Most Popular Books by David James

This captivating and exuberant tale is told by Gus Orviston, an irreverent young fly fisherman. Leaving behind a madcap, fishing-obsessed family, Gus decides to strike out on his own, taking refuge in a secluded cabin on a remote riverbank to pursue his own fly-fishing passion with unrelenting zeal. But instead of finding fishing bliss, Gus becomes increasingly troubled by the degradation of the natural world around him and by the spiritual barrenness of his own life. His desolation drives him on a reluctant quest for self-discovery and meaning, ultimately fruitful beyond his wildest dreams.

Author David Smith''s childhood near London, England, helped pave the way for the young boy to plough his own furrow in life. In Only Fraud and Horses, Smith narrates his story which includes pieces of history, police, and horsemanship. In this memoir, Smith offers a humorous and poetic account of his skills, training, and professional positions from cadet to London policeman and to Scotland Yard detective and specialist. Only Fraud and Horses also shares representative sports details, contrasts Smith''s Scots ancestry, and links developing European history, the long dependence upon the horse, and his inherited skills as a competitive, natural horseman. With photographs and historical notes included, Smith reviews a lifetime collection of family records and shares his discoveries-starting from England with surnames of Smith and Brown and going back to the 1700s in the Highlands of Scotland before Mediterranean origins.

Offers a loving tribute to the landscape, plants, and animals of his native Montana.

The Baltic States brings together three titles, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, to provide a comprehensive and analytical guide integrating history, political science, economic development and contemporary events into one account.

This intellectual portrait of Romain Rolland (1866-1944)--French novelist, musicologist, dramatist, and Nobel prizewinner in 1915--focuses on his experiments with political commitment against the backdrop of European history between the two world wars. Best known as a biographer of Beethoven and for his novel, Jean-Christophe, Rolland was one of those nonconforming writers who perceived a crisis of bourgeois society in Europe before the Great War, and who consciously worked to discredit and reshape that society in the interwar period. Analyzing Rolland''s itinerary of engaged stands, David James Fisher clarifies aspects of European cultural history and helps decipher the ambiguities at the heart of all forms of intellectual engagement. Moving from text to context, Fisher organizes the book around a series of debates--Rolland''s public and private collisions over specific committed stands--introducing the reader to the polemical style of French intellectual discourse and offering insight into what it means to be a responsible intellectual. Fisher presents Rolland''s private ruminations, extensive research, and reexamination of the function and style of the French man of letters. He observes that Rolland experimented with five styles of commitment: oceanic mysticism linked to progressive, democratic politics; free thinking linked to antiwar dissent; pacifism and, ultimately, Gandhism; antifacism linked to anti-imperialism, antiracism, and all-out political resistance to fascism; and, most controversially, fellow traveling as a form of socialist humanism and the positive side of antifascism. Fisher views Rolland''s engagement historically and critically, showing that engaged intellectuals of that time were neither naive propagandists nor dupes of political parties. David James Fisher makes a case for the committed writer and hopes to re-ignite the debate about commitment. For him, Romain Rolland sums up engagement in a striking, dialectical formula: "Pessimism of the Intelligence, Optimism of the Will." His story presents a powerful challenge to modern intellectuals. David James Fisher is a practicing psychoanalyst and clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine, Senior Faculty, Los Angeles Psychoanalytic Institute. He is the author of Cultural Theory and Psychoanalytic Tradition, published by Transaction.

Nelson Mandela is the world''s greatest idol. He has been mythologised as a flawless hero of the liberation struggle. But how exactly did his early personal and political life shape the triumphs to come? This book goes behind the myth to find the man who people have forgotten or never knew - Young Mandela, the commited freedom fighter, who left his wife and children behind to go on the run from the police in the early 1960s. For the first time, we have evidence of a specific personal motivation for Mandela''s fight against apartheid, and the book sheds light on the significant extent to which Mandela relied on white activists - a part of South African history the ANC has ignored or tried to bury. Mandela''s historic achievements came with a heavy price - this biography graphically describes the emotional turmoil he left in his wake. After meticulous research, and taking a lead from Mandela''s trusted circle, the author discovers much that is new, with many surprising, sometimes shocking details that will enhance our understanding of the world''s elder statesman. Sanctified, lionised, it turns out that Mandela is a human being after all, only too aware of his flaws and shortcomings. With unique access to people and papers, culminating in a meeting with Nelson Mandela himself, David James Smith has written the single most important contribution to our knowledge of this global icon.

Epidemiology is the study of how often diseases occur in different groups of people and why. Epidemiological information is used to plan and evaluate strategies to prevent illness and as a guide to the management of patients in whom disease has already developed. This short book aims to provide an ABC of the epidemiological approach, its terminology, and its methods.

Officially endorsed by Oracle Corporation, this detailed resource from Oracle Press explains how to maximize the centralized planning, accounting, treasury, purchasing, and management features of Oracle Financials--and revolutionize your company''s finance infrastructure.

From the award-winning author of the acclaimed story collection The Heaven of Animals, called “a wise debut…beautiful [stories] with a rogue touch” (The New York Times Book Review), comes a sweeping, domestic novel about a family that reunites at their North Carolina lake house for one last vacation before the home is sold—and the long-buried secrets that are finally revealed. The Starling family is scattered across the country. Parents Richard and Lisa live in Ithaca, New York, and work at Cornell University. Their son Michael, a salesperson, lives in Dallas with his elementary school teacher wife, Diane. Michael’s brother, Thad, an aspiring poet, makes his home in New York City with his famous painter boyfriend, Jake. For years they’ve traveled to North Carolina to share a summer vacation at the family lake house. That tradition is coming to an end, as Richard and Lisa have decided to sell the treasured summer home and retire to Florida. Before they do, the family will spend one last weekend at the lake. But what should to be a joyous farewell takes a nightmarish turn when the family witnesses a tragedy that triggers a series of dramatic revelations among the Starlings—alcoholism, infidelity, pregnancy, and a secret the parents have kept from their sons for over thirty years. As the weekend unfolds, relationships fray, bonds are tested, and the Starlings are forced to reckon with who they are and what they want from this life. Set in today’s America, Lake Life is a beautifully rendered, emotionally compelling novel in the tradition of Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections, Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, and Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth.