Season of the Gar: Adventures in Pursuit of America's Most Misunderstood Fish by Mark Spitzer (University of Arkansas Press, $19.95 trade paper 9781557289292/1557289298 April 3, 2010) 
Opening lines of a book we want to read:
To stereotype my gar-obsession:
Back when I was a gar-virgin, I could hardly do anything other than research and write about gar, fish for gar, and dream about gar--so as to become gar-experienced. It was a long time coming, but it finally happened, and in the process, I lost my gar-innocence, which allowed my monomania ("Gar Fever") to finally release its hold on me.
The result is a book devoted to a subject in which the imagination has always been a major factor. For millennia, gar have inspired myths, legends, scenes of slaughter, extreme emotions, epic battles, and in the tradition of ye olde fish story, extravagant lies.
Lest you think that this is just another book by a crazed fisherman, know that the author teaches writing, is the managing editor of the Exquisite Corpse Annual, has published fiction and poetry, is a translator of Bataiile, Cendrars and Céline, and has appeared on the Animal Planet's River Monsters. That being said, he is a crazed fisherman, although he prefers the word "passionate." And he has other fish to fry beyond catching gar ("the coolest fish there is"):
No doubt, though, I'm preaching (for the most part) to a choir that already respects the fact that we need to do more to protect America's most misunderstood fish in order to preserve what's left of our world as we know it. Call me idealistic, call me a fool I don't care. But if you use this book to hunt alligator gar in Arkansas, then before you take that shot... remember the regional fishing guides from the '50s that you'll read about in this book. Then recall their regrets, and consider what we've been trying to recover from for over half a century.
--Selected by Marilyn Dahl