Patrick McManus, America's favorite outdoor humorist, plays havoc with the riotous adventures of men and women confronting their survival instincts in this collection of three bestselling books. With combined sales of over half a million copies (at this publication), A Fine and Pleasant Misery, Never Sniff a Gift Fish and They Shoot Canoes, Don't They? contain over 80 slice-of-life stories that combine naked truth with sheer bravura. The tales of his skunk dog; his "pony", a pig named Trigger; his first deer (a bike-pedaling deer, if his unembellished true story is accepted as fact); an airborne fish shack; and various adventures in the fine art of fibrication (usually best expressed in relation to hunting or fishing exploits, hence "an airborne fish shack") have greatly entertained both his nature-loving and outdoor sports-wary fans.

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Many will recognize his nostalgia at looking back to the misery of a camping trip with fondness, even at the memory of picking up a large branch for firewood and discovering an outlaw band of yellow jackets waiting in ambush. Observations about why no one ever developed an effective cow repellent for the comfort of fishermen ("even when I plan a fishing trip forty miles back into the wilderness a herd of cows will usually get wind of it and go on a forced march to get there before I do and turn the place into a cow pasture") or why it is a breach of etiquette for one outdoorsman to ask another about a scar (the telling of a scar story being on average the length of Churchill's A History of the English-Speaking Peoples) are thoughtful commentaries on man in a natural setting. He even, through an intermediary, expands on a proposed list of famous outdoor quotations:

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The angler who doesn't look before he leaps

will have his next cast made of plaster.

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Who was that fish

I seen you with last night?

That was no fish, that was my muddler.

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Even a fish stick once knew the glories of the deep.

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Enjoy exposes such as "All You Ever Wanted to Know About Live Bait but Were Afraid to Ask,," "Mountain Goats Never Say Cheese" and "The Night Grandma Shot Shorty" will take readers on a wildly unpredictable romp through the pitfalls and triumphs of man versus nature in the back road wilds of America.