Put this one on your winter reading list! It's a keeper. Crosscurrents is a super series of essays on a wide variety of fly fishing subjects. You can read part of a chapter, (which Lyons Press has graciously allowed us to reprint in installments) beginning this week in With Bamboo entitled Blue Collar Cane.

The author, James R. Babb (who really is one of the good-old-boys) is known to friends as Jim. He is a particularly neat guy, with more than a "writer who fishes" knowledge about fly fishing. He is a fly fisherman. You can read a chapter, close you eyes and be there. Feel the water, smell the smells, and smile. He writes all with an inate humor and grace.

Jim's background is substantial - but it's his writing which is impressive. Perhaps the neatest thing about Crosscurrents is he tells the truth. About the art of fly fishing, about what has happened to it, and how it effects us all. He doesn't mention 'us' of course, it's just in there. The guy really can write.

It really is terrific. If you can read, get it. ~ DLB

Crosscurrents
210 pages.
Hard Bound: $24.95 US (ISBN: 1-55821-946-3)
Published by The Lyons Press
124 West 18th Street, New York, New York 10011
Phone: 212-620-9580