Brian Doyle

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...

In this award-winning paean to country life we find Hubbo O'Driscoll, whom we first met in Easy Avenue, now living in the lower Gatineau with his guardian aunt and uncle. When the local covered bridge -- home to a wayward ghost and her lovelorn postman -- is threatened by development, Hubbo must devise a strategy to save it.

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 SquareYoung 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...

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...

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...

In this brillant and poetic novel, Brian Doyle returns to the Gatineau River near Ottawa, the world of his novels Up to Low and Uncle Ronald. 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...

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

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. Poverty, social climbing and the connotations of each are presented through the classic Doyle blend of humor and gravity.

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.

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. How will Spud find his way our of the mess he's in? Another masterful book by award-winning...