Dear reader, are you looking for a collection of stories that will take you back to simpler times? Less stressful times? Times when things were easier and the internet had yet to make its presence known to the world? Are you interested in tales of one man’s journeys across the continent and around the world? Then Tales This Side of the Elysian Fields will be one collection you’ll want to pick up. This collection of short essays will transport you to journeys taken by author Trevor W. Harrison as he shares experiences from his youth and young adult years.
Tales This Side of the Elysian Fields draws the eye of readers with a cover that is a painting done by artist Colleen Bakker. This book’s cover is beautifully simplistic in its depiction of a nature scene. A young woman sits in the foreground of the image with her back to us, the readers. Sitting on a rock, she looks out across the water towards a piece of land in the distance with a collective of trees sitting on it.
We can see an image of the trees reflected in the water. Through the clouds hanging overhead, the sun breaks through and casts its glow on the waters below. With the rippling of the waters, it almost appears that the sun has become melted butter as it flows.
As author Harrison begins Tales This Side of the Elysian Fields, he initiates his collection of stories with a preface. While all of the stories found within Tales This Side of the Elysian Fields are true, he specifies that these stories “do not an autobiography make.” We can deduce that author Harrison isn’t necessarily a fan of autobiographies, so lest we think this is one, author Harrison wants us to know otherwise.
In this preface, author Harrison helps to set the stage and the tone for Tales This Side of the Elysian Fields. Each of these stories is a standalone story. So, you can easily jump from one to the other, and you won’t have to worry about “Did I miss something in the last story?” We will say that the stories do follow a relatively “chronological” order but can still be read in any order you please.
As Tales This Side of the Elysian Fields begins, author Harrison takes us back to his youth. Well, to be fair, he goes back even further than that, but the point remains – author Harrison gives readers background and insight into his family. We don’t linger there long as author Harrison touches on how Tales This Side of the Elysian Fields gets its name. We definitely perked up when we got a clue to the connection.
The deeper we dive into Tales This Side of the Elysian Fields, the more we get to know about author Harrison. The way that he writes these essays easily engages readers into his stories. The stories are written in a reflective style.
Readers will enjoy how each story they find in Tales This Side of the Elysian Fields has one common theme – travel. Even when author Harrison was a child, he moved about quite a bit, so it is fitting that those memories share a part of this collection. Readers will appreciate the notations at random moments throughout this book. These notations will give readers more information and even links to check out for themselves specific pieces of information that author Harrison shares with us.
Readers will also appreciate the random sketches and real-life photographs that author Harrison includes throughout this book. These sketches and photographs are like little treasures that readers get to discover at random moments in Tales This Side of the Elysian Fields. You never know where one will pop up, so when you come across one, it’s a fun little discovery that adds a little more detail and flair to that particular story.
The essays that readers will find throughout Tales This Side of the Elysian Fields author Harrison shares stories of hitchhiking across Canada and America to his travels across the world. It’s really fun how author Harrison begins his stories here in North America, before surging overseas and sharing his adventures.
The stories told in Tales This Side of the Elysian Fields will take readers back to less expensive times. We’re sure that many of us would love to go back to the days when a hamburger and fries from Mickey D’s cost less than a dollar! The stories that author Harrison tells have hidden gems of humor sprinkled throughout that will have readers smiling. These stories will also give readers insight into how things were so different back in the 1970s and 1980s.
Tales This Side of The Elysian Fields takes readers from Canada to the United States, to Greece, to India. Readers can expect a globetrotting journey through these stories. Author Harrison will introduce us to the various people he encountered along the way. Some of the stories will even have touch-backs where author Harrison tells us of his return to certain locations again later in life.
Author Harrison shares the entertaining moments and even some rather uncomfortable moments in Tales This Side of the Elysian Fields. Author Harrison looks to share exactly what he experienced throughout his travels, and succeeds in doing so.
We only wish that there had been more explanations concerning certain aspects of the stories. Not every reader is going to be familiar with the foods, objects, and elements that author Harrison describes throughout his stories in Tales This Side of the Elysian Fields.
Readers will be drawn into each story shared in Tales This Side of the Elysian Fields. Even if you are someone who typically avoids non-fiction novels, this book will be one that you find yourself drawn to pick up. From harrowing tales of bus rides on dangerous roads to now out-dated bull-fights, the memories and history still cling to the once proud arenas. There is something for everyone in Tales This Side of the Elysian Fields.
Pros:
- Engaging stories
- It has a nice amount of details
- Stories are standalones
- Humorous
Cons:
- More explanations were merited.
Scribble's Worth 
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