When Nature Calls : Life at a Gulf Island Cottage

Nicol, Eric

ISBN 10: 1550172107 / ISBN 13: 9781550172102

Published by Harbour Publishing, Madeira Park, BC, Canada, 1999

About this Item

189p. Spot on top page edges, jacket is rubbed with light creases to edges. (9-1/4"x6-1/8"). Seller Inventory # H5263

Bibliographic Details

Title: When Nature Calls : Life at a Gulf Island ...

Publisher: Harbour Publishing, Madeira Park, BC, Canada

Publication Date: 1999

Binding: Hard Cover

Condition: Very Good

Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

Edition: (First Edition).

About this title

Synopsis:

Islands have always had a special place in our minds, hearts and souls. So too have cottages. Add the two together and what do you get? Eric Nicol's wryly funny, sharply observed new book on the joys and terrors of cottage life on Saturna Island, in BC's Strait of Georgia.

Part loopy guidebook, part madcap how-to manual, part fractured history, When Nature Calls tells you everything you've always wanted to know about cottaging, and then some. You'll meet a lively cast of eccentrics that includes a crusty one-eyed boat builder, crotchety neighbours and a renegade parson with a "church" in a boat; encounter the fickleness of Gulf Islands weather, ferries and outhouses; discover exotic local flora and fauna; and experience the indignities of boaters, tourists, guests, government officials and insects - all enriched by Nicol's frequent literary musings, inspired by the likes of Montaigne, Francis Bacon, Lord Chesterfield, Henry David Thoreau and everyone in between.

Whether he's chopping wood, soaking up the splendid solitude or shopping for vegetables in his own backyard Safeway, Nicol cracks wise and wonderful in a deliciously funny escape that may just cause you to look in the classifieds for your own piece of heaven on earth, if you haven't already bought it.

About the Author:

Eric Nicol (1919-2011) was one of Canada's most beloved humourists. He was born December 28, 1919 in Kingston, Ontario, the son of William Nicol and Amelia Mannock Nicol. His family moved to Vancouver, BC in 1921, and - with the exception of a few years in Nelson, BC - Nicol spent the rest of his childhood there. He received his B.A. from the University of British Columbia in 1941 and then completed three years service (RCAF) during World War II. After the war, Nicol returned to UBC for his M.A. in French Studies ('48) and spent one year in doctoral studies at Sorbonne. He then moved to London, England to write radio comedy series for Bernard Braden and Barbara Kelly of the BBC from 1950-51. Nicol had started to write occasional columns for the Vancouver News Herald and the Vancouver Province during the war, while studying in Paris. He returned to Vancouver in 1951 to become a regular columnist with the Province, eventually producing some six thousand newspaper columns, several stage plays, more scripts for radio and television and more than thirty books - three of them winners of the Stephen Leacock Award for humour. He was the first recipient of the BC Gas Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding contribution to the literary arts in 1995.