Ben McNally Travellers Series: Angus Bell, Mark Richardson, Peter Unwin

Angus Bell has visited 43 countries, and has written for the South African Sunday Times, Inside Sport (Australia), Student Traveler (USA), Cricinfo (India), and The Wisden Cricketer (UK). He currently lives in Montreal where he writes for various other magazines and frequently appears on the radio to discuss cricket and his travels. Bell presents Batting on the Bosphorus: A Liquor-fueled Cricket Tour across Eastern Europe, a documentation of the English game of cricket being played across the former Soviet Bloc.

Mark Richardson is the editor of the Toronto Star Wheels section. He lives in Toronto. Zen and Now, a vivid chronicle of the heartfelt journey to reconnect with the beloved classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, is his first book. In Zen and Now, Richardson pays tribute to Pirsig’s 1968 cross-country motorcycle trip, and explores the enigmatic author’s struggle with mental illness, his unwanted celebrity, and the tragic, brutal murder of his son in 1979.

Peter Unwin is a leading writer of popular Canadian history whose articles and essays have been nominated for numerous regional and national magazine awards. His books include Nine Bells for a Man, The Wolf’s Head: Writing Lake Superior, and a short story collection, The Rock Farmers, which received a Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour nomination. Unwin presents the first full-length examination of the highways, byways and back roads that make this country possible, Hard Surface: In Search of the Canadian Road.

One day, the words “cricket” and “Ukraine” popped into Angus Bell’s head. Following a frantic Google search, Bell made an extraordinary find – the English¬man’s game of cricket was being played across the former Soviet Bloc. Bell knew then and there that he was going to document this story, and the love for the game, in a book, and so Batting on the Bosphorus was born. Batting on the Bosphorus is an hilarious and unique traveller’s tale that takes the reader through Balkan minefields, border bribes and Sarajevo graveyards. “An irresistible mixture of madness, adventure and cricket,” says Joseph O’Neill, author of Netherland.

Hard Surface: In Search of the Canadian Road is a provocative and original investigation of the highways, byways and back roads that make this country possible. Lyrical, informative and slyly funny, Hard Surface takes a refreshing look at what we encounter every day of our lives: the road, with its promise of freedom and individuality. Whether following the road to paradise or the road to Placentia, Newfoundland, Hard Surface journeys through our country’s past and present, celebrating our search for meaning, nationhood, and a decent 12-inch hot dog. As the first full-length examination of the Canadian road, Unwin takes the reader on an unforgettable ride that suggests the true value of the Canadian road is not the transportation of goods and cargo, but the quest for ourselves, and the irrepressible urge to spread our stories across a vast and complex land.

Since its original publication, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has touched whole generations of readers with its serious attempt to define “quality” in a world that seems indifferent to the responsibilities that quality brings. Mark Richardson expands on Robert Pirsig’s 1968 cross-country motorcycle trip with an investigation of his own – to find the enigmatic author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, ask him a few questions, and place his classic book in context. The result, a biography of Pirsig himself, is the discovery of an unknown life of madness, murder and eventual resolution.