Books about Catfish from Amazon.com

When Larry Brown died suddenly in 2004 at 53, he left a nearly finished sixth novel, A Miracle of Catfish, that revisits several of his favorite themes: fatherhood, alienation, and loneliness Shannon Ravenel, Brown's Algonquin editor, had the daunting task of trimming the enormous manuscript to manageable size, almost impossible for a responsible editor to do without the help of the author. Brown's prolix, rambling style is at times mesmerizing and at times--just rambling. Brown's notes at the end show us where the story might have gone, but it does not suffer for being unfinished. Larry Brown definitely knew where he was taking his reader, and Ravenel helped him along.

Consideration of the fatherhood theme centers around a man known only as "Jimmy's Daddy," an unregenerate, wretched human being and an ignorant, violent drunkard. His preoccupations, view of women, and treatment of Jimmy might be seen as caricatures if we didn't know that such people actually exist. Another father, with a much more interesting story, is Cortez Sharp, a farmer in the low hills near Oxford, Mississippi, for nearly fifty years. He has a daughter, Lucinda, living "with a retard" in Atlanta. The man is a layabout artist who suffers from Tourette's Syndrome, which makes Cortez think that he is simply retarded. Cortez has a deep, dark, guilty secret which is eventually revealed, but the two things that we know about him from the beginning are that he is terribly lonely and is stocking a pond he just had dug with catfish--thousands of catfish. Two minor players are Cleve, a muderous black man who is an occasional employee of Cortez's and Tommy, who delivers fish to stock Cortez's pond and owns Ursula, the Mother of all Catfish. Jimmy is the hapless nine-year-old who suffers at the hands of his daddy, and comes to the attention of Cortez who tells him--initially--to get off his property. All of these lives intersect in unexpected ways and are changed by the encounters. Brown writes hell-bent-for-leather in a style uniquely his own which carries the reader along, into landscapes interior and exterior. --Valerie Ryan.
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There are some preconceptions about southern traditions that need to be clarified Moonshining is no longer the pastime of grizzled Deliverance yahoos, but a multimillion-dollar business laced with SWAT-style raids; squirrel brains probably aren't responsible for neurological disorders; and in Louisiana, a good cockfight is fun for the whole family. These are some of the enlightened reports delivered by Burkhard Bilger as he explores the stereotypical, eclectic habits of southerners from West Virginia to Oklahoma. Despite Bilger's journalistic pedigree (he is an editor with The Sciences and Discover, and has credits in The Atlantic and Harper's, where his cockfighting piece, "Enter the Chicken" previously appeared), he slips into nostalgia just enough to romanticize a squirrel hunt, or raise a game of backwoods marbles into an Olympic march of glory.

Bilger kicks off the tour from his hometown in Oklahoma, where he "noodles"--thrashes a limb around in catfish-thick waters--hoping to land a fabled 80-pound monster with his bare hands. In Louisiana he challenges the misgivings any nonenthusiast might have about cockfighting. Even though it's illegal in most of the country, the bloodsport is thriving in the Bayou State, replete with trade magazines, well-produced venues, and American Kennel Club-worthy breeding strategies. The same passion for efficiency goes into the moonshining business, where Bilger is taken under the wing of one of the few shiners willing to lead him through his sourmash operation. A few nights later, however, Bilger is on the other side, on a raid with the local sheriff. Squirrel-brain consumption is still popular in hamlets throughout Kentucky, even after a report published in the New England Journal of Medicine blamed a neurological disease on the dish. Frog legs, one Georgia entrepreneur claims, will soon replace chicken, and southern cooking--the kind that features chitlins, pigs feet, and collards--has become haute cuisine in Atlanta. Back in Oklahoma, Bilger connects with a coonhound trainer during a long night's raccoon chase, and he follows the success of a backwoods marble team who shaped their shooters in the granite-strewn streams of Tennessee. Bilger treats each eccentric character with a distant respect and hints at the melancholy of losing tradition, no matter how bizarre. --Lolly Merrell.
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Simon Henry is all business - fish business He claims he can catch anything that swims, crawls, or floats. But when a wily old bait-stealing catfish named Oscar moves into the deep hole by Higgins Bend, folks begin to wonder if Simon Henry may have met his match. When Oscar steals the cranky fisherman's redworms and even his best five-day-old secret-recipe stinkbait, Simon Henry's skill is put to the test. And so begins the great battle between Simon Henry and the wily Oscar. Neighbors watch and wait . . . until the night Simon Henry comes up with his best bait yet and Oscar takes Simon and his old friend Potato Kelly on the ride of their lives. An original tall tale sure to elicit belly laughs from both young and old alike..
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The armored catfish family (Loricariidae), with more than 700 described species, is one of the largest and most varied groups of fishes known to Man. Until a few years ago these catfishes played only an insignificant role in our aquaria, but nowadays they have become the height of fashion.
Since the latter part of 1988, when a number of new and sometimes exceptionally colorful loricariidae catfish species were first imported, a real catfish boom has sprung into life. Around 500 species new to the aquarium hobby have been imported, and these sometimes vary quite significantly in their requirements. The object of this book is to provide both beginner and more experienced aquarist with an introduction to not only the maintenance but also the breeding of these fishes. It covers some 390 of the most important and most interesting L-number catfishes, listed alphabetically by genus and species, and illustrated in full color. The book uses easily understood symbols to provide details of eventual size and maintenance for each species, and is illustrated with more than 640 color photos, 208 pages, hardcover.

Genus descriptions: 38 different genera are described according to the following criteria number of described species, characters, sexual dimorphism, distribution, diet, maintenance in the aquarium.

Species descriptions: App. 390 species (nearly all that are available in the trade) + photos on color varieties. Each species is described with photo/photos, scientific name, L-number, difficulty to maintain, maximum total length, minimum length of the aquarium, diet, suitable temperature, suitable pH, current water necessary or not, demand of wood etc...

Chapters:
What are L-number catfishes?
What should I bear in mind when buying loricariidae catfishes?
How can I tell the sexes apart? What is the natural habitat of these fishes like?
How are these fishes collected and how do they reach us?
What points are important for maintenance in the aquarium?
How can I feed these catfishes correctly?
What are the commonest diseases of L-number catfishes?
How do L-number catfishes breed in their natural habitat?
How can I breed these catfishes in the aquarium?
What will I require for the rearing of loricariidae catfishes?
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Former firefighter Earl W. Emerson writes two very interesting mystery series: one about small-town Washington State fire chief Mac Fontana and another about Seattle private investigator Thomas Black. All of Emerson's stories are haunted by ghosts from his characters' pasts, and none more so than this latest, where Emerson sends Black on a long, tangled, and not always obvious search through the roots of the African American family of his former police partner, Luther Little. Little's daughter has disappeared, leaving behind a car full of bullet holes, a dead young white man, and nine birth certificates that raise lots of troubling questions about fraud and parental responsibility. As Black grapples with ancient crimes and current human failure, his sharp and sexy lawyer wife, Kathy Birchfield, is--as always--on hand to keep him focussed. Other Thomas Black books in paperback: Deception Pass, The Million-Dollar Tattoo, Nervous Laughter. --Dick Adler.
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Riotte explains siting a pond, maintaining water quality, troubleshooting, stocking with fish, plus plenty of old-time fishing lore and scrumptious fresh fish recipes .
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