Great reads, what's on your night stand?

[Eight Thumbs]

I'm afraid that my night stand looks more like a lending library then a piece of furniture. It's covered with books and magazines. I always try not knock off 10-12 pages of something before I make a serious effort to fall asleep. Sometimes I don't succeed; I will wake up in the middle of the night with the book on my chest and the light still on. Reading materials on the night table includes 11 assorted fly fishing/tying magazines and

Major Reading Projects:

Dave Hughes Nymphs for Streams and Still Waters Excellent, Excellent, Excellent book!

Karel Krivanec Czech Nymph and Other Related Fly Fishing Methods Another very good book

Peter MacInnis 100 Discoveries: The Greatest Breakthroughs in History. This guy doesn't know anything because he fails to include the Parachute Dry Fly, the Double Haul and the Whip Finish.

John Kumiski Flyrodding Florida Salt Super great book if you are headed to Florida and need very specific where-to-fish information.

Minor Reading Projects:

The Freshwater Angler Series Fishing Rivers and Streams Nice, light reading with lots of pictures which covers some very important concepts. Got this at Hamiltonbooks.com at a very deep discount.

James Mannion Essentials of Philosophy For nights when I'm having trouble falling asleep. 3-4 pages and I'm out like a light.

Steve Dobbs The South Carolina Lawn Guide What can I say? My Burmuda grass keeps trying to die so it can go to a better place. I may have the only suicidal Brumuda grass in the whole world.

In answer to your question about book collections, I'm afraid that I fall into the category of "books before food." I've been collecting, reading and enjoying fly fishing/tying books since 1957 when my grandfather gave me a copy of George Herter's Fly Tying and Lure Making and Bill Blades' Fishing Flies and Fly Tying. I can't give you an exact count because of loans to friends and other books scattered around the house but I'm somewhere in the neighborhood of 380 books. A few of those are general fishing books but most are fly fishing and fly tying. I'm right around the same number for cookbooks and books on grilling/barbecue. Christmas, birthdays, and Father's Day are always celebrated with a trip to Barnes and Noble or Amazon.com. 8T

[perch]

Great reads , whats on your night stand?

I have a lamp and an ear plug (only need one , mostly deaf in the other ear ) . If she starts to breath loudly (aka snore) I turn on the lamp and stuff an ear plug in my good ear.
Seriouly, I've seen what many of you all are reading and am impressed with the wide array of literary interests of the folkes here . Some of it sounds a bit intimidating !
I've eliminated nost of my library over the years. Now I just try to keep it very light ,some art ,a bit of comedy, absolutely none of the classics (Moby Dick? give me a break , Ahab needed to take a deep breath and let it go!).

Now I mostly like the old "Pat McManus " stories.
I (fortunatly) can relate to a lot of his stories .


Strive for simplicity ,
Change is bad!

[Mike Ormsby]

Didn't see it mentioned: Fly Fishing Through The Midlife Crisis by Howell Raines

[Lake Erie High Ball]

On the night stand is W.E.B. Griffin: Double Agents, American Angler, and Fly fishing and Tying Journal and Golf Digest.

Books on deck to read "Ike, An American Hero" by, Michael Korda.
"Pearl Harbor" by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen and "The Few" by Alex Kershaw.

Sounds like "The river Why" is going to be on my read list!

Recommend; any thing by Patrick McManus.

Nice post by the way!

Sean

[Steve Molcsan]

These two books bring back some wonderful memories,
the first I purchased from blue ribbon flies many years ago,

The second was a special treat, it included the authors phone number
when I finished reading it I gave Gary a call to compliment him, he promptly invited me up for a day on his favorite river with Chester.
A memory I will always treasure

1.) Minor Tactics of the Chalkstream, by Skues

2.) Fly Fishing the Mountain Lakes, by LaFontaine

Another great read I think most would like is The Dry Fly and Fast Water, by La. Branche
La Branche and Skues were friends and Fast Water includes correspondences
between the two of them from 1925 until 1947.
Very insightful informative reading..

Steve

[Dblackman]

I just picked up a couple more books last night. I dont read much so these should last a while, but I got A Good Life Wasted by Dave Ames. I havnt started it yet. And I got Why We Suck by Denis Leary. Its good so far. Oh and i picked up a biography of Janis Joplin. I absolutely love rock and roll bios.