"Diezmo" racconta la storia vera dell'assurda e tragica spedizione Mier. Due giovani amici, James Alexander e James Shepherd vengono reclutati per servire in una pattuglia che perlustra il confine del Texas. Attraverso i ricordi di James Alexander, il romanzo racconta gli orrori della missione sul fronte messicano, dove i due amici finiranno per essere catturati e rinchiusi in un carcere terribile da cui cercheranno disperatamente di scappare. Sottoposti a ogni tipo di supplizio, il narratore e i suoi compagni passeranno attraverso il 'Diezmo', una durissima selezione per cui uno su dieci verrà giustiziato. Un sogno di grandi trionfi destinato a trasformarsi prima in un inno alla violenza, poi in una preghiera per la sopravvivenza e in un nostalgico ricordo di casa. Rick Bass ci racconta la storia della sanguinaria spedizione Mier, una delle imprese più tragiche e assurde della storia di quel Texas che, come scrive l'autore, "è nato nel sangue". Un romanzo magistrale, che ci svela l'incredibile capacità umana di sopravvivere a ciò che di peggio la guerra può fare.

Erede della grande tradizione delle short stories, Rick Bass racconta con tocco poetico i sentimenti del mondo rude della provincia americana, in continuo scontro con la bellezza di una natura incontaminata. Storie di desideri, di sentimenti, di sogni - commoventi e impulsive - narrate con dolcezza e lirismo. Descrivendo i sontuosi paesaggi dell'America, Bass esplora la forza della natura e la complessità della società moderna, l'interiorità umana e la frenesia del mondo. In questi tredici racconti torna prepotente il misticismo di questo autore, l'attenzione per le vite dei suoi personaggi, così profondamente umani. Coinvolti da una prosa viva e delicata, condividiamo con i protagonisti di queste storie speranze e illusioni, le luci e le ombre del sogno americano, tratteggiate con incredibile lucidità da un vero maestro.

Con un'abile narrazione che salta dal ricordo del promettente passato dei Browns al loro straziante presente, Rick Bass narra le vicende di una famiglia dimenticata e descrive con realismo un'epoca che fece la storia della musica americana. Nashville Chrome è un accordo perfettamente intonato: un armonico racconto della società moderna e una dura riflessione sulle complessità del successo. Alla fine del 1959, i fratelli Brown - Maxine, Bonnie e Jim Ed - godono di un successo internazionale senza precedenti, eguagliato solo dal loro amico Elvis Presley. Tra le mani hanno un pezzo da cifre folli, in cima alle migliori classifiche di musica country e pop, e destinato a dare origine alla multimilionaria industria musicale dei nostri tempi. Incantati dai Browns, persino i Beatles cercheranno di scoprire i loro segreti, per scoprire che la straordinaria armonia del trio scaturisce dal loro profondo legame familiare. Come scrive Rick Bass: "I Browns sono persone reali e ciò che hanno dato alla musica americana e il modo in cui l'hanno fatto sono reali; Nashville Chrome, però, è un'opera dell'ingegno." Questo è il loro romanzo, la loro ascesa e la loro caduta: in un mondo in continua evoluzione, la loro fama non è destinata a durare, e i legami fraterni cominciano a sgretolarsi così come il loro successo. Una storia profondamente americana di creazione, distruzione e rinascita.

I dodici racconti che compongono questo volume sono dei piccoli gioielli. Narrazioni in cui la prosa asciutta si mischia a descrizioni dal lirismo più spiccato, dove la natura diventa materia mitologica, prima ancora che mezzo per comprendere la psiche dei personaggi. Cane da petrolio (letteralmente è chi ha il fiuto del cercatore di petrolio) è la storia di un uomo che deve decidere da che parte stare. Accade spesso nei racconti di Bass, quando l'aspetto onirico è trasfigurato in un misticismo che permette al lettore di scoprire il confine tra la vita e la morte. In poche pagine, Rick Bass riesce a creare un universo naturale che non ha confini.

The definitive collection of stories--new and old--from Rick Bass, "one of this country's most intelligent and sensitive short story writers" (New York Times Book Review).

Rick Bass is unparalleled in his ability to evoke the enduring verities of the human heart amid astonishing portraits of wilderness both within and without. In his world we encounter larger-than-life characters--a couple that escapes from a sudden blizzard by traversing a frozen lake beneath the ice, or a young boxer who flees from a charging horse as a means of training for bar fights--each attempting to triumph against fate and time, in rugged landscapes that both save and destroy.

These stories, filled with magic, beauty, and grandeur, are crafted with an artist's eye for detail. Together they present an iconic American writer at his peak, and form the landmark Rick Bass book that every fiction reader must have.

In November, countless families across Texas head out for the annual deer hunt, a ritual that spans generations, ethnicities, socioeconomics, and gender as perhaps no other cultural experience in the state. Rick Bass’s family has returned to the same hardscrabble piece of land in the Hill Country—“the Deer Pasture”—for more than seventy-five years. In A Thousand Deer, Bass walks the Deer Pasture again in memory and stories, tallying up what hunting there has taught him about our need for wildness and wilderness, about cycles in nature and in the life of a family, and particularly about how important it is for children to live in the natural world. The arc of A Thousand Deer spans from Bass’s boyhood in the suburbs of Houston, where he searched for anything rank or fecund in the little oxbow swamps and pockets of woods along Buffalo Bayou, to his commitment to providing his children in Montana the same opportunity—a life afield—that his parents gave him in Texas. Inevitably this brings him back to the Deer Pasture and the passing of seasons and generations he has experienced there. Bass lyrically describes his own passage from young manhood, when the urge to hunt was something primal, to mature adulthood and the waning of the urge to take an animal, his commitment to the hunt evolving into a commitment to family and to the last wild places.

The core book in SEI's influential architecture curriculum, this book introduces software architecture both for practicing software engineers and for students pursuing careers in software design or management. It combines the authority of SEI's pioneering curriculum with the proven pedagogical effectiveness of a book that's been used for many years in countless training and college courses. The authors provide a comprehensive overview of the field of software architecture in a single, easy-to-digest package. They have improved this edition with a much deeper treatment of architecture throughout the software development life cycle, including detailed coverage of the various contexts within which architecture exists. It will now be accompanied by slides, exercises, and exercise answers - all designed to make it even easier to teach and learn from. Case studies have been moved to a companion website. To make space for these improvements, case studies have been moved to a companion website. This book will help readers understand: * Why software architecture is critical to development projects and the organization as a whole * Which technical and organizational factors influence architecture, and are in turn influenced by it * How architecture drives quality attributes such as performance and reliability * How to master and choose among today's best architectural tactics

"Bass creates a slice of music history from the ground up, from the backwoods and front porches all the way to Elvis." —Los Angeles Times

1959: the Brown siblings are the biggest thing in country music. Their inimitable harmony will give rise to the polished sound of the multibillion-dollar country music industry we know today. But when the bonds of family begin to fray, the flame of their celebrity proves as brilliant as it is fleeting. In this arresting novel, acclaimed author Rick Bass draws poignant portraits of their lives, lived both in and out of the limelight. Masterfully jumping between the Browns' once auspicious past and the heartbreaking present, Nashville Chrome is the richly imagined story of this forgotten family and an unflinching portrait of an era in American music.

"An empathic, breath-catching, mythic and profoundly American tale of creation, destruction and renewal." —Kansas City Star

"Splendid . . . Rick Bass's best." —Dallas Morning News

In 1959, Maxine, Bonnie and Jim Ed Brown were enjoying enormous show business success, rivaled only by their longtime friend Elvis Presley. Their huge hit topped country and pop charts, and gave rise to the polished sound of the multi-billion dollar country music industry we know today. Others tried -- and failed -- to learn the secret of their perfect pitch, which was honed by a childhood spent listening for the elusive pulse and tone of a perfectly tempered blade at their parent's Arkansas sawmill.

But the Browns' celebrity couldn't survive a changing world, and the bonds of family began to fray along with their fame. Maxine -- once supremely confident and ravenous in her pursuit of applause -- is now ailing and alone. As her world narrows, her hunger for just one more chance to secure her legacy grows.

From the blue suede intonations of Elvis's Graceland in Memphis to the columnar austerity of mansions along State Street in Jackson, Highway 51 flows, an artery of commerce, music, and literary interchange.

Highway 51 is the first photography book to focus on this storied route through Mississippi hill country, a defining but often overlooked region of the state. In ninety color photographs Gloria Norris captures the landmarks, the beautiful and rugged scenery, the people, and their unforgettable music. Her images serve as a confirmation of tradition in this part of Mississippi and as a reminder of what has changed forever.

This road connects William Faulkner's fierce hill counties and Eudora Welty's resonant terrains, Elvis's hip-shaking boogies and R. L. Burnside's hypnotically grinding blues. Highway 51 depicts a natural world sometimes swept by violent tornadoes and rainstorms but dominated by rolling, green landscapes and a society that still lives close to the soil. In Norris's photographs, people and places reveal the many contradictions of life along this much-traveled path. With an introduction by Rick Bass, this volume offers a vision of a distinctive culture and setting that until now has been little documented.