Book picks similar to
Far Pastures by R.M. Patterson


adventure
canadian
non-fiction
20th-century

Hello, Friends!: Stories from My Life and Blue Jays Baseball


Jerry Howarth - 2019
    In 1982, the lifelong avid sports fan joined Tom Cheek as full-time play-by-play radio announcer for the Blue Jays, and for the next 23 years, "Tom and Jerry" were the voices of the franchise. Jerry became part of the fabric of a nation and a team, covering historic moments like the rise of the Blue Jays through the 1980s that culminated in back-to-back World Series Championships in 1992 and 1993. His Hall of Fame-worthy broadcasting career has been nothing short of legendary. When Jerry retired in February 2018, the tributes poured in and made one thing perfectly clear: Toronto baseball would never be the same.Howarth brings together thoughts on life, family, work, and baseball. Featuring stories about everyone from Dave Stieb, Jack Morris, Duane Ward, Roberto Alomar, and Joe Carter to John Gibbons, Edwin Encarnacion, Josh Donaldson, and the late Roy Halladay, Hello, Friends! is a must-read for sports fans everywhere.

Run Like Crazy


Tristan Miller - 2012
    I made my way to the remotest islands, the hottest deserts and the coldest of climates. I was robbed, suffered injuries, got sick and depressed. I covered around 320,000 kilometres by plane, train, boat, bus and car and ran just over 2300 race kilometres. It proved to me that you can do whatever you want to – just find the starting line, believe in yourself, and Run Like Crazy!When Tristan Miller lost his job as a result of the global economic crisis, he set himself a huge personal challenge. He would spend a year seeing the world, each week running an official marathon in a different country. This is the story of an ordinary man who chased his dream, 42.2 kilometres at a time.

Centaur


Declan Murphy - 2017
    His skull shattered in twelve places, he was believed to be dead, the last rites were read and the Racing Post prepared his obituary. Miraculously, and the word is not used lightly, he survived and defied medical thinking in recovering to the extent that eighteen months after his fall, he was able to saddle up for one more race. As usual, he won.For 23 years, Declan has been unable to tell his story, to bring to words existence on the frontier between life and death, to describe the incredible bond between man and horse. But now, in an extraordinary collaboration with Ami Rao, she has helped him find those words, a way to piece together what happened before, during and after, what it all meant and what it means to us all. It is a story of triumph, fear, love and loss, by turns primal, heartbreaking and inspirational, and ultimately, it is the story of hope, and of life.

One Year Lived


Adam Shepard - 2013
    I don't hate my job. I'm not annoyed with capitalism, and I'm indifferent to materialism. I'm not escaping emptiness, nor am I searching for meaning. I have great friends, a wonderful family, and fun roommates. The dude two doors down invited me over for steak or pork chops--my choice--on Sunday, and I couldn't even tell you the first letter of his name. Sure, the producers of The Amazing Race have rejected all five of my applications to hotfoot around the world--all five!--and my girlfriend and I just parted ways, but I've whined all I can about the race, and the girl wasn't The Girl anyway. All in all, my life is pretty fantastic. But I feel boxed in. Look at a map, and there we are, a pin stuck in the wall. There's the United States, about twenty-four square inches worth, and there's the rest of the world, seventeen hundred square inches begging to be explored. Career, wife, babies--of course I want these things; they're on the horizon. Meanwhile, I'm a few memories short. Maybe I need a year to live a little." FROM THE PUBLISHER: During his 29th year, spending just $19,420.68, less than it would have cost him to stay at home, Adam Shepard visited seventeen countries on four continents and lived some amazing adventures. “It’s interesting to me,” he says, “that in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Europe, it’s normal for people to pack a bag, buy a plane ticket, and get ‘Out There.’ In the U.S., though, we live with this very stiff paradigm—graduate college, work, find a spouse, make babies, work some more, retire—which can be a great existence, but we leave little room to load up a backpack and dip into various cultures, to see places, to really develop our own identity.” Shepard's journey began in “the other Antigua”—Antigua, Guatemala—where he spent a month brushing up on his Spanish and traveling on the “chicken bus.” During his two months in Honduras, he served with an organization that helps improve the lives of poor children; in Nicaragua, he dug wells to install pumps for clean water and then stepped into the ring to face a savage bull; in Thailand, he rode an elephant and cut his hair into a mullet; in Australia, he hugged a koala, contemplated the present-day treatment of the Aborigines, and mustered cattle; in Poland, he visited Auschwitz; in Slovakia, he bungee jumped off a bridge; and in the Philippines, he went wakeboarding among Boracay’s craggy inlets and then made love to Ivana on the second most beautiful beach in the world. His yearlong journey, which took two years to save for, was a spirited blend of leisure, volunteerism, and enrichment. He read 71 books, including ten classics and one—slowly—in Spanish. “If you can lend a hand to someone, educate yourself about the world, and sandwich that around extraordinary moments that get your blood pumping, that’s a pretty full year,” Shepard writes. Can everybody take a year to get missing? “Maybe, maybe not,” he says, “though that’s not really the point. I’m just concerned that some of us are too set on embracing certainty. We want life to be cushy and regimented, but that’s not how we can create a lasting impact on our lives or the lives around us. There’s only so much you can learn in the classroom. Sometimes you have to get out there to experience it, to touch it, to feel it, to see it for yourself. It’s fascinating the perspective we can gain when we step out of our bubbles of comfort, even just a little bit.”

The Alligator Report


W.P. Kinsella - 1985
    Kinsella’s book The Alligator Report.

Tea & Bee's Milk


Karen Gilden - 2008
    So they quit their jobs, sold their house and car, and flew off to Turkey with two bags each, a laptop computer and a camera. If you've ever dreamed of ditching the rat race and taking a year off, you’ll find inspiration in this charming and humorous series of essays and emails. A delightful memoir of a memorable year.

Michael O'Leary: A Life In Full Flight


Alan Ruddock - 2007
    He transformed Ryanair from a loss-making joke of an Irish carrier into one of the most valuable airlines in the world, and in the process he has revolutionized the very nature of commercial aviation. In this, the first biography of O'Leary, Alan Ruddock portrays the man in three dimensions and examines the business miracle - often talked about but poorly understood - that O'Leary has wrought.'Ruddock's fast-paced retelling of Ryanair's rise and rise confirms O'Leary's insistence that his success has little to do with the management maxims of business gurus and everything to do with graft and ruthless attention to detail' Observer'Probably the definitive Ryanair story ... a good read' Sunday Independent'The fullest and most accurate picture of O'Leary to date' Irish Daily Mail'Unlike previous books which simply chart the growth of the airline, this one is bound to get under O'Leary's skin because it reveals a great deal about his hugely driven character' Irish Independent'Ruddock is good on the flavour of the man, a bundle of energy whose two favourite words start with an F and an S (they aren't flower and sugar)' Irish Examiner

Pioneer life; or, Thirty Years a Hunter, Being Scenes and Adventures in the Life of Philip Tome (1854)


Philip Tome - 2006
    Tome was born in 1782 near present-day Harrisburg and lived on the upper Susquehanna for much of his life. He tells colorful (and mostly true) tales about his hunting exploits in the Pennsylvania wilderness, as he tracked elk, wolves, bears, panthers, foxes, and other large animals through the state’s north-central mountains, earning wide renown among his contemporaries. His stories contain suspenseful chase scenes, accidents, and narrow escapes, inviting the reader to view a still-wild Pennsylvania through the eyes of one who “was never conquered by man or animal.” Pioneer Life, originally published in 1854, has since been reprinted several times. This classic hunting memoir includes the following chapters: I. Birth and Early Life II. Hunting the Elk III. Capturing a Live Elk IV. Face of the Country V. Face of the Country — Continued VI. Danger From Rattlesnakes VII. Wolf and Bear Hunting VIII. Another Elk Hunt IX. Elk-Hunting on the Susquehannah X. Elk-Hunting — Continued XI. Nature, Habits, and Manner of Hunting the Elk XII. Elk and Bear Hunting in Winter XIII. Hunting on the Clarion River XIV. Hunting and Trapping XV. The Bear, Its Nature and Habits XVI. Hunting Deer at Different Seasons XVII. Nature and Habits of the Panther, Wolf and Fox XVIII. Rattlesnakes and Their Habits XIX. Distinguished Lumbermen, Etc. XX.. Reminiscences of Cornplanter XXI. Indian Eloquence This book originally published in 1854 has been reformatted for the Kindle and may contain an occasional defect from the original publication or from the reformatting

The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America


Bill Bryson - 1989
    Somebody had to'And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn't hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England, he returned to the land of his youth, and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of trim and sunny place where the films of his youth were set. Instead, his search led him to Anywhere, USA; a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger outlets populated by lookalike people with a penchant for synthetic fibres. Travelling around thirty-eight of the lower states - united only in their mind-numbingly dreary uniformity - he discovered a continent that was doubly lost; lost to itself because blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a stranger in his own land.The Lost Continent is a classic of travel literature - hilariously, stomach-achingly funny, yet tinged with heartache - and the book that first staked Bill Bryson's claim as the most beloved writer of his generation.

John the Baptist


F.B. Meyer - 2012
    But I am more thankful for the hours of absorbing interest spent in the study of his portraiture as given in the Gospels. I know of nothing that makes so pleasant a respite from the pressure of life's fret and strain, as to bathe mind and spirit in the translucent waters of Scripture biography. As the clasp between the Old Testament and the New - the close of the one and the beginning of the other; as among the greatest of those born of women; as the porter who opened the door to the True Shepherd; as the fearless rebuker of royal and shameless sin - the Baptist must ever compel the homage and admiration of mankind. In many respects, such a life cannot be repeated. But the spirit of humility and courage; of devotion to God, and uncompromising loyalty to truth, which was so conspicuous in him, may animate us. We, also, may be filled with the spirit and power of Elijah, as he was; and may point, with lip and life, to the Saviour of the world, crying, "Behold the Lamb of God."

Extreme Frontiers: Racing Across Canada from Newfoundland to the Rockies


Charley Boorman - 2012
    Travelling mainly on his much-loved bike, Charley will explore the world's second largest country - home to some of the most stunning and challenging terrain known to man. Along the way he will work with Alberta's famous 'Bear Whisperer'; travel with Native Canadians and learn more about their mythology and shamanic rituals; get involved in the world famous National Lumberjack competition; work with the Mounties search and rescue team and visit the world's smallest jail in Ontario. Along the way he will take a raft along the Nahanni river; cross Canada's only desert in Okanagan Valley; climb the Canadian Rockies and circumnavigate Newfoundland, taking an old steel sloop through the infamous Iceberg Alley, stopping to camp, hunt and cook with local foraged food. EXTREME FRONTIERS is vintage Boorman, packed with all the excitement, adventure - and bikes! - of his previous bestselling books.

Back to the Bush: Another Year in the Wild


James Hendry - 2013
    Angus is involved in a romantic liaison, which takes the edge off his customary cynicism, and for the first time in their adult lives, a positive fraternal bond exists between them.Inevitably, reality comes calling. Angus’s love affair ends and he copes poorly, Hugh becomes stratospherically arrogant on the back of a promotion and Julia, the MacNaughtons’ sister, starts dating Angus’s nemesis – Alistair ‘The Legend’ Jones. Then there are a series of further ‘hiccups’, from demanding lodge guests and marauding monkeys, to a labour protest, a run-in with a blind-drunk head chef, a winter drought, a rogue elephant that puts staff and guests in danger and the resignation of the sterling head ranger.You are guaranteed to be entertained by the hilarious antics and hard knocks as well as the fierce beauty of the African landscape in Back to the Bush: Another Year in the Wild. ‘A Year in the Wild is a delight to read [and a] hugely entertaining novel. Don’t miss it. If there’s a sequel, and I hope there is, I will be first in line to read it.’ – BRIAN JOSS, Bolander

Blue Highways


William Least Heat-Moon - 1982
    Hailed as a masterpiece of American travel writing, Blue Highways is an unforgettable journey along our nation's backroads.William Least Heat-Moon set out with little more than the need to put home behind him and a sense of curiosity about "those little towns that get on the map-if they get on at all-only because some cartographer has a blank space to fill: Remote, Oregon; Simplicity, Virginia; New Freedom, Pennsylvania; New Hope, Tennessee; Why, Arizona; Whynot, Mississippi."His adventures, his discoveries, and his recollections of the extraordinary people he encountered along the way amount to a revelation of the true American experience.

Who Needs a Road?: The Story of the Longest and Last Motor Journey Around the World


Harold Stephens - 1999
    He wanted to do it in a four-wheel drive, taking his own camper-trailer with him, to live at the edge of deserts and at the rim of tropical jungles, to drive the highest roads, and the lowest, to be free to make his own choices. He found a nut who wanted to do it with him, a picture editor of a leading man's magazine in New York, and the Trans World Expedition was born. This is their incredible journey. The did it, and how they did it is their tale told in his exciting book.

With the Battle Cruisers


Filson Young - 2015
     In the years before the First World War, Filson Young had become friends with several notable Royal Navy leaders, including Lord Fisher and Admiral Beatty. Following the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, Young began to miss his friends and resolved to join them and share in their experiences. Even though volunteer officers were ridiculed, Young wrote to his friends and managed to engineer a Lieutenant’s gazette in the R.N.V.R. Buoyed by the success of the Scarborough raid, Admiral Hipper of the Imperial German Navy sought a repeat of the exercise, this time against the fishing fleet on the Dogger Bank. Young was there to witness it. First published in 1921, With the Battle Cruisers is a very personal, focused study of naval life during wartime as it unfolded for Young. Filson Young (1876-1938) was an Irish writer, journalist, war correspondent and essayist. He was noted for publishing a book about the sinking of the Titanic little over a month after the tragedy in 1912. Between November 1914 and May 1915 he served as a Lieutenant R.N.V.R.; With the Battle Cruisers was one of two books he wrote about his naval service.