🇨🇦 Buy Canadian Books 🇨🇦 Heritage House is a Canadian owned and operated independent publisher.
Search
Cart
Complicated Simplicity
Complicated Simplicity

Complicated Simplicity

Island Life in the Pacific Northwest
SKU: 9781772032703
Joy Davis
$22.95

A frank, practical, and entertaining exploration of the pleasures and complexities of living on small islands.

Many people dream of living simple lives on small islands, but few are aware of some of the unique challenges that accompany this distinctive lifestyle. From negotiating surrounding waters to creating a sustainable home and making a viable life away from urban conveniences, small-island living can be rewarding or difficult (or both), depending on myriad circumstances.

Complicated Simplicity: Island Life in the Pacific Northwest draws on a variety sources to contextualize peoples’ enduring fascination with islands worldwide, including the author’s own experiences growing up on Bath Island (off Gabriola) and her interviews with over twenty intrepid figures who live on the San Juan Islands, the Gulf Islands, the Discovery Islands, and in Clayoquot Sound. Ingenuity, tenacity, and a passion for living in these special places shine through in the personal stories, as does a shared concern for safety, sustainability, and thoughtful stewardship. Engaging, inspiring, and often funny, Complicated Simplicity offers readers honest and useful insights on the joys, perils, and rewards of island life.

Book Details

Joy Davis provides wannabe islanders with a ‘how-to guide for island living,’ describing the complex realities of island life on the Pacific coast. Raised on Bath Island, she explores the joys and the hardships that make island life rewarding for some and not for others.

- Pat Carney, author of On Island: Life Among the Coast Dwellers and Trade Secrets

Joy Davis is an old-growth islander who values practical advice and good stories. She brings both to this funny, smart, poignant guide, along with a caution that the experience of island living is something you carry with you the rest of your life.

- Donna Livingstone, President and CEO of the Glenbow Museum

"If you or anyone you know is contemplating life on an island, this book—both cautionary and inspiring—is essential."

- Grant Lawrence, author of Adventures in Solitude

Part memoir, part manual for slow(er) living, and part anthropological essay . . .Complicated Simplicity>/i> is bound to please armchair travellers, west coast historians, island studies scholars, and small islanders alike.

- Phillip Vannini, author of Ferry Tales and Off the Grid "Complicated Simplicityis a thorough exploration of the oft romanticized ideal of being an islander." - Jules Torti

"Davis provides an excellent blueprint of what it takes to live on an island."

"Davis is a genial guide to the archipelagic Northwest, and to the strenuous pleasures of small, distant lands. Her book is thoroughly attuned to practical details and the texture of coastal experience."

Page Count:

264

Publication Date:

Apr 16, 2019

Dimensions:

Width: 6.00 in
Height: 9.00 in

Related Articles

Joy Davis at Powell River Public Library | Feb. 26, 2022

Join author and artist Joy Davis with the Powell River Public Library on Zoom on Saturday, February 26, 2022, at 2:00 p.m. PT. Joy will present st...

Find Our Books

Heritage House books can be found at many retailers in Canada and the US.

Find your local Canadian independent bookstore.
Ebooks available from: Kobo | Kindle | Nook | Apple Books

For wholesale information, visit our Orders page.