Book Review: Marq de Villiers’ Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource (2003)

Water is a book about our global freshwater supply and its quality. It’s a policy-relevant and science-rich book but is neither a policy book nor an academic book. Like its subject matter, this book is meant for everyone. Author Mark de Villiers writes: “Water is not ‘ours’ or ‘theirs,’ but the planet’s. We use water, and […]

Book Review: David Macfarlane’s The Danger Tree (2014)

The Danger Tree artfully combines family memoir and historical nonfiction. Just as author, David Macfarlane, introduces readers to his maternal family, the Goodyears of Newfoundland, he establishes the major events of the early twentieth century. The event Macfarlane most prominently features is the First World War. For the Goodyears, WWI means “three dead sons paraded […]

Recounting a Shipwreck No one Survived to Tell

Six men boarded the 72-foot fishing vessel the Andrea Gail intended for a late season fishing trip that would end catastrophically. In late October 1991, aware that a storm was brewing, the captain and crew decided to take their swordfish catch and head home from the Grand Banks to Gloucester, Massachusetts. The mother of all […]

Book Review: Alan Doyle’s Where I Belong (2014) & A Newfoundlander in Canada (2017)

How would you like to take a cross-Canada tour on a band van with running commentary from a prominent Newfoundlander? I promise it will be a laugh-out-loud journey not to mention an entirely unique way to discover (or rediscover) this country. Last month I had the chance to meet musician, actor and author Alan Doyle […]