Ron Cooper

From award-winning photographer Ron Cooper comes a beautifully curated photo book of fifty professional Santas from all across the country, giving readers an intimate and joyous glimpse into the lives of those who love performing as Santa Claus each year. Each portrait features Santa both before and after, so Christmas lovers will see each Santa come gloriously to life. The book will also delight readers with inspirational Santa profiles and includes extra holiday cheer with behind-the-scenes stories and side bars of what makes Santa great--from the indefatigable support of Mrs. Claus to the specialized training each Santa goes through to be the best that they can be.

Portraits and Profiles

We Are Santa

Chantal Martineau

In this groundbreaking and deeply personal book, Ron Cooper—a leading voice in the artisanal mezcal movement, and the person largely responsible for popularizing the spirit in the United States—shares everything he knows about this storied, culturally rich, and now hugely in-demand spirit, along with 40 recipes. In 1990, artist Ron Cooper was collaborating with craftspeople in Oaxaca, Mexico, when he found mezcal—or, as he likes to say, mezcal found him. This traditional spirit was virtually unknown in the United States at the time, and Cooper founded Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal in order to import it. Finding Mezcal recounts Cooper's love affair with the spirit and the people who make it; its meteoric rise in popularity; and the delicate balance between sharing mezcal with the world and facilitating its preservation. Each chapter introduces a new mezcal, its producer, and its place of origin, while also covering mezcal production methods and the botany of the maguey (aka agave) plant, from which mezcal is distilled. Featuring 40 recipes developed for Del Maguey by chefs and bartenders from around the world, the book is copiously illustrated with photographs, as well as Cooper's artwork and that of his friend Ken Price, who illustrated Del Maguey's now-iconic labels.

A Journey into the Liquid Soul of Mexico, with 40 Cocktails

Finding Mezcal

Former academic now veteran Deputy Sheriff Blevins Bombardi tries to solve a freakish murder of a cryptozoologist seeking the elusive Skunk Ape in a national forest in north central Florida. He is distracted, though, by struggles with his inner demons: heavy drinking, depression, suicidal thoughts, and torment from the recent murder of his wife for which he was responsible. Also, his daughter ran away two years before when her mother was killed and may have joined up with a vagabond cult that moves with the seasons around the country and is now camping nearby in Florida, and he has spent countless hours traveling from state to state trying to find her. In the meantime a category five hurricane rushes toward Florida in the unlikely month of February, the bears and monkeys (an odd piece of Florida history) in the national forest are mysteriously slaughtered by arrows, and politicians and evangelists join forces in a push to privatize all public lands. When a bizarre and perhaps severely mentally disturbed ex-con shows up insisting that Bombardi help him locate a former lover (who may be imaginary), the Deputy Sheriff may have to step far outside the law to restore any order to his off-balance world. All My Sins Remembered joins Ron Cooper’s previous novels as part mystery, part philosophical inquiry, and part tragi-comedy. Winner of a Florida Book Award. Praise for ALL MY SINS REMEMBERED: “Please meet Major Blevins Bombardi, a deputy in the middle-of-nowhere central Florida, a man unknowingly haunted by the first line of Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus. He’s part Spencer from Robert B. Parker’s detective novels, and part TV’s House. All My Sins Remembered is a fast-paced whodunit—or whodunabunchofthings—with a cast of secondary characters worthy of any swamp-dweller chronicle.” —George Singleton, author of Between Wrecks and The Half-Mammals of Dixie “Ron Cooper was born and raised on the edge of the swamp, and that curious upbringing shows through in just the right places. A mystery and love story to boot, All My Sins Remembered is a red-hot ball of iron marvel.” —William P. Baldwin, author of Charles Town and The Hard to Catch Mercy “Cooper combines philosophical reflection with a rural setting, working-class characters, an engaging storyline, and vernacular to create a rare, pleasurable experience for the reader…a lesson in what a good novel of ideas can and should achieve aesthetically.” —American Book Review “Ron Cooper has his own unique voice, and what a marvelous, darkly comic voice it is. He is an immensely talented writer.” —Ron Rash, author of The Risen and Serena “Cooper is a superb writer, and a daring one too.” —Steve Yarbrough, author of The Unmade World and The Realm of Last Chances “A prose style that snaps like garters.” —Fred Chappell, author of I am One of You Forever and Look Back All the Green Valley

All My Sins Remembered

When Purvis Driggers, a South Carolina Low Country loser with little judgment and even less chance for a decent life beyond his parents' house, home town, and whatever part-time work he can scrounge up, seeks to rob an old man of the rumored millions hidden in his house and fails, he's drawn to the sound of music across the creek. There, he discovers a beautiful woman in a white gown being baptized in the water. Surely Martha, beautiful Martha, will give Purvis the escape he imagines. With the Martha boat come to his rescue, Purvis decides, he'll never have to worry about drowning. But Martha Umphlett is trapped, too. Made to take care of her obese mother and forced to participate in a baptism she has no interest in whatsoever, Martha, in her own way, is every bit as desperate as Purvis, but far more capable and a good deal more dangerous. As funny as it is sad, as beautiful as it is ugly, as authentic as it is shocking, and as powerful as anything you'll ever read, Ron Cooper's Purple Jesus is a mystery, a love story, a religious allegory, and, most importantly, a dark and comic descent into the lives and world views of these unbelievable and unforgettable characters.Purvis Driggers is a South Carolina Low Country loser. With little judgment and even less chance for a decent life beyond his parents' house, home town, and whatever part-time work he can scrounge up, he's sure he's figured a way out: Rob an old man of the rumored millions hidden in his house. But all he finds is the old man dead and the money, if there was any, already gone. Disappointed and defeated, Purvis is drawn to the sound of music across the creek. There, he discovers a beautiful woman in a white gown being baptized in the water. Surely Martha, beautiful Martha, will give Purvis the escape he imagines. With the Martha boat come to his rescue, Purvis decides, he'll never have to worry about drowning. But Martha Umphlett is trapped, too. Married and just as quickly divorced, Martha's been condemned to return to the home she'd once escaped. Made to take care of her obese mother and forced to participate in a baptism she has no interest in whatsoever, Martha, in her own way, is every bit as desperate as Purvis, but far more capable and a good deal more dangerous.Their paths cross with that of Brother Andrew, a monk at a nearby monastery whose call more and more is not to God, but to nature, and more importantly, to somewhere else. He wanders the swamp to watch birds, practice archery, and meditate, but it becomes clearer and clearer to him that the answers he seeks are not to be found in his monastery, his vow of silence, or the life he's thus far known. But maybe the answer is in the girl he, too, sees being baptised across the creek. Perhaps Martha will make Andrew happy. All three want and need something different in their lives, but the paths they'll take are neither clear nor pretty, and they will not end well. Infatuated with Martha, and certain she's the answer to his dreams, Purvis sets out to do whatever is necessary to prove his love, all the while terrified that the FBI will pin the old man's murder on him. Is he demented, or just crazy with love? Does Martha care for Purvis, or will she simply exploit him? Is Brother Andrew straying too far toward both of them and too far away from his faith? And just what is necessary for Purvis to prove himself to Martha?Told from the characters' alternating points of view, this darkly humorous story wends its way through a web of murder and dismemberment, a twisted love triangle, and a woodland monster known as the Hairy Man. As funny as it is sad, as beautiful as it is ugly, as authentic as it is shocking, and as powerful as...

Purple Jesus

Barely adequate philosophy professor Legare Hume has a mind-body problem. No matter how far he goes, no matter how hard he thinks, he can't escape the world he lives in. On the run from his wife Tally, Legare joins brilliant but exceptionally awkward colleague Saul Grossman to attend the American Philosophical Association's Charleston, South Carolina conference, where worlds and walks of life collide in a strange and satirical amalgamation that can only be described as reality. Legare's mission is simple enough: put up with the conference, read a paper he never thought anyone would want to hear, receive the tenure he isn't sure he wants, and return, or not, to the wife who nearly killed him before he left. But his plans are hijacked by a botched hotel reservation and the all-too-convenient presence of the Southern family Legare has worked very hard all his adult life to avoid. Hume's Fork is a brilliantly satirical and philosophical novel, every bit as funny as it is intelligenta true original. Legare's conflictHume's fork, if you will becomes the reader's, for all worlds are one, and nothing can truly be separate from everything else.

Hume's Fork

An ancient legend claimed that Jesus had a twin brother Thomas. An extra-Biblical text that dates from perhaps as early as the late first century CE (which would make it the same age as the Biblical Gospels) claimed to be the secret teachings of Jesus as recorded by "Judas Didymos Thomas." The Greek word "Didymos" and the Aramaic word "Thomas" both mean "twin."While only several Greek fragments of this manuscript, dating to the early second century CE, actually exist, a manuscript written in Coptic from the fourth century was discovered in 1945. This Gospel of Thomas contains 114 purported sayings of Jesus, many of which resemble passages in the New Testament.Drawing upon years of extensive research in early Jewish and Christian history and recent work on the historical Jesus, acclaimed novelist Ron Cooper focuses on Thomas of Nazareth, old and bitter after years of self-imposed exile from his homeland, who returns to Jerusalem to write a book about his identical twin brother Jesus. Disgusted by how others have perverted his brother's message, Thomas wants to set the record straight. But in doing so, he must try to unravel the enigma that was Jesus.Provocative, inventive, and sure to be controversial, The Gospel of the Twin draws upon scriptural and ancient, non-Biblical sources to present an imaginative version of the founding of Christianity through scenes of violence, tenderness, and mistaken identity that will change the way the world thinks about Jesus.For fans of such books as Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan, Killing Jesus by Bill O'Reilly, and even such Dan Brown novels as The Da Vinci Code, Cooper's The Gospel of the Twin may also appeal to readers of such sophisticated Bible scholars as Bart Erhman, Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, and Elaine Pagels, all of whom have written academic works as well as books more accessible to the general reader.With The Gospel of the Twin, Cooper provides a potentially controversial, compellingly human, and thoroughly readable page-turnerhis own brilliant version of what many call "the greatest story ever told."

Ron Cooper

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