Mick: The Real Michael Collins by Peter Hart

Wow - I can really appreciate the amount of scholarly work that went into this work, but I just couldn't get through it the first time around. The Globe and Mail review is correct that the work is "meticulous, doggedly factual and minutely detailed" and for me, that was the problem. I just couldn't cope with reading who was at every single meeting and where they met - I wanted more about what it meant! However, the review also says "Hart's account is so carefully considered, so detailed and so nuanced, that a final delight will land on the reader only after the book is finished." So I might have to try again at another time.

Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell by Charlotte Gray

Best biographical work I have ever read. There may be better ones, but none that I've experienced. I have just put on hold at my local library everything else that Charlotte Gray has ever written. A complete page-turner and just chock full of information one might never have known otherwise. For instance, did you know that it was Alexander Graham Bell and his fatehr-in-law who kept alive, then transformed the National Geographic Magazine? Absolutely fascinating and great read.

My Heart is Africa: A Flying Adventure by Scott Griffin

I am finding myself quite ambivalent about this read. Definitely enjoyable and well-written. The author is very obviously a wonderful and charming individual. Margaret Atwood refers to him as one of the great romantics, and after all - he purchased House of Anansi Press, so he's very definitely "one of our own." I think I'm having some gender-bias thing going on here, because I didn't enjoy this book nearly so much as I have enjoyed similar memoirs written by women such as Isak Dinesen or Beryl Markham. Nevertheless, this was a life-changing experience for Mr. Griffin and he shares it very generously with us.