Call number
Collection
Genres
Publication
Description
"When Brian Doyle passed away at the age of sixty after a bout with brain cancer, he left behind a cult-like following of devoted readers who regard his writing as one of the best-kept secrets of the twenty-first century. Doyle writes with a delightful sense of wonder about the sanctity of everyday things, and about love and connection in all their forms: spiritual love, brotherly love, romantic love, and even the love of a nine-foot sturgeon. At a moment when the world can sometimes feel darker than ever, Doyle's writing, which constantly evokes the humor and even bliss that life affords, is a balm. His essays manage to find, again and again, exquisite beauty in the quotidian, whether it's the awe of a child the first time she hears a river, or a husband's whiskers that a grieving widow misses seeing in her sink every morning. David James Duncan sums up Doyle's sensibilities best in his introduction to the collection: "Brian Doyle lived the pleasure of bearing daily witness to quiet glories hidden in people, places and creatures of little or no size, renown, or commercial value, and he brought inimitably playful or soaring or aching or heartfelt language to his tellings." A life's work, One Long River of Song invites readers to experience joy and wonder in ordinary moments that become, under Doyle's rapturous and exuberant gaze, extraordinary."--Jacket flap.… (more)
User reviews
These essays are written with a sense
"What do we really know well about any creature, including most of all ourselves, and how it is that even though we know painfully little about anything, we often manage world-wrenching hubris about our wisdom."
This author is another that will be missed.
ARC from Netgalley.
“But you cannot control everything...All you can do is face the world with quiet grace and hope you make a sliver of difference...You must trust that you being the best possible you matters somehow...That being an attentive and generous friend and citizen will prevent a thread or two of the social fabric from unraveling.”
“Not to mention they (raptors) look cool, they are seriously large, they have muscles on their muscles, they are stone-cold efficient hunters with built-in-butchery tools, and all of them have this stern I could kick your ass but I'm busy look, which took me years to discover was not a general simmer of surliness but a result of the supraorbital ridge protecting their eyes.”
Brian Doyle is a Canadian writer of novels, essays and short stories. He died in 2017 of brain cancer, at the age of 60. This is an excellent collection of his essays, released in 2019. He has a knack for finding the joys in life – a stroll in the woods, birding his favorite patch, a deep discussion with a good friend, watching the wonder of his children at play. He also had a strong spiritual side as well and a couple of these pieces explore the solace he finds there. If you are looking for something uplifting during these dark times, give this terrific book a try.