This is the third volume of essays from Canada’s Man of Letters, following the critically acclaimed Raise You Five and Raise You Ten. Novelist and poet Barry Callaghan is one of Canada’s great journalists. He has received every major award in North America – more than a dozen National Magazine awards, seven of them gold, and in the U.S., the Lowell Thomas Award, and the Pushcart Prize.

His journalism covers an astonishing range, from serious political reporting to autobiography, sports writing, and travel writing. In the late sixties at the Toronto Telegram, he began his career as a books editor and weekly columnist, setting a standard that has rarely been met since. He became a war correspondent in the Middle East and Africa, and a translator of, and commentator on, the culture and politics of European countries from Spain to Russia.

Masterfully written, this third volume of essays and encounters is “literary criticism and cultural history of a high order, in turn joyous, acerbic, celebratory.” Globe & Mail