Down in Bristol Bay: High Tides, Hangovers, and Harrowing Experiences on Alaska's Last Frontier

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Over-rated

Great read

Pass the Aspirin

Captivating

Leave the philosophy in Syracuse

Down in Bristol Bay: High Tides, Hangovers, and Harrowing Experiences on Alaska's Last Frontier
Bob Durr
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Coldman Cometh: A Family's Adventure in the Alaska Bush

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ASIN: 0312267290

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"The frontier," writes Bob Durr, "has always been a peculiarly American obsession. In the early days it meant the possibility of a new start: if you were down on your luck ... you could head west into the unknown. But it was more than that, too...." The very existence of a frontier meant that there was a way out, an escape from the confines and corruption of civilized life.

In 1963 at age 43, Durr decided to face his own obsession: a lifelong yearning for an existence "reduced to elementals" and a profound distaste for the comfortable life. He began an adventure that ultimately led him to abandon his tenured professorship at Syracuse University and move his family to southcentral Alaska, America's last frontier. Down in Bristol Bay chronicles Durr's transformation from academic to frontiersman. Between 1964 and 1968, Durr left his family each spring and headed for Bristol Bay, Alaska, to establish himself as a commercial salmon fisherman--the best way "to earn a living consistent with my overriding wish to live in the woods"--no minor feat for a man with no training or experience in his new trade. But he soon found out that his survival in Bristol Bay was equally a matter of being accepted into the hard-drinking, sometimes dangerous, always outrageous clan of Lower-48 transplants and Alaska natives known around the Bay as D Inn Crowd.

Durr has written an unapologetic, rollicking, late-life coming-of-age story full of boozy revelations, adventure, and narrowly-averted disasters (how to catch many fish and not sink the boat while knocking back staggering quantities of Jim Beam). Thankfully, his story isn't the usual fortysomething fling with the rough life. After all these years, Durr still lives in Alaska, in a log cabin he built by himself. --Svenja Soldovieri

Book Description

Dr. Robert Allen Durr - literary scholar, award-winning author, former confidant to legendary writer H. L. Mencken, and one-time rising star in the East Coast academic world - decided one day to give it all up and move to a remote region of Alaska in search of paradise.

Convinced that truth, beauty, and goodness could still be found in the wild, Durr bought a boat and journeyed to Bristol Bay in hopes of becoming a commercial salmon fisherman and earning a living. Catapulting the reader into this last frontier and onto a sea of storms and dangers, madcap bars and drinking parties, amid the camaraderie of some rugged Alaskans, mostly native fishermen known as D Inn Crowd, Down in Bristol Bay chronicles a hard life, but not without songs and ballads, misadventures and follies, occasionally of burlesque proportions, on land as well as at sea.

Combining elements of Krakaur's Into the Wild, Matthiessen's The Snow Leopard, Junger's The Perfect Storm, McPhee's Coming Into the Country, and even Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Down in Bristol Bay is a powerful and raucous memoir of a man who abandoned the safe world of academia for the Alaskan wilderness to find his own kind of primal sanity.

Customer Reviews:

Over-rated.......2006-01-19

I read this book a little over a year ago, so it is not exactly fresh in my mind, but I must say I disagree with most of the other reviewers here.

If you looked at every book's page on Amazon, you would see that the vast, vast majority of books have an average user ranking of 4 or 5 stars. I think this is because someone who picks up a book and think its junk won't bother to finish it, and rarely would bother to write a review. What ends up happening is that only those people who like a book rank it, and therefore almost everything gets a high ranking. Well, I didn't like this book, but I will take the time to write a review.

Parts of this book are entertaining, especially those dealing with moving his boat from SE Alaska to Bristol Bay, and some of the discussion on fishing. Overall, however, it seems that the author does a poor job of describing the natural majesty of his surroundings nor about the internal conflict of a man embarking on a new life.

Most annoying, however, is the author's slippage into the 3rd person when he describes drinking and 'adult partying' (don't know what words amazon will let me use here) when the rest of the book is in the 1st person. The narrator shows up at a party, and then all of a sudden it is someone else who is sleeping around on his wife.

Anyway, if you want to read a good book about fishing up in Alaska, check out Joe Upton's 'Alaska Blues'.

Great read.......2005-09-18

Great read for anyone who wants to get a flavor of the Alaska life and great figurative return for those who have lived it. It is also great literature because he was an English professor.

Pass the Aspirin.......2005-04-17

While this is a better book that the second one, there is still something lacking. Depth I suppose. The fishing stories are good but I'm afraid the actual techniques and day-to-day trials are glossed over with tales of drunkeness. The characters are accurately portrayed, but each year is a rerun of the last, a quick summary of the same. Frankly, for all of Durr's qualifications this is the one theme that I can't help but think carries on to this day: The acid Leary professor drops out and stays out. But life is what happens between the parties. During this period, at least I know how he made a living, which is what dismayed me with the Coldman Cometh: thirty-five years of successful bush living on imaginary income, from the readers' perspective. He doesn't share finances here either though so we don't know what he made from the fishing trips.

Staying in Alaska without money is tough. And with a family to support even more impossible, yet Durr seems to go about it as if there's nothing to it; the path of least resistence he describes to Pope, but in Alaska there is a great deal of resistence always. I can hear him try to justify the scheme to his late wife who never says anything or gives him a hard time about the difficulties of living on the edge like that, but Durr rarely reveals anything of this nature. He's very much secretive, which is a motivating force for the retreat to Chase and Back-Lake. I found the Durrs to be stand-offish in 1976, suspicious of newcomers to the land, even fellow "hippie" brothers. This may be due to personal paranoia and the more-people-coming fear, which is the message I got. As it turns out Durr managed to outlast the other '70s settlers in Chase of which I was one, albeit briefly. That evidently was what he wanted in the first place.

Captivating.......2002-12-31

This book is a describes a man's struggle to break from the "creature comforts" world to live and fish in Bristol Bay, Alaska. It told a story that was captivating because when reading, you always wanting to know what was going to happen next. The story tells of a man who achieves having the best of both worlds ands puts the utimate dream to the test. I would highly recommend this book to all adventurists and those who would like to "escape" to the alaska frontier; if not in reality, then through this book.

Leave the philosophy in Syracuse.......2001-03-18

This is a great little book and a fun read. It takes a lot of guts to do what Bob Durr did. His descriptions of the Alaskan bush and the people who live and work there are wonderful. Everyone should meet a person like Pope at least once in their lives. The philosophical discussions on board the fishing boat were sometimes tedious and less than believable, but somehow it all works. I hope Durr will write another book about the rest of his life in Alaska.

Down in Bristol Bay: High Tides, Hangovers, and Harrowing Experiences on Alaska's Last frontier

Average customer rating:

Down in Bristol Bay: High Tides, Hangovers, and Harrowing Experiences on Alaska's Last frontier
Bob Durr
Manufacturer: St. Martin's
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000PUJ0ZQ

Customer Reviews:

So good, they ought to do this for other countries........2000-05-23

Just a cursory reading of Trails has its rewards. You might be on a trip almost anywhere in the US and pick it up to find a spot nearby of scenic or historic interest. But this book is unusual among travel and trail guides in that it is also a pleasure simply to read straight through at home in your comfy chair. The authors supply loads of information and are enthusiastic about their subjects without succumbing to the Everything Is Beautiful disease that travel writers are generally prone to.

The historic trail sections are especially strong. They link Mormon, Spanish, American Indian, English colonial, and pioneer history to the actual physical places where it occurred. For example, at the end of the Juan Bautista de Anza trail, the city of San Francisco was founded around the month of July, 1776. Another trail, the California National Historic Trail, is the route(s) of the English speaking pioneers who came in later years to take San Francisco and the rest of California away from the Spaniards and their descendents. On the Nez Perce and Trail of Tears historic trails you can see two of the routes followed by the aboriginal peoples who were driven from their homes by the dueling European powers, and also by poor pioneers who oftentimes had been themselves driven from their homes across the ocean.

The maps at the beginning of each chapter are clear and well-detailed. All in all, you could hardly ask for a better travelling companion if you're going on a car trip, particularly if you're going with children who have even the mildest interest in learning things.

Book Description

Four independent-minded sisters come of age in the early 1900s - and four interwoven novels tell their stories, each through a different sister’s eyes.

The year is 1910, and the four Purcell sisters have only each other. Their mother has died, leaving them orphans in a rambling country estate. But with the help of the Mackenzies - their guardian and his family, whom the sisters come to love in very different ways - Sarah, Frances, Julia, and Gwen find the courage to follow their own paths in a world that is rapidly changing.
Avid readers and fans of historical-fiction classics will love these spirited heroines - named "the Little Women of our times" by the TIMES of London - and will be thoroughly absorbed by their intertwining tales, full of feistiness, creativity, and young romance.

Customer Reviews:

So that was life..........2004-05-05

I want to start off by saying that "Gwen's Story" was a very satisfying conclusion to the Quantock Quartet. These four books are some of the best I've ever read, and Gwen's Story lives up to the expectations created by the others. The first part of the novel covers her young years, mentioning some of the same events as the earlier novels. We find out what happened to Gwen on the walk over the Quantocks. Most of the story covers Gwen's later life, which you think would make it hard to relate to, but makes the story much more interesting. More is learned about Frances' and Julia's later life, and I came to love Tony, who very much takes after Antony (who I always liked). My only small complaint is that we never see Sarah again, expect in the occasional mention of a letter to or from her. Gwen asserts her independence in a trip to Germany and she finally lets go of something she'd been holding on to for a long time. All in all, Gwen's Story is one of the best in the series, and a wonderful end to the Quantock Quartet.

a good finish.......2003-12-21

Gwen's Story was a great way to finish the series. You learn more and more about each character as you read each novel, and when you reach Gwen, you learn things about her that you never even realized in the previous novels. Gwen's story, I think, is the most tragic of the four in the set. It's definately a must read to end off the series. Also, Gwen's story goes into the 1930s, so you get to see how all of the other characters have developed over time (from Gwen's perspective, of course).

Beyond the Orchid House.......2002-12-03

I have read all four of this quartet and found this one the most interesting all the way through. I liked Sarah and Frances's stories, but found they still became boring in parts, and didn't really like Julia's at all. This was easily the most touching and sad of the books, and I think, the most well written.
Unlike the other books, this one doesn't have much about the First World War in it, instead concentrating on Gwen's later life. I expected this to make the book boring, but it doesn't. Instead it makes it far more realistic and original. (The reason I didn't really like Julia's book so much was because it was the typical 'war story' and the characters were boring.) Gwen, although she fades into the background in the other books, is actually a very interesting character and I like Antony the best of the Mackensie brothers.
This whole quartet is great for anyone who likes historical fiction, though I advise reading them in order (I didn't) otherwise you can get a bit confused.

A 13 Year Old's Opinion.......2002-04-26

Gwen's Story is a wonderful book. She loves to garden and to paint flowers. Gwen has always been in both of her older sisters shadow. If you love to read good books, read this series!!!!!!

Book Description

A complete resource on the coating of tablets, capsules, and other solid dosage forms of therapeutic agents, this book begins with a full discussion of the primary processes and rationale for coating and goes on to cover methodologies, formulations, processing methods, equipment, and cleaning. It explores automation of the coating process, including hardware and software requirements and examines major stability and quality control issues. As special features, the book includes a guide for troubleshooting of film-coated products, a list of trademarked ingredients and equipment for film coating, and a checklist for a QC coating-defect reporting program.

Pharmaceutical Coating Technology (Pharmaceutical Sciences Series)

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Pharmaceutical Coating Technology (Pharmaceutical Sciences Series)
Graham Cole , John Hogan , and Michael Aulton
Manufacturer: Informa Healthcare
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

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All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
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ASIN: 0136628915

Book Description

This book is the definitive work on the theory and practice of pharmaceutical tablet and pellet coating. It describes both the practical and theoretical aspects of tablet coating, including the equipment and methods used in laboratory development, scale-up and production systems, as well as automation and validation. This book also discusses the problems of conforming to world-wide regulations, and the hazards of environmental pollution.

Aqueous Polymeric Coatings for Pharmaceutical Dosage Forms (Drugs and the Pharmaceutical Sciences)

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Aqueous Polymeric Coatings for Pharmaceutical Dosage Forms (Drugs and the Pharmaceutical Sciences)
James McGinity
Manufacturer: Informa Healthcare
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Pharmacology | Medicine | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0824797736

Book Description

Presents an analysis of advances in aqueous-based polymeric coatings used around the world, providing coverage of coated dosage forms, film defects, and the characterization of polymers. The second edition offers information on biodegradeable and sillicone-based elastomer dispersions, the physical and mechanical properties of polymeric films, and more.

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Pharmaceutical coating technology
Charles A Signorino
Manufacturer: The Division
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: B0006QS4D8

Book Description

This book provides a comprehensive overview of modern particle physics accessible to anyone with a true passion for wanting to know how the universe works. We are introduced to the known particles of the world we live in. An elegant explanation of quantum mechanics and relativity paves the way for an understanding of the laws that govern particle physics. These laws are put into action in the world of accelerators, colliders and detectors found at institutions such as CERN and Fermilab that are in the forefront of technical innovation. Real world and theory meet using Feynman diagrams to solve the problems of infinities and deduce the need for the Higgs boson.

Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics offers an incredible insight from an eyewitness and participant in some of the greatest discoveries in 20th century science. From Einstein's theory of relativity to the elusive Higgs particle, this book will fascinate and educate anyone interested in the world of quarks, leptons and gauge theories.

This book also contains many thumbnail sketches of particle physics personalities, including contemporaries as seen through the eyes of the author. Illustrated with pictures, these candid sketches present rare, perceptive views of the characters that populate the field.

The Chapter on Particle Theory, in a pre-publication, was termed `superbly lucid' by David Miller in Nature (Vol. 396, 17 Dec. 1998), p.642.

Customer Reviews:

Wonderful - both instructive and entertaining.......2007-03-30

Martinus Veltman has a rare gift - to have indepth knowledge of a complex subject, and be able to give the layman a plausible explanation of it. I have almost completed my second reading of the book. Such was the wealth of information, and my eagerness to read, that I could not take it all in on the first reading. The reader must persist with some of Dr Veltman's language quirks , but this is a minor criticism - the effort is handsomely repaid. His character profiles (occasionally caricatures), and personal stories, add a human dimension, and serve to point out that it takes many brilliant and hard working people, not just theorists and not just Nobel Prize winners, to create an edifice as grand (and yet fragile) as the Standard Model. Highly commended - a beautiful legacy for future generations.

A very good book.......2007-01-12

This is a well structured book which describes developments in modern physics in an in-depth and comprehensive way.
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After a preliminary discussion of basic physical issues, the author launches into a detailed, yet non mathematical, outline of the standard model of particle physics which he rightly says is a beautiful model indeed. His discussion of this is a highlight of the book and the book is worth buying for this chapter alone. He then goes on to discuss quantum mechanics as well as discussing aspects of relativity pertinent to particle physics.

Understanding the basic elements of the universe did not happen overnight but rather was the fulfilment of a combined effort of a large number of people. At all stages throughout the book, the author illustrates the contribution of the various personalities involved, and does it so that the reader appreciates the erstwhile contribution each person made. The author himself made a significant contribution.

Of course, not just the `who' is relevant. How they achieved the various breakthroughs is also important and the book's discussion of the history and development of modern accelerators and particle colliders is of particular interest.

Finally the discussion of the theory of particles and of interactions within particles concludes what is an enjoyable and interesting book on topics that are justifiably regarded as complicated, yet are dealt with in the book in an easy and very readable way .

This book is recommended for all who wish to appreciate current ideas about the basic elementary particles of nature and would like to have an understanding of these incredible `building blocks' of our wonderful universe..

Excelente Libro.......2007-01-10

Muy bien explicado si tus conocimientos sobre física de partículas no son excelentes. Matemáticamente sencillo de comprender

unique book, but read others too.......2006-09-28

This is a unique book.

First of all, the paper, font, diagrams, and cover are wonderful. It's really a nice looking book cover to cover.

Next, the author includes biographies of people involved in the field. The writing is candid and humorous. The biographies don't read like a textbook at all. They include his own opinions, as well as interesting anecdotes about the people.

Finally, the author includes some of his own personal story in the book, regarding his work in particle physics. It's nice to see a first-hand account. I enjoy his commentary.

All these things make this a special book, and worth reading.

The author can be somewhat grumpy, but you have to take that with a sense of humor. Consider that physicists (I am one) tend to be literal and often TOO honest, at the risk of being blunt or awkward. So try not to be put off.

Some parts of the book are a bit tedious. If you really want to understand the topic, read some other books along with this one. If there's only one book to get, try Oerter's "Theory of Almost Everything". But if you want a few books, then definitely include this one.

Not Finished Reading Yet, But Easy And Good Book.......2006-08-08

If you "understand" at least to some extent quantum theory you will enjoy this book. It is not described by math equations but Good writing and Analogies.You Must understand elementary particles to get quantum physics and mechanics to understand how they work since it's so different from our daily reality, you must visualize. I have read enough books and looked up info on the net to grasp the sense of quantum theory and it's counterparts, Read "Parallel Worlds" By Michio Kaku, He describes things so easily. 4 stars because no book is a five yet for me except the book previously Mentioned because of it's simplicity and wide variety of topics covered. Good luck opening your mind.

A visit to the particle zoo.(Physics)(Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics)(Book Review): An article from: American Scientist

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A visit to the particle zoo.(Physics)(Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics)(Book Review): An article from: American Scientist

Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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ASIN: B0008GFCL8
Release Date: 2006-02-10

Book Description

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Boorstin has spent a lifetime exploring facets of the American experience. This new addition to the Modern Library is an omnibus collection drawn from his many books, including the monumental trilogy The Americans.

A nation of readers: Remarks at a dinner on April 21, 1982, in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress (The Center for the Book viewpoint series)

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A nation of readers: Remarks at a dinner on April 21, 1982, in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress (The Center for the Book viewpoint series)
Daniel J Boorstin
Manufacturer: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0844404020

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