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An Innocent in Newfoundland: Even More Curious Rambles and Singular Encounters | 
 enlarge | Author: David Mcfadden
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
Buy New: $10.10
You Save: $6.85 (40%)
New (8) Used (4) from $9.69
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 717387
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.8
ISBN: 0771055358
Dewey Decimal Number: 917.18044
EAN: 9780771055355
ASIN: 0771055358
Publication Date: April 29, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: BRAND NEW
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Product Description
David McFadden travels around Newfoundland. Who knows which was most charmed
In An Innocent in Ireland (1995) and An Innocent in Scotland (1999), poet and traveller David McFadden let the spirit of the country – and his own interests – guide his rambles. He has now done the same in Newfoundland.
Zigzagging across the province in his rented car, he charts an erratic course, admiring lawn sculpture (in his opinion a new local art), visiting fellow poets and publishers, wandering at dusk among the Viking mounds at L’Anse aux Meadows, rooming with a Salvation Army family in a distant outport (and discovering a family tragedy), hanging on in a stiff wind to watch birds nesting on a cliff face, and enjoying the social life in countless bars and restaurants.
It soon becomes clear that McFadden’s love of a good chat is shared widely by the people he meets in Newfoundland and he is wise enough to let them tell their own stories. For, as ever, his interest is in the heart of a place – and not just its scenery.
Alert, somewhat eccentric, always ready to amuse and be amused, David McFadden is an ideal travelling companion.
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| Customer Reviews:
 One side of Newfoundland June 27, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Newfoundland has world-class scenery: for instance the huge piece of the earth's mantle that you can see from the boat trip on Trout River Pond just off Bonne Bay; the view from Gros Morne; West Pond in Gros Morne National Park. And it has wonderfully intimate views: my own favorite is the little town of Salvage from its hilltop near the graveyard. It has restaurants that are worth a twenty mile drive on bad roads: for instance, the Fisherman's Friend in Rose Blanche. And then, there's the wildlife.
Now beside that, the Newfies are wonderful people, and whoever travels there will meet his own favorites. McFadden meets a lot of cheerful bar maids and motel owners. My gripe is that Newfoundland's cheerful bar maids are a lot like Nova Scotia's cheerful bar maids and--for all of that--like West Virginia's.
To get a feel for a place's unique character, you need to talk to the people who don't ordinarily talk to visitors: go get your hair cut, and listen to the talk in the barber shop; or if you're in St. John's, beg breakfast at the fire hall; or talk to the nurses at the hospital in St. Anthony.
The permanent and unique things about a place are (by definition) what another traveler could count on meeting and that he could meet nowhere else, and this is what I miss in McFadden's book.
 A wonderful introduction to a wondrous island October 6, 2004
34 out of 35 found this review helpful
David McFadden's book introduces the reader to Newfoundland in a warm, humorous and personal way. This was one of the first books I read to research a trip to Newfoundland. It was by far and away the best. Eschewing the typical "must go there, must see this" style of travel books, it focuses on the people and the land in a
unique fashion. And that makes it all the more fun.
His accounting of the people he meets make you want to meet them too. His advice on driving, "watch out for moose" is accurate; you can't find coffee at convenient stores on the roads is true; and the decorations on houses is wonderfully on target.
This book more than any other I read was the best preparation for the trip. The only thing better than this book about Newfoundland is actually being there.
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