Vivid Air: Travels to a Further Shore
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by:
ISBN:
0-7414-3697-3
©2006
Price:
$18.95
Book Size:
5.5'' x 8.5''
, 345 pages
Category/Subject:
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs
Vivid Air, a memoir written in word-paintings, uses landscapes as the characters and color as the thread that draws you into the fascinating Asian cultures through which the author traveled.
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Abstract:
Vivid Air is a memoir of the adventurous life of an Australian who encountered her American husband on a slow boat to Singapore. Meeting again as graduate students in London, they married and sailed first to the South Seas for fieldwork, then to a world now gone – a world of Imperial power and pageantry that once existed in Laos, Pakistan, Kathmandu, India, and the Philippines. Each chapter reveals the pleasures and risks of living in exotic cultures – from encountering the fascinating characters who were a part of that era - to facing the political upsets that accompanied a rapidly changing Asia.
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Customer Reviews
An Insightful Look Back at a Life rich with Adventure and Humanism
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05/27/2009
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Reviewer:
Robert Cardinalli, Oct 19 2007
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What a pleasure to find this set of memoried vignettes by a woman who has had life experiences most of us only conjure up in our imagination. Catharine Cool has given us a warm, insightful and introspective view on many aspects of her varied and complex life, juxtaposed against the backdrop of a period of post-WWII global social change. Her passionate pursuit toward finding the central artistic core of each culture she made a home in, gives the stories she tells a rare and wonderful twilight patina. Those of us familiar with these backdrops, can understand this interior landscape while in the context of the socio-political world we inhabit. The book is pervaded with the air of something lost, in the Australia of her youth, the Africa of her early married years -- in recounting the rearing of three fine children into adulthood -- and in the missed opportunities, such as the complex yet loving relationship with her mother in whose final years the author affords one of the most affecting portraits of internal solitude, joy with regret, and a compelling sadness for what might have been. I, for one, look forward to the author's upcoming work on the lives of her fascinating parents.
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Love! Travel! Adventure!
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05/27/2009
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Reviewer:
Willem L Weertman
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"Vivid Air", March 18, 2007
Love! Travel! Adventure! An enchanting but true story of the life of a very talented Australian woman who, as a schoolgirl, falls in love with an American then later, as his wife, accompanies him on his assignments - sometimes dangerous - throughout the Far East.
Sharing their lives with many different people and cultures, Catharine Cool writes in a lively, vivacious style of their experiences with insight and empathy. Providing inspiration for her painting talents are the many unique visual scenes of the faraway countries she became well-acquainted with.
An excellent read for persons of all ages for its entertainment value alone, this engrossing book has special value in showing the benefits of understanding and working peacefully with others in this diverse world of ours.
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A Glimpse of the Rest of the World!, November 5, 2007
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05/28/2009
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Reviewer:
Charles Destries "Charlie d'Estries" (Orchard Park, NY) -
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Catharine Cool's 'Vivid Air' is a must-read for anyone interested in history, culture, spirituality, and most important... a human perspective rarely seen in what most Americans read. Her use of words are incredible when describing what she and her family experience. 'Vivid Air' is a personal memoir describing her life with her husband, living in Asia, while raising three children. It is the stuff most of us only fantasize about, but would never dare to do. Why 'Vivid Air' and her companion book 'Each in His Lonely Night' are not on a best-seller's list is astounding to me! I encourage those who are considering this book to dive in, open their minds and enjoy a kaleidescope of delicious reading
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