Far and Away: A Prize Every Time by Neil Peart

Far and Away: A Prize Every Time by Neil Peart

Completion Date: April 23, 2011

Reason for Reading: I loved his previous books.

Following in the tradition of Ghost Rider and Traveling Music, Rush drummer Neil Peart lets us ride with him along the backroads of North America, Europe, and South America, sharing his experiences in personal reflections and full-color photos. Spanning almost four years, these twenty-two stories are open letters that recount adventures both personal and universal—from the challenges and accomplishments in the professional life of an artist to the birth of a child. These popular stories, originally posted on Neil’s website, are now collected and contextualized with a new introduction and conclusion in this beautifully designed collector’s volume.

Fans will discover a more intimate side to Neil’s very private personal life, and will enjoy his observations of natural phenomena. At one point, he anxiously describes the birth of two hummingbirds in his backyard; at the same time, his wife is preparing for the birth of their daughter — a striking synchronicity tenderly related to readers.

A love of drumming, nature, art, and the open road threads through the narrative, as Neil explores new horizons, both physical and spiritual. This is the personal, introspective travelogue of rock’s foremost drummer, enthusiastic biker, and sensitive husband and father. Far and Away is a book to be enjoyed again and again, like letters from a distant friend.

I loved this book! On Saturday, I hid myself away and read this book. I didn't know it was coming out until I accidentally stumbled across it, but I was very excited. A few years ago I didn't even really know who Rush was. Yes, I had heard of them and I suppose I did know a couple of their songs, but I didn't pay a lot of attention to them. Them, I met the cc and he decided to play a Rush CD on a road trip a few summers back. Even then I didn't really listen, but the CD was still in my car the next time I went somewhere and I found myself paying attention. I have come to discover that they may not be a band you love from the very first moment, but if you actually stop and listen you will fall in love. At least, that is what happened with me.

Once he found out that he had recruited me, the cc decided to tell me that the drummer, Neil Peart, was an author. Actually, not only is he an author, but he reads a lot. And, he is the lyricist for Rush. I was intrigued. I went out and bought a copy of Ghost Rider by him and I loved it. It was well-written, enlightening, and a very brave piece of non-fiction. It still remains my favourite Peart book; but I enjoy his other books almost as much. Even though my review of his books have been glowing, I don't think I have managed to convince anyone that they have to read him now. So, maybe it won't work this time either, but I still think you should.

This book is actually a collection of essays. He originally posted them on his website, but decided to release them as a book after he had collected several. Like every other book I have read by him, I have found myself talking about this book a lot. It could be because even though the cc is not a big reader, he does really like this band and enjoys listening to me ramble on about the things that I learned from the book. There is also this incessant noise from someone who thinks someone else should read this book. The noise is currently ahead, but hasn't actually won yet. It is not that the cc doesn't like to read; it is just that he doesn't make time for it.

In this collection, there is a little bit of everything. For some parts of it, he is on tour with Rush, so you gain some insight into that experience. In other parts of it, he talks about his personal life and his own private experiences. There is even a story that combines the birth of a hummingbird with the birth of a child. I was very curious about that story and I think it was done really well. It is more than just about Peart, though. This book looks at the world. He has his opinions, which he expresses, but he will also make you laugh. And, like his previous books it is a bit of a travel memoir. Every time I read a book by him I want to buy a motorcycle and travel around. It sounds like a very worthwhile experience.

Once again Neil has written a book that I loved and enjoyed reading. It is also a very pretty book, I must say. It is more a coffee table book size and includes lots of pictures. I was incredibly happy when I saw the book for the first time. It was well worth buying in hardcover!

This book counts for the Essay Reading Challenge. I signed up to read 10 essays and this book has 22, so I surpassed my goal.

If anyone is interested, here are my reviews of other Peart books:

Ghost Rider

Roadshow

I never reviewed Traveling Music and I still have Masked Rider to read. I am saving it, I guess.

Roadshow: Landscape with Drums: A Concert Tour by Motorcycle by Neil Peart

One thing I can say for myself, the longer I am out of university, the more non-fiction books I have been reading for fun. I do not really have to challenge myself to read them, I just pick them up. I do read more memoirs than straight non-fiction, but it is not like I am closed off to anything, just depends on what I am in the mood for. I enjoyed being able to ramble on about books to someone, so I ended up reading this book faster than I originally intended. Now, back to books that do not really interest any of my friends. Sad, really! While I was reading this book and Ghost Rider, I could talk freely.

Neil Peart is an internationally acclaimed, bestselling, and award-nominated author, and for more than thirty years has been the legendary drummer and lyricist for the band Rush. For decades, Neil prepared and waited to write a book about the biggest journey of all in his restless existence, his ultimate travelogue - a concert tour. Finally, the right time and the right tour: Rush's 30th anniversary trek -- 9 countries, 57 shows, and 500,000 fans.

This book covers the 30th anniversary tour for the band Rush. Being his newest book, it was available in all the bookstores, so that was my criteria for what I read next by him. The 30th anniversary for the band was almost exactly four years ago now, but you learn a lot reading this book. After Ghost Rider, I obviously knew that Rush got back together after a five-year hiatus, but when Neil Peart was living the events he covered in that book the future seemed unclear. For fans all over the world, I am sure they were happy that Peart rejoined the band and they carried on making great music. The first thing that really surprised me about this book was that they only did two shows in Canada. Considering it was their 30th anniversary and they are a Canadian band, you really think they would have done more shows here. That's what happens, though.

Anyways, during the course of this book, Neil Peart talks about what it is like to be a musician on tour with a band as recognized as Rush is, but he also talks about the landscape of his travels, reminises on his past with the band, and inserts humourous asides that made me laugh a long. One of my friends is a drummer and he had lots of drumming jokes mixed in with the story, so if my friend wasn't there, I would grab my cellphone and text message him the jokes. He said some of them made him laugh at work, and work is a better place with laughter! Actually, as I was finishing up the book early this morning, Neil Peart had one last joke, so to coincide with being finished I sent that to my friend as well. I decided to share it here as well.

A drummer was dancing around, celebrating, when the guitarist came in.

"What's up?"

"I just finished this jigsaw puzzle," the drummer replied. "It only took me six months!"

"That's not very good," the guitarist said. "Why are you so excited?"

"The box says two to six years!"

With it being mother's day, I haven't talked to my friend today, so I have no idea what he thought of that early morning piece of wisdom. It made me laugh. He said all he is doing is missing playing the drums. He doesn't have a place to set them up, so while he informs me he is in fact a drum player, I have never actually heard him play before.

Moving on. Some of the things that I pointed out to my friend, so obviously they were the things that stood out to me, were for example, the fans of Rush are mostly men. That does and does not surprise me. It explains why my female friends think I am nuts for listening to Rush, for example. Peart says it might be because they have an aggressive sound, but for whatever reason, the majority of people that listen to them are men. I like being untypical once again. Me and my friend had a big discussion about this topic actually, with him pointing out that women generally like dance-music, and Rush is not really the easiest band to dance to. I think Peart might have made the same observation. He also points out (Peart, not my friend) that the women that do listen to his music tend to understand it on a deeper level than the male fans because they actually pay attention to the lyrics. He quotes a lot of his songs in this book and explains the inspiration for sentences and things that I did not pick up on when I listened to the songs, so while I might know the lyrics to a lot of Rush's songs, it really surprised me what Peart was thinking when he wrote them.

I thought it was really interesting to read about all the planning that went into this concert. Not being a musician, I have obviously never had any experience in this avenue, so I was never really sure what happened to turn a bunch of musicians into a touring success. It takes a lot of work! Peart explains all the different people that it takes to put this plan into action, as well as how the three actual band members work together to make each night a success. I was very surprised at how little time the band actually spends together. Geddy and Alex travel in a plane together, so they see each other, but since Neil travels by motorcycle they only spend a little part of each day with him. Considering how meshed together they are when they walk out on that stage, they obviously have something that has come together seamlessly after all the years together.

I really enjoy the humour in this book. Neil includes church sign sayings, and I have to say, a lot of them were pretty funny! Some of them I did not get at all, but I imagine they mean something to someone. The interaction between Neil and his riding partners Michael and Brutus is also hillarious. He is with Michael the majority of the book and when he recounts stories you cannot help laughing at their antics. Brutus played a big part in Ghost Rider, so it was nice that he was actually in this book and not just included in the "Letters to Brutus" section. There are so many other things I can talk about in regards to this book because there are so many other things that Peart talks about. I really like his writing style, though I can understand it is not for everyone, and I strongly recommend reading him at some point and time.

This also another read for the themed reading challenge. Apparently I only challenged myself to read four books and this is my fifth, so here I was done that challenge and did not even know it! Yay to slacker me finishing a challenge!

Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road by Neil Peart

Well, I have no idea what happened to me. I thought it had been a couple days since I updated last, but turns out it has been like a week! I still have books to send to people. I have not forgotten!

Within a ten-month period, Neil Peart suffered family losses so devastating that they left him a ghost -- physically a man but with nothing

No hope, meaning, faith or desire to keep living. One year after the first tragedy, Neil was choosing between life and his own death. Finally, all he could decide upon was motion. He got on his BMW R1100GS motorcycle, and over the next fourteen months, rode 55,000 miles, in search of a reason to live. On a journey of escape, exile, and exploration, he traveled from Quebec to Alaska, down the Canadian and American coasts and western regions, to Mexico and Belize, and finally back to Quebec. While riding "the Healing Road," Neil recorded in his journals his progress and setbacks in the grieving/healing process, and the pain of constantly reliving his losses.

He also recorded with dazzling, colorful, entertaining, and moving artistry, the enormous range of his travel adventures, from the mountains to the sea, from the deserts to Arctic tundra, and the dozens of memorable people, characters, friends and relatives, he met along the way, and who increasingly contributed to his healing and sense of meaning and purpose. He begins the journey with nothing, "the Ghost Rider." What he finally attains is joy, love, and indelible memories of the most extraordinary journey of his life.

GHOST RIDER is a bold, brilliantly written, intense, exciting, and ultimately triumphant narrative memoir from a gifted writer and musician, who started out as a man reduced to trying to stay alive by staying on the move.

I mentioned last month that I was very interested in the band Rush lately and Stephanie, I believe it was, mentioned that he had written a book about life after the death of his wife and daughter. So, you know I had to get myself a copy. It works perfectly, though, because he is a Canadian, so this will fit in with the Themed Reading Challenge. See how I justify that! My friend that got me paying attention to Rush commented on how they have loved the band for years and never felt compelled to buy a book by them. I pointed out that is because he is lucky to read a book a year, while I, well, I read... Normally a lot, but this year has just been average. In any case, I went to the store and bought another book by him, so you know that I do not feel guilty in the least buying this book.

I love how Neil Peart writes. He was just what I needed lately. He kept me up late at night reading! This is something that has hardly happened in six months! I called my Rush-fan friend at 3 in the morning one time to tell him he was missing out and to share some of the interesting things I had just learned. And thanks to the wonders of text messaging, as I read along I tend to share interesting sentences and thoughts with him. I am sure he is thrilled. To get back at me he showed me three old pictures of the three members of Rush and asked me to tell him which one was which. Evil! Anyways, let's get on with the book. Neil Peart is the lyricist for Rush, so it stands to reason that since I really like a lot of his song lyrics, there was a very good chance he could also write pose. I was willing to take that chance, and I am very glad I did!

Instead of summarizing the plot or whatever, I am just going to share what I was thinking as I read the book and some of the things that stuck out for me. First off, this is at its core a depressing book. It is about a man that lost his daughter and wife in a ten-month period. There is no way that can be a happy beginning to a book. He doesn't really know how to deal after suffering such a tragic lost, and really, who would? So, he sets out on three different motorcycle adventures during the course of this book. I suddenly really want to go on a motorcycle. I have before, but very few times, so my Rush-fan friend is going to get one of his friends to take me for a drive. That was the topic of conversation at supper today... I just have motorcycles on the mind, so I want to experience one now.

Another thing I want to acknowledge is that I am very happy that things played out the way that they did. My friend likes older Rush, not so much the new stuff, but I am actually pretty infatuated with both eras (or however you want to look at it), so I am happy that the band got back together. There was a period there where Neil wasn't drumming at all, so the band took a hiatus in order for him to work through all the things that are discussed during the course of this book. If the book had any different ending then they may never have got back together, so I am happy about the ending. I also really enjoy Peart's writing style. It is coherant, for starters, much different than I am sure this rambling review is, in any case. He covers the depressing stuff, but there is a lot more going on during the course of the book. He is not boring, sometimes memoirs seem to drag on with all the contemplative stuff. He has a really refreshing sense of humour (I actually told my Rush-fan friend that he reminds me of him in many ways), so there were many times where I found myself laughing at what he was saying.

I think I especially liked the fact that I could ramble on about this book to my friend who does not read. It was refreshing because very few of my friends read, so I never really talk about books. I have to read a Pink Floyd book now, my friends orders, but since I like Pink Floyd I am not really complaining. He has actually read it, which in itself is pretty amazing! It is a really good thing he doesn't read my blog, huh? haha

Anyways, I really liked this book. I think even if you are not a Rush fan, it is a good read. I am going to plug away at another one by him, but I want to read some fantasy as my main reads. One thing I can say, I haven't read as much this year as I normally do, but I also have not really read any really bad books, so at least when I do read, I enjoy it. That is saying something!