Best Selling Books by Lawrence Millman

The first collection of poetry by noted travel writer Lawrence Millman. "Tent Dwellers--Okak, Labrador" Inside this licheny ring of stones that once held down a sealskin tent, I pitch my own domed aquamarine tent and then quickly crawl inside to escape an ice pellet shower, whereupon I see a couple of my predecessors squatting dim and hazy, Dorset People with cuprous, epicanthic faces, scrapers of skin, tellers of tales, diviners of the weather, who stare at this pallid specimen from a distant age in his nylon-lined apparel, astonished that he somehow survived and they did not. Lawrence Millman is the author of eight other books (most recently An Evening among Headhunters) and hundreds of essays, short stories, and poems published in hundreds of magazines, as well as the editor of several anthologies.

In a remote corner of the Arctic in 1941, a meteor shower flashed across the sky for an unusually long time. Taking this to be a sign, one of the local Inuit proclaimed himself Jesus Christ. Another proclaimed himself God. Anyone who didn’t believe in them was Satan. Violence ensued. At the End of the World isn’t just the remarkable story of a series of murders that occurred on the Belcher Islands, a group of wind-blasted rocks in Canada’s Hudson Bay. It’s also a starting place for a deeper cultural exploration. Against the backdrop of the murders, which highlight the fact that senseless violence in the name of religion is not a contemporary phenomenon and that a even people as seemingly peaceful as the Inuit can turn to chaos at the hands of one person’s delusion, Millman addresses the burgeoning dawn of the digital era, following the murders’ trail to show how our obsession with screens is not unlike a cult and offering a warning cry against the erosion of humanity and the destruction of the environment. The story becomes a confluence of the consequences of generational trauma, outside religious evangelism, systemic racism against indigenous people, the perilous passage from the natural to the digital world, and what it means to be human in a time of technological dominance and climate disasters. At the End of the World, available for the first time in paperback, is not a straightforward tale of true crime but an examination of many of the issues that have become dominant in the global conversation. In snippets of reflection, Millman asks us to look north for answers to many of the questions we all hold, literally, in our hands.

Outsider: My Boyhood with Thoreau is a memoir told in vignettes by the mycologist and author Lawrence Millman. Early on, Millman found in Thoreau a kindred spirit, far outside of the mainstream social, sporting, and educational interests he was expected to be cultivating. And like Thoreau, he would rather be out-of-doors — where he could socialize with mushrooms, insects, or earthworms — than stuck in any indoor locale.

Drinks With God is what you might get if you blended the wit of George Carlin, the satire of Jonathan Swift, and the quirky imagination of Kurt Vonnegut. In this irreverent and humorous narrative, the Supreme Being himself confesses to being a celestial klutz, making cosmic blunders from the dawn of time to the present day. From accidentally creating an upright squirrel in a jockstrap in his attempt to make the first human, to sending a swarm of hummingbirds instead of locusts to plague the Egyptians, this God is far from the omnipotent figure we know from the Bible. Within the pages of Drinks With God, the reader is treated to an unconventional take on familiar biblical figures. From his ''weirdo'' son Jesus, the amorous Holy Ghost, and the entrepreneurial Noah, to the not-so-virginal Virgin Mary, a sassy Judas Iscariot, and a chef Satan who has a flair for spicy cuisine – these characters are reimagined in a way you''ve never seen before. And where does God divulge these surprising insights? Not in a heavenly realm, but in the more earthly locales of New York City''s bars, coffee houses, and parks, revealing a deity who enjoys a good drink. Reading Drinks With God might not sway your religious beliefs, but it''s guaranteed to leave you in stitches. Prepare for a hilarious, blasphemous, and utterly unique exploration of divinity like no other. "Drinks With God has reopened my eyes to the truth that humor, maybe even blasphemous humor, is the only way to make sense of this distracted, click-happy, self-infatuated world." – Cornelius Walters, author of Fairy Snow. "OMG! Millman''s latest book is divine – a heaven-sent blessing for atheists, unbelievers, heretics, and anyone who still has a fully-functioning funny bone." – Gary Allen, author of Galloping Gourmand. "A round of hilarious irreverence from a unique writer!" – Jim Christy, author of The Rough Road to the North and Scalawags.

"This little book is big fun."—Michael Pollan An illustrated mini-encyclopedia of fungal lore, from John Cage and Terence McKenna to mushroom sex and fairy rings Fungipedia presents a delightful A–Z treasury of mushroom lore. With more than 180 entries—on topics as varied as Alice in Wonderland, chestnut blight, medicinal mushrooms, poisonings, Santa Claus, and waxy caps—this collection will transport both general readers and specialists into the remarkable universe of fungi. Combining ecological, ethnographic, historical, and contemporary knowledge, author and mycologist Lawrence Millman discusses how mushrooms are much more closely related to humans than to plants, how they engage in sex, how insects farm them, and how certain species happily dine on leftover radiation, cockroach antennae, and dung. He explores the lives of individuals like African American scientist George Washington Carver, who specialized in crop diseases caused by fungi; Beatrix Potter, creator of Peter Rabbit, who was prevented from becoming a professional mycologist because she was a woman; and Gordon Wasson, a J. P. Morgan vice-president who almost single-handedly introduced the world to magic mushrooms. Millman considers why fungi are among the most significant organisms on our planet and how they are currently being affected by destructive human behavior, including climate change. With charming drawings by artist and illustrator Amy Jean Porter, Fungipedia offers a treasure trove of scientific and cultural information. The world of mushrooms lies right at your door—be amazed!

The Last Speaker of Bear is the patchwork story of a life spent traveling in the north from Alaska to Siberia. Lawrence Millman first visited northern Canada as a child and has spent four decades since on some thirty-five expeditions in search of undeveloped landscapes and traditional cultures, not to mention untamed wildlife. While much of his experience is centered in Canada—including territories from Yukon to Quebec and Newfoundland/Labrador—he includes stories from villages in Greenland, Iceland, and Norway as well. Early on, Millman developed a reverence for the wisdom of indigenous and native communities with histories spanning centuries: Inuit, Inuk, Innu, Alutiiq, Cree, and others. Whether dining on mushrooms, fungus, tobacco leaves, or unusual foods that would have made even Andrew Zimmern or Anthony Bourdain turn up their noses, or exploring northern tundras, rugged mountains, or remote islands, he paints a picture of people often living in tenuous conditions but rooted in a faith that their worlds will provide for them. Relationships with bears, caribou, reindeer, walruses, seals, whales, and abundant avian life serve spiritual, companionship, and sustenance purposes. Traditions grounded in family and community rituals thrive, as do lost languages, natural medicine, and time-honored ways to survive difficult circumstances.. In this collection of vignettes, Millman reminds us of the potency of endangered knowledge as well as the importance of paying close attention to the natural world. He opens our eyes to a life in remote places thousands of miles from the fast-paced, urban world so many of us inhabit.

A classic of northern exploration and adventure, LAST PLACES is Lawrence Millman''s marvelously told account of his journey along the ancient Viking sea routes that extend from Norway to Newfoundland. Traveling through landscapes of transcendent desolation, Millman wandered by way of the Shetland Islands, the Faeroes, Iceland, Greenland, and Labrador. His way was marked by surprising human encounters--with a convicted murderer in Reykjavik, an Inuit hermit in Greenland, an Icelandic guide who leads him to a place called Hell, and a Newfoundlander who warns him about the local variant of the Abominable Snowman. By turns earthy and lyrical, LAST PLACES is an ebullient celebration of the exotic North.

We follow inveterate traveler Lawrence Millman to Tropical Retreats, Northern Outposts, The Back of Beyond, and Islands off the Map (the four categories into which this book is divided), and without fail, wherever this pied piper takes us, we are sure to be entertained by his enthusiastic, rhapsodic, wry, and opinionated observations. One reviewer said of Millman, "If Dr. Seuss wrote travel books, they would surely resemble this one. . . ".

"This is a great book about life at remote bases in Canada''s far north as seen by a young English boy who went there by himself to see the world and got more than he could have bargained for. Beautifully written." --Sir Ranulph Fiennes "As spare, gleaming, and exhilarating as the Arctic wastes and the gentle, stoic Eskimos who had mastery of this realm . . . The book evokes the frozen seas, whale hunts, snow plains and storms that intimidated those rash enough to brave this world, and the traditions, myths, and hunting skills that contoured a bygone way of life . . . His translucent prose is a sparkling and moving record." -- Times (London) At sixteen, Edward Beauclerk Maurice impulsively signed up with the Hudson''s Bay Company -- the Company of Gentleman Adventurers -- and was sent to an isolated trading post in the Canadian Arctic, where there was no telephone or radio and only one ship arrived each year. But the Inuit people who traded there taught him how to track polar bears, build igloos, and survive expeditions in ferocious winter storms. He learned their language and became so immersed in their culture and way of life that children thought he was Inuit himself. When an epidemic struck, Maurice treated the sick using a simple first aid kit, and after a number of the hunters died, he had to start hunting himself, often with women, who soon began to compete for his affections. The young man who in England had never been alone with a woman other than his mother and sisters had come of age in the Arctic. In The Last Gentleman Adventurer Edward Beauclerk Maurice transports the reader to a time and a way of life now lost forever. After serving in the New Zealand navy during World War II, Edward Beauclerk Maurice became a bookseller in an English village and rarely traveled again. He died in 2003 as this, his only book, was being readied for publication. "If you like reality, The Last Gentleman Adventurer will be your cup of tea: a delicious quaff of it. Savor it!" -- Edward Hoagland "Maurice''s memoir supplies a fascinating elegy to a vanishing world." -- Telegraph "One of those rare writers who will be remembered for turning out one great memoir/travel book . . . He relates these events in a beautiful prose that is quaintly elegant in tone but never archly so . . . Not only a gentleman but a wonderful writer who limited his output to one book, and perhaps that is why it reads so beautifully." -- Sunday Tribune (Dublin) "Maybe he was exceptional, but the charm of his book lies in its modesty; he makes no claims for himself. His concern was to make a record of some amazing adventures and a vanishing way of life; these are woven into an eye-opening narrative that is suffused with kindliness and an attitude to growing up more restrained but more humane than that prevailing today. A gentleman adventurer indeed." -- Times Educational Supplement "A deceptively simple account of how he grew to manhood, shaped on one hand by the brutal elements of the Arctic, on the other by the compassionate communities of Inuit who understood them . . . This is a beautifully unadorned, homespun tale with a lack of self-consciousness rare in travel literature . . . I was charmed." -- Benedict Allen, Independent on Sunday

A best-selling Arctic classic set against the unforgiving Labrador landscape.

Award-winning travel writer Millman tromps through West Ireland''s rugged countryside to record the oral history of its people before their hard-earned traditions are permanently stifled by industrialization and development. In doing so, he produces a "lovely nugget of good writing" ("New York Times") that relays the personal tales of traditional laborers-the tinkers, cartwrights, rat-charmers, coopers, thatchers, farriers, gleemen, pig-gelders-with candor and depth. "Writing that is altogether finer than anything one has a right to expect." -"Washington Post" Marketing plans for "Notes from the West of Ireland": Events in New England Advertising in key travel, Irish, and literary publications Co-op available Lawrence Millman writes for "The Atlantic Monthly," "National Geographic," and "Smithsonian," and has published nine books, including "Last Places" and "Hero Jesse," He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"Jesse is a slightly retarded teenage boy whose perspective on his older brother''s experiences in Vietnam leads him to acts of violence in imitation of the war he sees on the television news"--Google Books

Das Reich der Pilze ist noch immer voller Geheimnisse: Sind Pilze wirklich enger mit uns Menschen verwandt als mit Pflanzen? Gibt es tatsächlich Insekten, die Pilze züchten? Und warum ernähren sich bestimmte Pilze gerne von Strahlungsresten, Kakerlakenfühlern und Dung? Autor und Mykologe Lawrence Millman kombiniert ökologisches, ethnografisches, historisches und zeitgenössisches Wissen und lässt uns in mehr als 180 Kurztexten in die Welt der Pilze eintauchen. Von A bis Z hat er zu unterschiedlichsten Themen Interessantes und Wissenswertes zusammengestellt: Die Spanne reicht von »Alice im Wunderland« bis zu Heilpilzen und Feenringen, von Kombucha über den Fluch der Pharaonen bis hin zu Zombie-Ameisen, und Millman erzählt alles so, dass Hobbysammler wie Pilzspezialisten Neues entdecken können. Denn die spannende Welt der Pilze liegt direkt vor unserer Haustür.

Un roman exceptionnel, mystérieusement resté inédit en France depuis sa parution en 1982. 1968, Hollinsford, New Hampshire. Élevé par son père, Jesse a toujours été un outsider au comportement inquiétant, rejeté par les autres enfants du village. Avec l''adolescence, les choses ne s''arrangent pas. On l''accuse aujourd''hui d''avoir violé une jeune fille, on le menace d''un placement en institution spécialisée. Mais tout ce qui préoccupe Jesse, ce sont les images du Vietnam, qu''il suit obsessionnellement à la télévision, celles de cette guerre où est parti son frère Jeff, qu''il idolâtre. Lorsque celui-ci, démobilisé, revient au pays, rien ne se passe comme Jesse l''espérait. Et c''est pour notre héros le début d''une escalade meurtrière à la noirceur extrême. Entre le Holden Caulfield de L''Attrape-cœur et le Patrick Bateman d'' American Psycho, Jesse est difficile à situer. Est-il la victime d''un handicap mental, d''un contexte familial perturbé, d''une société où fleurissent les images violentes, ou bien un tueur en série sans empathie, capable d''éliminer ses contemporains aussi facilement que ces rats sur lesquels il aime tirer ? Lawrence Millman nous abandonne entre ces hypothèses perturbantes, jusqu''aux dernières pages du livre et leur étonnante conclusion. Un chef-d''œuvre du noir enfin extirpé de l''oubli.