Most Popular Books by Brian Doyle

In this remarkable collection of essays, acclaimed writer Brian Doyle offers “resurrections, restorations, reconsiderations, appreciations, enthusiasms, headlong solos, laughing prayers, imaginary meetings with most unusual and most interesting men.” Geographically and chronologically diverse—Plutarch of Greece; William Blake of England; Robert Louis Stevenson of Scotland; James Joyce and Van Morrison of Ireland; and others—Doyle sees them as men of “immense spiritual substance, prayerful fury, enormous grace,” men concerned with “the moral grapple” and “the sinuous crucial puzzle of love.” In telling the stories of these talented, troubled, and extraordinary men, Doyle discerns clues about how to be a good man, headlong in the pursuit of love and capable of greatness.

Centered on the theme of cherishing the past, "Covered Bridge" pits earnest Hubbo O''Driscoll against two determined, cynical land developers. Hubbo is beginning to enjoy the pleasures of country life while staying with his guardian aunt and uncle, and he even has a job as curator of the area''s rustic covered bridge. When the old bridge -- home to a wayward ghost and her lovelorn postman -- is suddenly threatened by builders Ovide and Prootoo Proulx, Hubbo searches for a way to save it. Accompanied by his personable dog, Nerves, Hubbo tries to reconcile the charms of days gone by with the profit-driven demands of the present. At the last minute, help arrives in unexpected form: Foolish Father Foley from Farrelton, the two ghosts, and a crazy goat. But will it be enough to keep the old bridge of Mushrat Creek from demolition?

Prose poems, chants, litanies, simple songs, cadenced prayers, brief bursts of rhythmic observation, elegies to little moments that are not little at all in the least whatsoever—welcome to the melodic world of Brian Doyle’s “proems,” swirling with voices unreeling tales, souls telling stories, moments photographed with ink. Accessible, easy to read, blunt, brief, and sometimes unforgettable, “these are not poems,” says the author, “but life set to the music of poetry.” In A Shimmer of Something, Brian Doyle’s characteristic humor and sincerity combine to make this collection a delight to read. From his conviction that miracles breed ripples that do not cease, to his lack of faith about the life of an elderberry bush, to the amusing story of a friend’s experience of driving the Dalai Lama to Seattle, to the humorous experience of his second Confession, to an intimate story of love and loss, Doyle’s lean stories of spiritual substance inspire, entertain, and captivate.

After witnessing a murder on the coldest day of the year, Spud Sweetgrass becomes the target of both Detective Kennedy of the police department and the murderer himself. Reprint.

From a "born storyteller" (Seattle Times), this playful and moving bestselling book of essays invites us into the miraculous and transcendent moments of everyday life. 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. Through Doyle''s eyes, nothing is dull. 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.

Winner of the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year, the Geoffrey Bilson Award, the Ruth Schwartz Award, and an ALA Notable Books List selection Martin O''Boy''s life is not easy. His beloved Granny has just died, his pregnant mother and father fight all the time and his twin, Phil, is completely incapacitated. Martin is the one his mother counts on. But life in Ottawa''s Lowertown is not all bad. He has his best friend, Billy Batson (a.k.a. Captain Marvel), the movies, his cat Cheap and there''s the glamorous Buz from next door, who is off at the war.As the war comes to an end with the bombing of Hiroshima -- on Martin''s birthday -- Ottawa is in a state of turmoil. Returning soldiers, parties, fights and drunks fill the streets. It would all be very exciting, except for one thing. In their endless pursuit of more funds Martin and Billy have joined the church choir -- as summer boys. And the organist, Mr. T.D.S. George, is awfully fond of Martin. But Martin, despite his hardships, has a pure soul and his Granny''s love, Billy''s friendship, Buz''s imminent return, and even his mother''s reliance on him, which help him to deliver a kind of justice to Mr. George, and to heal himself and others.

Martin O''Boy finally has a home and a job--at the Pure Spring soft drink factory--but not everything is perfect, as sometimes Grandpa Rip''s mind wanders, he gets involved with a crooked coworker, and his memories of the past overwhelm him.

Is Brian Doyle the most passionate Catholic storyteller in America? Here is new evidence that he is. In this brand new compilation of some of his best stories that have appeared in various publications throughout the world, Doyle explores the promise of Catholicism in America that he has experienced and observed from his childhood through today.

"The most passionate Catholic storyteller in America? That might be Brian Doyle, the author of this eclectic and compelling collection of stories about discovery the incarnated Spirit of God every time he turns around, often in the most unlikely of people, places, and things. In 37 short snapshots, he captures the spiritual essence of everyday life from the perspective of a committed Catholic who loves his faith, his family, his community, and his church, even with all their warts and failings ..."--Page 4 of cover

In 1945 in Ottawa''s Lowertown, Tommy, also known as "The Shadow," and two of his friends, one French Canadian, one Irish, try to find out who attacked the father of their Jewish friend Sammy. Reprint.

In this spirited collection of essays, Brian Doyle employs his wit, wisdom, and gusto for life as he shares with readers his thoughts on Jesus, the Mass, Birds, Bees, and so much more. What would be a good alternative name for Jesus? What does a honeybee at Mass have to tell us about Christ? What is, after all, the real point of saying prayers when someone is suffering? Through the good and the bad, the serious and the hilarious, Doyle finds just the right story and just the right words to help us better understand life and love—and to help us see our faith in a whole new light.

Declan O Donnell has sailed out of Oregon and deep into the vast, wild ocean, having had just finally enough of other people and their problems. He will go it alone, he will be his own country, he will be beholden to and beloved of no one. No man is an island, my butt, he thinks. I am that very man. . . . But the galaxy soon presents him with a string of odd, entertaining, and dangerous passengers, who become companions of every sort and stripe. The Plover is the story of their adventures and misadventures in the immense blue country one of their company calls Pacifica. Hounded by a mysterious enemy, reluctantly acquiring one new resident after another, Declan O Donnell''s lonely boat is eventually crammed with humor, argument, tension, and a resident herring gull. Brian Doyle''s The Plover is a sea novel, a maritime adventure, the story of a cold man melting, a compendium of small miracles, an elegy to Edmund Burke, a watery quest, a battle at sea---and a rapturous, heartfelt celebration of life''s surprising paths, planned and unplanned.

A cast of motley characters helps Young Tommy and Baby Bridget discover that there are many ways to love and heal and die.

Boy O’Boy Martin O''Boy''s life is not easy. His beloved Granny has just died, his pregnant mother and father fight all the time and his twin, Phil, is completely incapacitated. Martin is the one his mother counts on. Angel Square Young Tommy is seeing Angel Square through new eyes since his best friend''s father was beaten up just because he''s Jewish. Brian Doyle brings his award-winning blend of humor and wisdom to bear in this mystery that confronts the issue of racial hatred. Easy Avenue In his first year in high school, Hubbo O''Driscoll is torn between his poor but fun friends and the shallow but rich kids. In this novel based on Great Expectations, Brian Doyle does a brilliant job of dealing with the issue of class and all its implications. You Can Pick Me Up at Peggy’s Cove When Ryan''s dad runs away from home because of the change of life, Ryan is sent to spend the summer with his aunt in Peggy''s Cove. He goes fishing, almost gets into big trouble and learns a lot about tourist behavior, but most of all he misses his dad and hopes he''ll come back soon.

A collection of humorous short stories from the award-winning author of The Plover and Mink River. Welcome to the peculiar, headlong world of Brian Doyle’s fiction, where the odd is happening all the time, reported upon by characters of every sort and stripe. Swirling voices and skeins of story, laughter and rage, ferocious attention to detail and sweeping nuttiness, tears and chortling—these stories will remind readers of the late giant David Foster Wallace, in their straightforward accounts of anything-but-straightforward events; of modern short story pioneer Raymond Carver, a bit, in their blunt, unadorned dialogue; and of Julia Whitty, a bit, in their willingness to believe what is happening, even if it absolutely shouldn’t be. Funny, piercing, unique, memorable, this is a collection of stories readers will find nearly impossible to forget. “To read Brian Doyle is to apprehend, all at once, the force that drives Mark Twain, and Walt Whitman, and James Joyce, and Emily Dickinson, and Francis of Assisi, and Jonah under his gourd. Brian Doyle is an extraordinary writer whose tales will endure. The sublime ‘Waking the Bishop’ is going to inhabit American anthologies forever and ever.” —Cynthia Ozick, New York Times–bestselling author of Heir to the Glimmering World “What I like about Brian Doyle’s writing is that it’s real—it’s got mud and blood and tears but it’s also got earthly angels who teach him to grasp on to each small epiphany as it opens before him.” —Martin Flanagan, author of The Call and The Art of Pollination

A family car trip across Canada brings Megan and her dad face to face with how sad and happy growing up can be.

Shortly after World War II, Hubbo O''Driscoll lives in a shelter outside Ottawa with a distant relative who works as a cleaning woman at his school, tries to make friends with a girl at the shelter and with the rich kids in the Hi-Y club, and reads "War and Peace" to wealthy Miss Collar-Cuff.

Proems, taut tales, small stories with rhythm and blues and grace and bruise and laughter between the lines. Brian Doyle''s The Kind of Brave You Wanted to Be is a book of cadenced notes on the swirl of miracle and the holy of attentiveness; a book about children and birds, love and grief and everything alive, which is to say all prayers. Brian Doyle''s uncategorizable form is the brief story dressed like a poem but with the loose lyricism and verve of an essay. Here are chants and litanies, like gentle songs to the sacrament of every moment.

On the last day of summer, some years ago, a young college graduate moves to Chicago and rents a small apartment on the north side of the city, by the vast and muscular lake. This is the story of the five seasons he lives there, during which he meets gangsters, gamblers, policemen, a brave and garrulous bus driver, a cricket player, a librettist, his first girlfriend, a shy apartment manager, and many other riveting souls, not to mention a wise and personable dog of indeterminate breed. A love letter to Chicago, the Great American City, and a wry account of a young man''s coming-of-age during the one summer in White Sox history when they had the best outfield in baseball, Brian Doyle''s Chicago is a novel that will plunge you into a city you will never forget, and may well wish to visit for the rest of your days.

Engage answers the age-old questions: What is it Men are looking for and Need in a Church? and How do I build this Ministry? Engaging men to lead at the local church level is one of the biggest overlooked opportunities facing America’s churches today. The needs of men in the church are being missed, and the health of churches are at risk. Engage begins at a macro level, helping to build the vision for your church, to a micro level showing how to meet men at their deepest need; to engage in something powerful. Written from the perspective of 5 men in church leadership, Engage provides the game plan for developing a powerful vision that drives the actions needed from overall men''s ministry down to impactful men''s small groups. In each chapter, the authors have cut away the fat and delivered 100% Grade-A meat to your table. Engage is a systematic plan that answer those age-old questions using a strong biblical foundation that will help you assess your church and give you tools to both evaluate and create a successful plan of action. When Men are engaged, churches flourish.

In 1895, to escape his violent father, Mickey is sent to stay with his Uncle Ronald and his twin aunts in the hills north of Ottawa and learns to feel safe for the first time in his life.

John "Spud" Sweetgrass tries to find out who has been dumping rancid cooking oil into the storm drain at a polluted beach, and a troublesome teacher meets an ironic fate. Reprint.

When Ryan''s father leaves the family during a midlife crisis, his mother sends him to spend the summer with his aunt in Peggy''s Cove, Nova Scotia, where he learns to fish and gets into trouble.

When a new project is presented to dam up the Gatineau River, Mary Ann Alice McCrank and her teacher, Patchy Drizzle, know that many fossils and rocks will be lost forever and experience mixed feelings like others in the community.

Best-selling and award-winning essayist Brian Doyle knows that the heartbeat of Catholicism is found not in papal decrees and pageantry, but in the parish halls, potluck dinners, and the believing community. In this spirited collection of more than 40 essays, Doyle employs his trademark wit, candor, and gusto for life and faith to reignite readers’ excitement for Catholicism as he plumbs some of the stickier and trickier elements of the Catholic character. From preparing for his first confession with a fake laundry list of sins to his young observations of President Kennedy’s assassination, Doyle’s passionate writing makes for a heartfelt, genuine, and often laugh-out-loud read. The Thorny Grace of It reaffirms that the Catholic faith—imperfect as it is—is wildly aflame in hearts and lives everywhere. “It is a boon, a blessing, to have Brian Doyle’s vagabond essays now rubbing elbows in a single, handy, and altogether delightful volume." - Kenneth L. Woodward, author of The Book of Miracles

If you love to read, or write, or both, you’ll appreciate Brain Doyle—passionate observer of and commentator on all things written. In this ultimate collection of his thoughts on writers and writing and readers and reading, he covered everything from what the books people keep stashed in the cars or sitting on their bookshelves tell you about them, to the pleasures of reading box scores or what’s hung on refrigerator doors, to the scent that books and newspapers give off as they age, to literary genres of books about nature or travel or Portland or almost any subject you can name, to (in his humble opinion) the great and not-so-great-but-still-essential writers, to why the essay is the coolest wildest literary form of all. But don’t believe us, listen to him: “Think how many times in your own work you were typing along happily, cursing and humming, and suddenly you wrote something you didn’t know you felt so powerfully, and maybe you cried right there by the old typewriter, and marveled, not always happily, at what dark thread your typing had pulled from the mysterious fabric of your heart. Maybe that happens the most with essays. This could be.”

Up to Low Young Tommy and Baby Bridget, the girl with the trillium-shaped eyes, discover that living, healing and dying are not always what they seem. And they make that discovery with the help of a wonderful cast of characters, including Crazy Mickey, Frank and the Hummer. Uncle Ronald Old Mickey is one hundred and twelve years old. He can''t remember what he ate for lunch today, but he can remember every detail of what happened one hundred years ago, when he and his mother ran away from his violent father to take refuge in the hills north of Ottawa. Mary Ann Alice Mary Ann Alice McCrank was named for the pretty church bell in the steeple of St. Martin''s Church in the Martindale. She has the soul of a poet and Mickey McGuire Jr. is in love with her. Mary Ann Alice is passionately interested in many things, especially the geology of her part of the world. Her teacher, the wonderful Patchy Drizzle, shares her passion for rocks and fossils, many of which can be found along the river and in caves under the famous Paugan Falls.

“Brian Doyle is an extraordinary writer whose tales will endure.” —Cynthia Ozick, National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author of Quarrel and Quandary This is a guided tour through the mind of one of the most acclaimed voices in contemporary Catholic writing. Brian Doyle effortlessly connects the everyday with the inexpressible and consistently marries searingly honest prose with interruptions of humor and humanity. These essays bear Doyle’s trademark depth and deliver with eloquence his piercing observations on mohawks and miracles, vigils and velociraptors, syntax and scapulars, jail and jihad, and mercy beyond sense. A 2018 Catholic Press Association Book Award winner. The audio edition of this book can be downloaded via Audible.

-The young Robert Louis Stevenson, living in a boarding house in San Francisco while waiting for his beloved''s divorce from her feckless husband, dreamed of writing a soaring novel about his landlady''s adventurous and globe-trotting husband--but he never got around to it. And very soon thereafter he was married ... and on his way to becoming the most famous novelist in the world ... Now Brian Doyle brings Stevenson''s untold tale to life, braiding the adventures of seaman John Carson with those of a young Stevenson, wandering the streets of San Francisco, gathering material for his fiction, and yearning for his beloved across the bay---

WINNER OF THE LESLIE BRADSHAW AWARD FOR YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE WINNER OF THE BANFF MOUNTAIN BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION Dave is fourteen years old, eager, and headlong. He is about to start high school, which is scary and alluring. Martin is a pine marten, a small, muscled hunter of the deep woods. He is about to leave home for the first time, which is scary and thrilling. Both of these wild animals are setting off on adventures on their native Mount Hood in Oregon, and their lives, paths, and trails will cross, weave, and blend. Why not come with them as they set forth into the forest and crags of the mountain and into the bruising wilderness of love, life, family, friends, enemies, wonder, mystery, and good things to eat? Martin Marten is a braided coming-of-age tale like no other, told in Brian Doyle''s joyous, rollicking style. Two energetic, sinewy, muddled, brilliant, creative animals, one human and one mustelid---come sprint with them through the deep, wet, green glory of Oregon''s soaring mountain.

Brian Doyle was a one-of-a-kind author who wrote one-of-a-kind prayers about everyday subjects that help readers change the way they see the world. Prayers for cashiers and good shoes; for shorter sermons and better senators; prayers for the bruised, foolish, glorious, stumbling, brilliant Church; for chaplains and mathematicians; for idiot authors and muddy dogs: These are the most heartfelt and headlong prayers you will ever read and share—the grinning, snarling prayers we mouth quietly in the car and the shower and the pub, the small chapels of our everyday life. Doyle said he aimed to write short pieces that functioned like “arrows to the heart.” This book is a quiver full of those sharp arrows, "stealth theology” that explores everyday encounters—from nuns to possums, from Chet Baker to Port-A-Potties—through a Catholic, sacramental imagination. Since Doyle’s death in 2017 from a brain tumor, enthusiasm for his award-winning writing has only swelled, whether it’s his quirky prayers, kinetic essays, or magical novels such as Mink River and The Plover. This tenth anniversary edition of A Book of Uncommon Prayer includes a new foreword from his wife, Mary, and an afterword from his good friend Peter Boland, who delivered the eulogy at Doyle’s funeral.

Brian Doyle himself explains it best: “A few years ago I was moaning to my wry gentle dad that basketball, which seems to me inarguably the most graceful and generous and swift and fluid and ferociously-competitive-without-being-sociopathic of sports, has not produced rafts of good books, like baseball and golf and cricket and surfing have . . . Where are the great basketball novels to rival The Natural and the glorious Mark Harris baseball quartet and the great Bernard Darwin’s golf stories? Where are the annual anthologies of terrific basketball essays? How can a game full of such wit and creativity and magic not spark more great books?" “‘Why don’t you write one?’ said my dad, who is great at cutting politely to the chase." And so he has. In this collection of short essays, Brian Doyle presents a compelling account of a life lived playing, watching, loving, and coaching basketball. He recounts his passion for the gyms, the playgrounds, the sounds and scents, the camaraderie, the fierce competition, the anticipation and exhaustion, and even some of the injuries.

Spud Sweetgrass Spud gets angry when he sees Dumper Stubbs, a creepy delivery man, dumping oil into a storm drain and causing terrible pollution in the river. When Spud blows the whistle, he loses his job. Enlisting the help of his buddy, Dink the Thinker, and Connie Pan, Spud thinks he has a chance of regaining his job . . . and stopping the Dumper''s harmful activities. Spud in Winter Spud Sweetgrass and his friends Connie Pan and Dink the Thinker are back. And this time Spud is in some frigid trouble. One morning Spud sees a terrible crime. And he can''t get it out of his mind. Detective Kennedy wants him to tell her what he saw, but he''s afraid of the man with the most beautiful hair in the world -- afraid for himself, and afraid for Connie Pan.

The analysis of metaphors constitutes an ideal point of entry into the exegesis of Biblical Hebrew poetic texts because it forces the exegete to examine the said text from a variety of perspectives. How can one discern the presence of metaphorical speech? What are the various types of metaphorical speech available to and employed by the biblical poet? How does the structure of a piece of Hebrew poetry carry its metaphorical dimensions? How did the biblical poet make use of the various types of metaphor and to what end? Can we ultimately gain access to the poet''s meaning? The present study endeavours to provide at least a partial answer to these questions. In maintaining focus on the biblical text, moreover, the author hopes to anchor some of the abstractions of metaphorical theory with chosen examples taken from the so-called ''Apocalypse of Isaiah''. The Hebrew prophets constitute fertile ground in their use of metaphorical language for speaking the unspeakable, especially concerning the relationship between the people and God.

First published in 2002. This volume is part of the New Accent series looking at English and popular culture, language, policy, fiction and democracy. Each volume in the series will seek to encourage rather than resist the process of change; to stretch rather than reinforce the boundaries that currently define literature and its academic study.

" ... Brings a town to life through the jumbled lives and braided stories of its people"--Publisher description.