Great Gifts for Father's Day

Nothing better for Dad on Father's Day than a great book, and The Winged Elephant has a few suggestions for weekend shoppers. For the outdoorsman, How to Fish by Chris Yates. For the history buff, The Plot Against Pepys and The Imperial Capitals of China. For the inquisitive, philosophical Dad, we recommend The Secret History of the World. And for all those Dad's just looking for a little quiet time with a great novel, we recommend Gerald Seymour's The Walking Dead and Warren Adler's Funny Boys, both page-turners, hot off the press.

HOW TO FISH in Spirituality & Health Magazine

Perhaps there are some of us who wouldn't expect to read about a new fishing book in a magazine like Spirituality & Health, but Overlook's new How to Fish by Chris Yates is not your ordinary fishing primer. Here's what Spirituality & Health has to say: "Although Chris Yates is not a patient man, 'fishing offers a dimension where, even if you don't cast very far into it, you can be free of the wiredup world and suddenly in touch with an equally complex, less concise but deeper-rooted reality.' Photographer and founder of Waterlog magazine, Yates goes down to the riverbank one autumn morning and takes us with him. Morning slides into afternoon, and Yates describes his appreciation for the shifting scene, the history of the river, and the fish. His obsession is the perch. "The perch," he says, "is as emblematic of autumn as an amber leaf, a field of mist, a russet apple or a plume of bonfire smoke. It is the colour, charm, and soul of an autumn river made fish-shaped." After that, there's a little drizzle: he wonders what it sounds like underwater and if the fish feel it. The light changes and so does the shape of the river. He casts; his quill sails downstream and vanishes. Yates spends the long day at the river, measuring time in the number of casts. Sure that he is in the presence of perch, he waits for a sign; "Perhaps this fly on my pen will lead me to it," The "it" being as much the fish and the fishing itself, for unlike football and golf, fishing is non-linear and the only rules are moral. Fishing "makes us whole again each time we give it expression," This insightful, whimsical, poetical, practical memoir and how-to guide will delight anyone who has ever fished — and anyone who has ever wondered why he does fish."

Overlook Preview: HOW TO FISH by Chris Yates

Coming this Spring from The Overlook Press is a modern masterpiece on the joys of fishing from one of the world's most revered angling writers, Chris Yates. How to Fish is an inspirational collection of essays that will delight both newcomers and experts.

From the Publishers Weekly review: "Though new to American readers, Yates is well known in the U.K. as a journalist and TV presenter, and also for catching what was, in 1980, the biggest fish in the history of English fishing. In his new book, Yates has set out to capture the thoughts and stories that came to him as he sat on the riverbank and waited for a bite. Among fishermen in the U.S., philosophy and poetry are usually the domain of trout fly fishers, but Yates applies these two abstractions to bait fishing for such unrefined-sounding fish as chub, barbell, gudgeon and perch. In his accessible and occasionally lyrical prose, Yates sums up a year on a river in chapter-long musings on a host of fishing and non-fishing topics, such the topography of a river, the weather, his youth, the “bird-like” beauty of a perch and the essentially British notion of the restorative powers of tea. The book is also filled with practical and tactical advice about how best to land a “whale of a perch.” Because of Yates’s intelligent observations and his pure dedication to his sport (it is his belief “that man was born to fish”), this book will be of interest to anglers on both sides of the Atlantic."

How to Fish will be available in bookstores in May 2008.