Böcker av Lesley Choyce

After willing himself back to life with sheer stubbornness, ninety-year-old John Alexander MacNeil finds Death sitting at his kitchen table.

The story of two seasoned and intrepid Canadian travellers, Lesley and Linda Choyce, who embark on a new adventure with their West Highland terrier, Kelty.Lesley Choyce is a 70-year-old year-round North Atlantic surfer, the godfather of transcendental wood-splitting, and the award-winning author of over 100 books. His wife, Linda, a former high school principal who has fearlessly commandeered knives from teenage malcontents, usually guides her husband away from quixotic quests, but she is fully on board for this one. As for Kelty, the couple's West Highland terrier, he's always ready to give up on chewing shoes and chasing pheasants for something more exciting.For years, Lesley has been fascinated and perplexed by the tumultuous history of England, the inexplicable customs of the English, and the many paradoxes of the people, but also their indomitable spirit. If he were to continue to grow intellectually and spiritually, he was certain that the answers to the meaning of life were to be found in England. As their itinerary expands, Lesley and Linda will cross borders into Wales and Scotland as well.Join the Choyces as they hurtle around the U.K. in search of history (all kinds), good food (mostly Indian), quirky destinations (the smaller and weirder the better), and places for the dog to pee. All while waiting for the imminent arrival of new grandchildren back home in Canada. Ever wondered what a Nova Scotian surfer/wood-splitter/Renaissance man/Westie owner thinks of the U.K.? Now you can find out.

A small island off the coast of Nova Scotia declares its independence to the world. In this Utopian world, the ocean delivers many a curiosity, including a dead circus elephant and a raven-haired woman. When the turbulence of the 1960s draws the island's inhabitants into politics, the Vietnam War, and the peace movement, and when civilization lays siege, an unexpected character comes to the rescue. Sound impossible? Not on Whalebone Island, a.k.a. the Republic of Nothing. Where else could a psychic castaway, an anarchist-turned-politician, and American refugees cultivate their eccentricities? This new edition of Lesley Choyce's celebrated novel features an afterword by Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart, leading readers to discover once again that nothing is everything.

A Summer of Apartment X lurks in everyone's past: the first foray beyond the view of parents, the first attempt at self-support, the shocking recognition that adulthood involves more than sand, sex, and cars. Lesley Choyce recreates this exhilarating adventure in Technicolor, nostalgia for 1970 undercut at every turn by ebullient humour and a touch of mature irony. The Summer of Apartment X is a beach book for grown-ups who remember how they got that way.

Driven from the Fundy shore into Saint John by the Point Lepreau nuclear power plant expropriations, Alex McNab grows up a lonely, insecure failure. At thirty, to make a clean break, he takes a job at New Dawn, a Halifax rehabilitation workshop. At New Dawn, the distinction between the helper and the helped blurs. Jeff, seventeen and blind, knows all about cars, so Alex teaches him to drive. In turn, Alex has his fuzzy thinking firmly adjusted by a descendant of Jamaican Maroons plagued by encroaching Alzheimer's. Alex sees right away that Gloria Vincent has adopted a sloppy dress and ugly glasses to hide her intelligence and beauty, and they cautiously fall in love. Alex can't prevent New Dawn from going broke any more than he can shrug off the shadow of death that follows him. But he can control the force of life. By the end of the summer, his safe, depressing existence has become a full, exhilarating, and at times frightening adventure.

Dance the Rocks Ashore, a milestone in Lesley Choyce's leaps-and-bounds career, attests to almost twenty years of continuous inventiveness and craftsmanship in the art of the short story. It's a powerful mix: 15 of the best stories from seven earlier books, plus four stories so new they've never been published until now. The title story, "Dance the Rocks Ashore," is a bittersweet account of an elderly couple's decline. "The Third or Fourth Happiest Man in Nova Scotia" features a peculiar hero reminiscent of Noah. In "The Wreck of the Sister Theresa," spring fever hits like "a handshake in hell." Fanciful or realistic, poetic or comical, literary or homespun, each story shines with Choyce's unique take on the world.