THE BOOKS
There are four of them, with three more underway - and travel articles, commentary and podcasts to come as well.
Eyes of Rain and Ragged Dreams:
Coming of Age in Edinburgh
ISBN-978-0-9958802-0-7
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A time of innocence and discovery undercut with the uncertainties and anxieties of youth. Written with a descriptive lucidity in a crisp economic style, the novel transports the reader through experiment and discovery, ambiguity and longing - and laughter and tears.
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Goldheath, London: "Wonderfully funny episodes that provide plot and texture. I was left with a sense of nostalgia as well as feeling the enormous change that has come upon our Western social world, for better or worse, since that time."
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Amazon Customer, Washington DC: "This wonderful novel is lively, funny, and moving too. It deserves to capture a big audience."
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Print and Audio Books are available from Amazon and from Audible.com
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The Gate
ISBN-978-0-88982-272-6
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Prologue: The owner of the house found the helmet long after the fighting had passed. It was wedged in a gap between the back wall and an old compost heap. It had been there for months, all through a hot dry summer anda winter of hard rains. The metal had deteriorated, and the blood, which had splashed up under the rim, was absorbed with the rusting of it. When he caught sight of the helmet, the house-owner reached into the space where it had fallen and pulled it out. He took note of the faded yellow stripe at the helmet's front, and rubbed the rust with his finger. He looked absently at his reddened fingertip, and wiped it slowly on the blue belly of his overalls. He fastened the frayed leather chinstrap, hooked it from a nail that jutted from the mortar between the bricks on the wall of his house, and went inside. It is hanging there now.
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BC Bookworld: 'A heartbreaking and suspenseful novel.'
Prairie Fire: 'Amid the horrors there are moments of beauty, kindnesses and understanding, and the author intertwines these into the book, thus creating a multifaceted story.'
Focus: 'Elcock is a meticulous researcher, providing not only historically accurate events but small, sensory details of war . . . the "bitter almond smell of the plastique"; coffee made from acorns; how to cook a hedgehog in a camp fire. The Gate is bursting with colour [and] the intensely visual style is comfortably grounding.'
Writing on Stone
ISBN-0-88982-231-X
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Philip Hall, EA Review: "Michael Elcock’s gift is to bring the past to life in the landscapes through which he passes. He excites our imaginations to see what he sees; to sit on a slab of stone beside the old drove road from the Falkirk Tryst and see the hills through the eyes of the drover who passed this way two centuries ago . . . eternal truths are more easily grasped by the solitary walker along the ancient country ways trodden by our people through the centuries. As an emigrant Michael Elcock sees these truths more clearly, and quietly but insistently reminds us."
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Linda Rogers, Pacific Rim Review: "Elcock has the gift of listening and leaving out ego . . . This engaging man writes engaging books. [His] voice, even when ironic, is gentle. He shows us how civilised men and women survive experiences like dislocation, war, and the dehumanisation of incarceration. . . his every anecdote is a step in the progression towards understanding who we are and how we relate to one another. The stories he inscribes on stepping stones from past to present are songlines that lead us in and out of the wilderness of civilisation."
A Perfectly Beautiful Place
ISBN-​0-88982-189-5
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“If a person had no desire to travel, reading this book would change his or her mind.
The tone . . . is elegiac. Elcock never loses his ebullience and zest for travel. He always finds the best in the people he encounters, while being honest about their shortcomings. This is a wonderful book."
Lisa Arsenault, Canadian Book Review Annual.
“Laughter is an essential ingredient of the human condition. That is one of the things that the reader of this book will understand . . . [There is] magic on every page . . . wonderful descriptions of people, places and lifestyles.”
EA Review, Edinburgh
“[Elcock] provides a vivid picture of daily life in Spain.”
Prairie Fire.