Doug Ammons' new book:

Good things come to those who wait, the adage goes, and for several
years now I've been waiting for Doug Ammons to publish a collection
of his river stories. Today the wait is over and I have something good
in my hands: "The Laugh of the Water Nymph and Other River Stories"
by Doug Ammons.

A few on this board probably know Doug Ammons, and I'll expand that
to say I'm sure many on this board have certainly heard of Doug
Ammons. Perhaps you've read one of his many essays that have enriched
the various whitewater publications over the years. Perhaps you've
seen one of the beautifully filmed and storied whitewater expeditions
that he's been a part of--expeditions into Bolivia, the Himalayas,
Mexico, and those hinterlands to our (USA) North where reside
fantastical realms that go by the names of Alsek and Stikine. But
there's another side to Doug: the writer-poet who has the gift to
express clearly and beautifully what the soul boaters of this special
world of ours intuitively feel. To quote a passage from the
introduction: "They (the stories) were the river holding itself up
like a mirror, and, in its folding currents, showing feelings that had
no other way of being expressed. My ideal became to have a style that
mirrored the flow of clear water, from calm to endless movement, from
delicacy to power, simplicity to complexity. I believe that moving
water is the perfect expression of emotion, and somewhere in its
endless moods, lie our own."

The book is an anthology of twenty-two stories that run the spectrum
from edgy humor (Counting Coup along the Yellowstone River), to sheer
delight (The Laugh of the Water Nymph), to poignancy (Bubblemaking over
the Locha River), to reality pushed to myth (The Tahiti Room), and many
others. A midsection graced with stunning photographs (the locations
alone would carry them) rounds out this book, which I will call a soon
to be classic.

Tell your friends about this one!

The price is $29.50 + $5.00 S&H in the USA.

Mail order from:

Water Nymph Press
415 Keith Ave.
Missoula, MT 59801

Or from his website at:

http://www.dougammons.com

It's a cold night here in the Appalachians of North Georgia. Think
I'll go stoke the wood stove and then settle down with a good book...
Ken strickland