Tag: non-fiction (Page 1 of 2)

Months ago I heard Suzanne Heywood interviewed on CBC Radio and her story captured my imagination. At seven, her father pulled her and her brother out of school in England and they set sail following Cook’s third voyage. Suzanne’s mother is seasick off the bat, they get hit by another boat before leaving the country, and their intermittent luck comes and goes from there.

What was promised as a year adventure, maybe 3 years, becomes 10. Suzanne does not have a romantic view of this adventure. Her younger brother John adapts more easily to no school. He learns the ropes (literally) and makes friends as needed. John is less than a year younger, but it’s the 70s and he’s a boy. Suzanne gets stuck in the galley making meals with her mother and running domestic errands (i.e., get mommy a G&T).

Imagine being away for 10 years of schooling. The lack of friends, the wayward lifestyle, the survival instincts needed to deal with storms, rollicking waves, life on a boat, customs and immigration—it’s crippling for Suzanne and also the catalyst for her plan to escape. It not all horrendous. There are some amazing moments, and she does live an incredible life at sea. But I’m amazed that young Suzanne was driven enough to figure out correspondence courses, when her family mostly couldn’t be bothered by whether the kids could do more than read, write and do a bit of math. Suzanne not only graduated, she graduated with top marks and got into Oxford University.

Wavewalker is a stunning autobiography about living someone else’s dream.

Travelogue meets memoir in this fascinating trot around the world in search of 17 of the world’s most precious ingredients that make up the majority of perfumes on the market.

Dominque Roques is a master sourcer of natural ingredients like rose, vanilla, vetiver, Peru balsam, and frankincense. Each chapter is dedicated to a different country and ingredient: Laos for benzoin, Madagascar for vanilla, Venezuela for tonka bean, India for patchouli, and more. At each stop, Roques introduces the reader to the properties of the ingredient used in perfume and to the politics of the country and to the small communities of people responsible for cultivating these luxury materials.

This is a story of small farmers, tree tappers, distillers, and producers who source the best ingredients, often with traditional tools and techniques. And their counterparts in the luxury food and fragrance industry who create amazing scents based on those source materials. The book is travelogue, history lesson, political science, agriculture and climate science rolled into one.

It’s a beautiful book to listen to, and I must order a print copy for reference.

On the Ball is a masterclass in the mental strategies coaches and athletes can use in sports, but it’s also full of personal anecdotes that resonate with parents of athletes and even working adults. There are tips here that work for work as well as they work for sport.

Michael Lodewyks has spent over 25 years coaching volleyball and tennis and this book is a massive brain dump of everything he’s learned and observed in his time. The book is well organized with key takeaways at the end of each section and a big-picture plan as a final summary of the tips. The strategies are well tested in professional sports beyond volleyball and tennis and again this book really is a resource for anyone wanting to up their game.

Available on Amazon or from the author’s site.

April 21, 2023 marked seven years since Prince’s death and June 7 would have been his 65th birthday. Oh, Prince. Talk about Great Expectations.

Nick Hornby has crafted a wonderful extended essay that looks at two prolific geniuses. I listened to the audiobook hoping for some musical accompaniment, alas no. Thankfully the narrator provides all the quirks and liveliness of Hornby’s turns of phrase. An enjoyable listen.

Hornby draws connections between the two artists. He delves into their trying childhoods, their business acumen, and the excessive amount of content they both created (before age 25 and after).

Give it a listen: https://www.audible.ca/pd/Dickens-and-Prince-Audiobook/B09V1ZYXR7

My friend DaveO gifted me this amazing book about an island that is near to where he lives in Japan. In celebration of Asian Heritage month, I have been eagerly reading about septuagenarian and octogenarians (even nonagenarians) on the tiny island of Shiraishi (population 500 — and dwindling) .

Shiraishi Island is in the Inland Sea of Japan and part of Okayama Prefecture. Author Amy Chavez moved there in 1997 and is charmed by the seclusion and way that the aging population is holding on to its traditions and ways of life. The books offers vignettes of the island’s many charming characters, who each share with Amy their stories of growing up on Shiraishi, the island’s culture, their fishing practices and sacred rituals.

I love being introduced to different people in each chapter. Memorable stories include that of Eiko, the elderly woman whose house Amy rents, Hiro, one of the last two octopus hunters on the island, the four Chinese brides who come to Shiraishi to marry, and Mimiko who runs a little beach shack.

The stories are interspersed with Amy’s observations from her window looking out on the port, her participation in island rituals, and her American perspective as an outsider looking to fit into the community.

Give it a read: Published by Tuttle.

Available in fine bookstores (and Amazon)

Check out Amy Chavez’s website for photos of Shiraishi.

John le Carré is a masterful storyteller and listening to his voice telling the stories of his life is epic. In The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life, he covers his short years of service in British Intelligence and how that paved the way for the writer he became and the opportunities he had to meet politicians and leaders around the world.

This type of memoir could be a bit of a brag but instead it’s like your worldly uncle telling you his crazy stories. I loved it.

There are funny asides and mishaps, like a certain parrot meeting his end due to alcohol in his feed and wrong number phone calls that lead to late-night bar dates. Then there are serious tales of interviewing terrorists and navigating the security around Yasser Arafat. At every turn, le Carré is giving us glimpses into his life and how you might connect real life people to his story characters.

You can hear the wisdom and humility in his voice, along with the cheek.

The greatest espionage story of the Cold War.

Description: Macintyre’s real-life spy thriller is a slow start with a fast-paced finish. I loved it. The spy and traitor here is Oleg Gordievksy, a senior KGB officer who spies for MI6 from 1974 . That seems like an understatement. His secrets are priceless. And the book is full of name dropping to demonstrate the breadth of information Gordievsky shared and the impact on bringing the Cold War to its end.

Gordievsky advised Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, on Britain’s Cold War policies. He outted a number of spies and identified networks throughout Europe so those posing as diplomats were ejected. In the end, Gordievsky received the Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and Saint George from Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace where he was recognized for services to UK security.

The book is based on more than 140 hours of taped interviews with Oleg Gordievksy, who appears to have an infallible memory. Names like Putin and Aldrich Ames come up, and it’s easy to see how yesterday’s Russian playbook of fake news and mistrust are still unfolding today.

Favourite moment: Oleg is summoned back to Russia and fears that he has been exposed. The chapter “Cat and Mouse” opens with this:

In Moscow, Gordievsky checked the locks again, praying he might be mistaken. But no, the third lock, the dead bolt he never used and had no key for, had been turned. The KGB was on to him.

chapter 12, The spy & the traitor by ben mcintyre

Perfect read for fans of John Le Carré or In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. The Spy and the Traitor is full of ideologies, betrayal, and intrigue. The glorious days of the Cold War spy — harrowing.