The author of the instant fishing classic The Optimist shares new wisdom, humor, and experience in seven extraordinary fly-fishing expeditions—“an engaging personal journey about finding what you need to find and keeping it in your heart” (Kirkus Reviews). In The Optimist, David Coggins tackled the techniques of fly-fishing and meditated on its virtues, recounting his triumphs and failures. Now, in The Believer, he deftly mixes travel, local cultures, further fishing challenges (some knee-buckling in their disappointment), and details his own experience as life and love crowd his time to fish. Self-consciously—and self-deprecatingly—Coggins embarks on seven far-flung fishing voyages, away from screens and social media, not answering his phone, and reveling in humanity’s undying yearning for a quest, for the rituals and rites of passage that mark transition. For Coggins, these journeys—to Norway, Scotland, Spain, Cuba, and Argentina, as well as road trips to Wyoming, Tennessee, and the Catskills—not only showcase his skill as an angler but also signal the end of his fly-fishing youth. But that doesn’t mean that Coggins will sell all his rods and hang up his hat; rather, his relationship with his fly-fishing obsession will evolve—especially if he can catch an elusive salmon or a ferociously strong tarpon or the mercurial permit.