Author Robert Downes has been a respected journalist and historian for over 30 years. He writes books of travel and adventure and lives the life he writes about. He has backpacked through more than 70 countries and Bay Books is proud to carry his books. You can find his most recent one “Raw Deal” next to his other best selling books “Windigo Moon”, “The Wolf and the Willow”, and “Biking Northern Michigan”. The author of seven books, many of which were written on the move around the globe, calls Traverse City his home base. You can also catch his one-man, multi-media show, “Stories and Songs – An Evening with Author Robert Downes” at the Traverse City Opera House on November 20.
Author Interview
On your nightstand now: “Arabia Felix” by Thorkild Hansen about a disastrous Danish expedition to Yemen in 1761. Out of six scientists who set out from Copenhagen only one survived. A gripping tale filled with intrigue and exotic scenes. Having also visited Turkey, Egypt and Mount Sinai in the Sinai desert this book is of personal interest to me.
Favorite book when you were a child: All of the Tarzan books; also the Tom Swift and Hardy Boys series.
Your top five authors: Bernard Cornwell (the Richard Sharpe novels) T. Coraghessen Boyle (Drop City and The Tortilla Curtain), C. J. Box (modern Western mysteries) Gregory David Roberts (Shantaram), David Grann (Lost City of Z & The Wager).
Book you’ve faked reading: Ulysses by James Joyce. Made it a few pages in before giving up. Finnegan’s Wake is even worse – unreadable.
Also: War and Peace by Tolstoy – a mish-mash of societal intrigue, theological clap-trap and some fine military writing, but a tough read overall.
Book you’re an evangelist for: The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck, detailing the circle of fate and family among Chinese peasants leading up revolutionary times.
Book you’ve bought for the cover: Bearskin by James A. McLaughlin, an excellent thriller about a man hiding out from a Mexican cartel in a nature preserve that’s beset by a bear poacher.
Book you hid from your parents: None – my parents were avid readers and we visited the public library in Grand Rapids at least once a week. They let me do just about anything, bookwise and otherwise. For example, they let me hitch-hike from Detroit to California and back when I was 17. As an aside, I was outraged when a teacher confiscated my book of Mad Magazine Outtakes in the sixth grade.
Book that changed your life: The Lord of the Rings taught me the power of friendship. The entire trilogy is a treatise on the value of friendship and people who are willing to die for one-another. A case in point – the elvin Arwin is willing to forsake eternal life in order to marry her love, the mortal Aragon.
Favorite line from a book: Several from my own books!
– “Stay down ye cocky rooster, ye don’ know what they can do!” – Croen of Cork in The Wolf and The Willow just before Arab boy Akmed loses a hand to the pirates.
– “All weapons are cursed,” Lone Dog in The Wolf and The Willow.
– “Yes, young brother, there is something you can do for me.” Ashagi to a handsome young man in the forest after she learns her husband Misko has cheated on her.
– “About thirty seconds from now you’re going to be biking with Jesus.” – the serial killer Peter Boeker to Jake in Bicycle Hobo.
Five books you’ll never part with: I have a collection of more than 100 books of Native history, anthropology and European explorers that inform my writing that I could never give up. Otherwise: Shantaram, the Aubrey-Maturin seafaring novels, the Bible, The Good Earth and The Illustrated Odyssey.
Book you most want to read again for the first time: The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck.
