Tall tales and other thoughts from storyteller, sailor and nomad Dennison Berwick. "Kuan Yin" is his 32-foot go-anywhere home.
Posted in Books/Language, Sailing on Sep 4th, 2010
Many people dream of sailing around the world in a small boat – and many more who have no desire whatever to actually go to sea enjoy the vicarious pleasures of a voyage through other people’s books.
Thankfully this has created a steady demand for books about nautical adventures that run the full spectrum from solo [...]
Posted in Books/Language on Jul 25th, 2010
When you hear the stunted, semi-grunting way many speak – and write! – these days, the language of a book such as The Elements of Style seems to come from a different planet. What’s the point of clarifying the correct usage of “which’ and “that” when someone can’t utter a sentence that doesn’t have f**k [...]
Posted in Books/Language, Life skills on Jun 10th, 2010
Journalist Michael Pollan has written three books on food. His newest (published in paperback in December 2009) is called “Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual”. It’s a list of guidelines about food – real food, how to identify it and know what is not food, but what Pollan calls “edible food-like substances”?
How conscious are you about [...]
Posted in Books/Language on May 28th, 2010
If you ever wonder what role culture plays in the fortunes of nations, here’s an exhaustively researched book exploring culture and conquest. Why are certain nations and cultures open to conquest while others are able to resist? What role does conquest play in spreading technology, literacy and economic practices, for example? Thomas Sowell has written [...]
Posted in Books/Language, Life skills, Reportage/Stories on May 1st, 2010
This book is one of the classic must-read books for any aspiring writer and it is one I have enjoyed reading and rereading over many years. Dorothea Brande wrote her ground-breaking book in the 1930s. Style of writing have changed enormously since then. But what it takes to become a writer has not. From my [...]
Posted in Books/Language, Solitude on Apr 11th, 2010
Renewal in the Wilderness, A Spiritual Guide to Connecting with God in the Natural World by John Lionberger. Published in 2007 by Skylight Paths Publishing, Vermont.
Why is it so many of us find our spirits lifted in Nature and so often feel exhausted and unsatisfied in big urban sprawls? John Lionberger explores this question and [...]
Posted in Books/Language, Sailing, Solitude on Apr 4th, 2010
However fascinated any of us may be with the Arctic (and Antarctic), eager to watch TV specials and maybe one day to go there ourselves, few of us would think of sailing north at the end of the summer with the intention of being frozen into the ice to spend an Artic winter alone. Yet [...]
Posted in Books/Language, Reportage/Stories on Mar 10th, 2010
I certainly wasn’t the first to write a book about Ganga Ma (Mother Ganges), the holy river which flows across northern India. And I’m glad to see that I haven’t been the last. (Though I think I’m still the only foreigner to have walked the entire length of the river.)
Edmund Hilary took a jet boat [...]
Posted in Books/Language on Feb 26th, 2010
There was a time when books about business companies were staid and boring and read only by other historians. That age passed when popular authors such as Canadian Peter C. Newman wrote their biographies of some of the great companies of the world. Newman’s claim to fame, in this realm, is his two volume history [...]
Posted in Books/Language, Life skills on Feb 24th, 2010
You’ve probably heard the word “Tao” (or “Dao”) or seen it written on a t-shirt. And if you’ve ever wondering what it really means and what the concept from China is all about, here is an excellent introductory book.
The book isn’t trying to sell the ideas or convert anyone. This is a straightforward explanation of [...]
"Serendipity" is the art of finding something valuable or delightful when you're not looking for it. It's how you might also define living life as an adventure - which is something I seek to do everyday - and accepting whatever happens.
