peat itself, is a pleasure to read’ Financial Times

A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week‘Magnificent’ Guardian‘Remarkable … A compact classic!’ Bill McKibben‘I learned something new – and found something amazing – on every page’ Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot SeeFens, bogs, swamps and marine estuaries are the earth’s most desirable and dependable resources. Here, Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Proulx brings her witness and research to the vitally important role they play in preserving the environment, and their systemic destruction in the pursuit of profit. Travelling from the fens of sixteenth-century England to America’s Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, Fen, Bog and Swamp is both a revelatory history and an urgent plea for wetland reclamation, from one of our greatest prose stylists. ‘A rousing call to action’ Esquire ‘Sparklingly furious … it has a profoundly positive message’ Richard Mabey, Telegraph ‘This haunting tribute … is a pleasure to read’ Financial Times

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Shipping News, a collection of short stories inspired by the harsh and unforgiving landscape of Wyoming. If he does not force his attention on it, it might stoke the day, rewarm that old, cold time on the mountain when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong. Inspired by the brutal and magnificent landscape of Wyoming, this is one of the most celebrated short story collections of our time. In ‘Brokeback Mountain’, an affair between two cowboys survives everything but the world's violent intolerance, while other stories chart desperation, hard times and unlikely elation. Annie Proulx invests each with an intelligence and black humour that transforms them into something new and surprising in their exploration of the unbreakable bond between a people and their land.From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Shipping News, Brokeback Mountain confirms Annie Proulx’s status as one of the most powerful and accomplished voices in contemporary American fiction.

Since 1973, Storey's Country Wisdom Bulletins have offered practical, hands-on instructions designed to help readers master dozens of country living skills quickly and easily. There are now more than 170 titles in this series, and their remarkable popularity reflects the common desire of country and city dwellers alike to cultivate personal independence in everyday life.

Grapes are among the most desirable and best-known fruits, prized for their beauty, their succulence and varied flavors, their noble metamorphosis into wine, and their more utilitarian roles as sources of fresh juice and tasty jellies. For most growers, the triumph of harvesting fragrant clusters of dusky-bloomed grapes in rose, blue-black, amber, purple, or light red bunches is its own reward--a test of gardening skill.In Great Grapes, you'll learn all you need to know to grow superb grapes, including how to:-Choose the most suitable cultivars for your area-Choose the right site-Prepare the soil-Build trellises-Plant and train the vines-Prune for maximum yield-Propagate new vines-Control pests-Harvest the grapes at the peak of ripeness

Created and edited by Pulitzer Prize wining author Annie Proulx, this frank, funny, richly textured portrait of legendary writer Robert F. Jones features 15 of his best stories, both fiction and non-fiction. The book also includes 17 wonderful tributes by some of America's greatest outdoor writers and a collection of Robert Jones' images by renowned photographer Bill Eppridge.