Twenty-five years after his racetrack classic Laughing in the Hills, Bill Barich tells the story of how he fell in love and found a new life in Dublin, where he was soon caught up in the Irish obsession with horses and luck. Barich travels throughout his adopted country and meets the leading trainers and jockeys, the beleaguered bookies who work rain or shine, and a host of passionate, like-minded fans—from Father Sean Breen, the “Racing Priest," to T. P. Reilly, whose peculiar betting system turns on a horse's looks.Witty, philosophical, and vividly written, A Fine Place to Daydream is a paean to the real Ireland, a moving tale of a surprise romance, and a thrilling account of a hugely exciting season at the track.“Captivating. . . . Mr. Barich recaptures much of the feel and compass of his first narrative of the equine life, once again weaving a broad tartan from scores of interviews with inhabitants of every corner of the horseracing...

From one of California's most celebrated writers comes a generous and deeply absorbing novel, as filled with warmth and the hope of second chances as the land it describes.Returning from New York to the vineyards of Northern California to be with her dying mother, Anna Torelli never expects that the trip will change her life. But when she meets Arthur Atwater, he father's vineyard manager—a man as emotionally bruised and as fiercely independent as she is—Anna is pulled back into the rhythms of the growing season, into the radiant landscape of her childhood, and into a love affair that rouses her as nothing has before. Carson Valley is also home to Anna's aging father, Victor, the son of Italian immigrants who first planted the vineyard in the 1890s, and his foreman, Antonio Lopez, a Mexican immigrant whose marital troubles deepen when his cousin Omar Perez crosses the border illegally to work the vineyard harvest.Carson Valley is a masterful work of...

Spanning over thirty years of writing, Dispatches and Diversions is a wonderful collection of articles that cross the globe and introduce readers to many characters, introduced as only Bill Barich can. As said by Time magazine, Barich's touch is always “artful and compassionate."Broken up into two sections, Barich shares stories of the people, from those that have shaken him to the core, to others from a much lighter place.As he notes in his introduction, “I've spent much of my writing life indulging curiosity, throwing myself into situations and subcultures to gain an education and acquire my own angle on the world. The dispatches collected here arose from that desire."From the troubles in Northern Ireland and the homeless in San Francisco to the US-Mexico borders, Barich went to the people to find the “real story. These are his dispatches. “They all explore stories the press had ignored or covered in a desultory way, at least in...

Here is a travel book with a difference: ten chronological chapters from a year of wandering, from the Pacific Northwest to Tuscany and back again to the trout-laden streams of California. Join Bill Barich as he travels the globe, from the trout streams of Northern California to the auction ring at Saratoga, where millions of dollars may be gaveled away for a yearling thoroughbred; from seedy London pubs to a run-down Florentine palazzo during a glorious Italian spring. Learn the science of English beer brewing, the art of fly tying, how to generate hydroelectric power, the proper analysis of the Daily Racing Form, and the best way to eat artichokes.Freshness, wit, and Barich's distinctive voice create a luminous travelogue crackling with an inimitable curiosity and an elegance of style that marks every step of this remarkable journey.

When Bill Barich moved to Dublin, he began searching for a traditional pub to serve as his local. Although he had no shortage of choices, he had trouble finding one that measured up to the archetypal ideal. As he roams from hectic urban pubs to their dwindling rural counterparts, he chronicles the state of the 'Irish' pub today, both in Ireland itself and all over the world. Entertaining, charming and full of insight, A Pint of Plain chronicles Barich's quest for the perfect pint, at the same time examining Irish culture at a time of great change.

Bill Barich burst onto the literary scene more than twenty-five years ago with this remarkable account of racetrack life. Holed up in a cheap motel in Albany, California, only a few miles from Golden Gate Fields, he looked to the track to help him make sense of his life during a dark peiod of loss and challenge. With rare sensitivity, he captured the gritty world of the backstretch, and also its poetry, as few other writers have done. Laughing in the Hills, which was first serialized in the New Yorker, has become a classic of sporting literature and a must for anyone who loves horses and the world they create.“It is a lovely, valuable book, introspective without being self-servingly so, affectionate but never saccharine in its evocation of racetrack life, witty and perceptive throughout." —Jonathan Yardley, Sports Illustrated

The land of opportunity, a golden Eden, the last frontier. What is this place that has given rise to countless metaphors but can still quicken the imagination? For Bill Barich, the question became a quest when he realized that home was no longer New York, where he had grown up, but California, to which he had been lured twenty years earlier. Now, in this account of his journey through California, he captures the true nature of the state behind the stereotypes.From the fogbound fishing towns of the North to the Mexican port of entry at San Ysidro, Barich describes an amazing diversity among people who have staked a claim to California's promise. He introduces us to a Native American hairdresser and the head priest of a Sikh temple; we meet loggers, bikers, an aging lifeguard, and the prison warden whose job it is to keep Charles Manson behind bars. He follows the traces of John Muir, Robert Louis Stevenson, Walt Disney, and Ronald Reagan, and weighs the impact their...