Graeme Gibson Books In Order

Five Legs

This groundbreaking early novel by Graeme Gibson is the tale of two guilt ridden young men, one a professor, the other his student, caught in the fevered grip of the North American Protestant ethic, with its emotional web spinning and sexual torments. Gibson captures both their mortifications of the flesh and their spirited resistance to all things WASP, themselves included, in stream of consciousness prose that is at once fluid, disjointed, and hilarious. This is an uproarious trip and essential reading for any fan of the North American avant garde.

Perpetual Motion

Set in southern Ontario in the late nineteenth century, at a time when the machine age was coming into its own, Perpetual Motion chronicles the fortunes of settler Robert Fraser, a man obsessed with power and control. Driven by the idea of inventing a Perpetual Motion machine which will utilize natural energy, he neglects and destroys not only the nature around him but his own family too, as his overbearing rationality becomes a kind of tragic lunacy. First published in 1982, Perpetual Motion is Graeme Gibson’s superb evocation of a time when faith in material progress is still challenged by superstition and a lingering belief in magic. It is an ironic yet compassionate examination of the painful consequences of human folly. From the Hardcover edition.

Gentleman Death

Meet novelist Robert Fraser as he comes face to face with creativity, his mortality, and the deaths of his father and brother. Set mainly in Toronto, the novel also takes us to London, Scotland, Germany, and New York as we follow the escapades of two of Fraser’s fictional characters. There is Simpson, called into service as an anonymous sperm donor, and Dunbar, an enigmatic tourist in Berlin just before the Chernobyl disaster, where he meets the captivating Lena, with whom he begins to sense an almost forgotten freedom and elation. But at the centre of Gentleman Death is Robert Fraser s own compelling story. Gibson juxtaposes reality and fiction in this compassionate, sometimes outrageous, often very funny exploration of the absurdities and alarms of aging, the nature of fiction itself, and the maturity that grows from reconciliation.

The Bedside Book of Birds

In this stunning assemblage of words and images, novelist and avid birdwatcher Graeme Gibson has crafted an extraordinary tribute to the venerable relationship between humanity and birds. Birds have ever been the symbols of humanity’s highest aspirations. As divine messengers, symbols of our yearning for the heavens, or avatars of glorious song and colour, birds have stirred our imaginations from the moment we first looked up into the sky. Whether as the Christian dove, or the Aztec Quetzalcoatl, or in Plato s representation of the human soul growing wings and feathers, religion and philosophy have looked to birds as representatives of our best selves that part of us not bound to the earth. With the devotion of a birder and ho*arder of words, Gibson has spent twenty years collecting the literary and artistic forms our affinity for birds has taken over the centuries. Birds appear again and again in mythology and folk tales and in literature by writers as diverse as Aesop, Shakespeare, Poe, Coleridge, Borges, and Eliot. They ve been omens, allegories, disguises and guides; they ve been worshipped, eaten, feared, and loved. Nor does Gibson forget the fascination birds hold for science, as the Galapagos finches did for Darwin. Birds appear charmingly and tellingly in the work of such naturalists as W.H. Hudson, Peter Matthiessen, Farley Mowat, and Barry Lopez. So intensely and universally are we drawn to birds, it s small wonder that birdwatching is one of the most popular activities in the English speaking world. Gorgeously illustrated and woven from centuries of human response to the delights of the feathered tribes, The Bedside Book of Birds is for everyone who is passionate about birds and all they mean to humanity. With the zeal of a convert and the instigated imagination of an ex novelist, I started taking note of, then collecting, and finally obsessively searching out texts that illustrated something almost anything about our human response to birds. This book is the result. It isn t so much about birds themselves as it is about the richly varied relationships we have established with them during the hundreds of thousands of years that we and they have shared life on earth. Graeme GibsonFrom the Hardcover edition.

The Bedside Book of Beasts

In a wonderfully diverse selection of writings and gorgeous illustrations, this stunning companion to The Bedside Book of Birds explores the relationship between predators and their prey.

The intricate, complex connection between the hunter and the hunted has defined animal life on earth throughout time. In The Bedside Book of Beasts, Graeme Gibson gathers breathtaking works of art and literature that capture the power, grace, and inventiveness of both predators and their natural prey.

The Bedside Book of Beasts presents myths, fables, poetry, and excerpts from nature and travel writing, journals, sacred texts, and works of fiction. Within these pages we encounter big cats, bears, wolves, and the small but voracious praying mantis, as well as works that bring to life the experience of more vulnerable prey. Portraits of such legendary evil beasts as the Minotaur, Grendel, and the biblical Leviathan add to the depth and breadth of the collection. An impressive array of art, both traditional and contemporary, as well as scientific, religious, and mythological drawings, paintings, and woodcuts make this volume an utterly unique gift for the holidays or any occasion.

A fascinating exploration of the chain of life, of survival and mortality, The Bedside Book of Beasts evokes a profound sense of the eternal connection between humans and the creatures they endeavor to tame.