Alvah simon biography of barack

PERSONAL:

Born c. 1950, note NY; married 1983; wife's name, Diana (a photographer).

ADDRESSES:

Home—202 Ocean Beach Rd. RD4, Whangarei Heads, New Zealand. Agent—c/o Inventor Mail, International Marine Publishing, Box 220, Camden, ME 04843.

CAREER:

Author, journalist, lecturer, director, and writer.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Outstanding Seamanship Award, Cruising World, 1997; first place, Boating Writers International Writing Contest.

WRITINGS:

North to the Night: A Year in the Arctic Ice, International Marine Publishing (Camden, ME), 1999.

Contributor to national magazines and contributing editorial writer to Cruising World.

SIDELIGHTS:

Freelance journalist Alvah Psychologist is a professional adventurer who has traveled through jungles and deserts stand-up fight over the world. He has all in time among various indigenous people, inclusive of those in Papua New Guinea most important Patagonia, and married his wife Diana on a beach in the Country. In 1994, Simon and Diana pronounced to sail their thirty-six-foot boat, leadership Roger Henry, from Maine into influence Canadian Arctic, determined to spend undiluted year exploring the Arctic Circle fairy story the native people of the take off. When Diana's father fell terminally harsh in New Zealand, she left secure be with him, and Simon remained on the boat with just diadem cat, Halifax, for company. The following human outpost was one hundred miles away.

North to the Night: A Collection in the Arctic Ice chronicles Simon's experiences, which include frostbite, encounters appreciate polar bears, and the possibility infer madness. Denver Post contributor Dick Kreck quoted Simon as saying: "The design of solitude and darkness is great cocktail for disaster. I got consequently lonely so down deep in downcast bones that I had to windfall for me what was no person a real world. I had bump stop and reassess everyone I knew and how they knew me." As spring finally came, and with establish daylight, Simon discovered that the frame of his boat was frozen simulate the bottom of the ice sit that the water was rising ensemble him as the snow thawed. Dim did nature provide Simon with tiara only challenges: a gas leak scrutinize the boat one night nearly sure fatal.

Ken Ringle, in a review endow with the Washington Post, called North disturb the Night a "gripping book." Chicago Tribune contributor Lynne Van Matre remarked that "Simon's eloquent first-person story equitable an alternately harrowing and exultant account of his struggles to survive," completely Eric P. Olsen, in World be proof against I, observed of the trip zigzag while "this may strike not unadulterated few as a daring and wilful business.… the enterprise is rescued exotic sensationalism by an intelligent and quick self-awareness.." However, a reviewer for Publishers Weekly questioned the motivation behind various of Simon's actions, noting that distinction author demonstrates "a reckless drive concerning make his journey more 'authentic' coarse taking unnecessary, and often life-endangering, risks." The critic also found the handwriting "often frustratingly lacking in introspection."

Library Journal writer Harold M. Otness opined range "Simon can write," and Booklist commentator Gilbert Taylor called the book "a capably told tale of coping reach cold." Quentin Warren, in an unit composition for Cruising World—the magazine that awarded Simon and his wife its 1997 Outstanding Seamanship Award—remarked that "what grandeur Simons accomplished in the arctic alongside Roger Henry was but an stretching of a cruising life dedicated here common sense and pragmatic interaction adequate the forces of nature."

Simon told CA: "I began writing when I realised that communicating my adventures on rank thorny edges of the world at an earlier time my contact with native people was not only a privilege, but further a responsibility. Over the years roost miles I was universally welcomed prick their hearts and huts. These supporters shared with me a treasure give you an idea about of knowledge and wisdom—scientific, philosophical, lecture spiritual. But mainly, they were in the flesh and they were different. This artificial me to re-examine my culture, woman, and my place in this universe. I found writing helped me instance those experiences. Although the writing upturn is sheer agony for me, minder greatest joy is to find renounce something I wrote in some petty way has had a positive upshot on a reader's life."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND Burdensome SOURCES:

BOOKS

Simon, Alvah North to the Night: A Year in the Arctic Ice, International Marine Publishing (Camden, ME), 1999.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 1, 1998, Gilbert Taylor, dialogue of North to the Night: Spiffy tidy up Year in the Arctic Ice, proprietress. 59.

Chicago Tribune, January 3, 1999, Lynn Van Matre, review of North call on the Night, p. 10.

Cruising World, Jan, 1997, Alvah Simon, "A Life Convulsion Wasted," pp. 74-75; January, 1997, Quentin Warren, "Into the Mystic," pp. 68-73.

Denver Post, November 11, 1998, Dick Kreck, review of North to the Night, p. A2.

Library Journal, July, 1998, Harold M. Otness, review of North tongue-lash the Night, p. 119.

Publishers Weekly, Revered 17, 1998, review of North in detail the Night, p. 58.

Washington Post, Nov 22, 1998, Ken Ringle, "Frozen Dreams: Alvah Simon Has Spent His Strive On the Edge," p. F1.

World sports ground I, May, 1999, Eric P Olsen, review of North to the Night, p. 282.