Friends, Moments, Countryside: Selected Columns from Canadian Living, 1993-98

Tender, personal, deeply felt, and beautifully crafter, Peter Gzowski’s columns in Canadian Living are models of the essayist’s art.

In Friends, Moments, Countryside, Gzowski has gathered sixty of his favourite columns about the undercelebrated people, the fleeting moments, and the special places that have most affected him. And especially to introduce this collection, he’s penned a lengthy and thoughtful essay on the changes in Canada he’s observed from his various vantage points.

This is Peter Gzowski at his best: intimate, reflective, and very, very Canadian.

Former host of CBC Radio’s “Morningside,” Peter Gzowski was one of Canada’s pre-eminent journalists. He was a Companion of the Order of Canada, the winner of seven ACTRA awards, as well as the Peabody Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting – the only Canadian ever to have been given the award for work as an individual. He received many lifetime achievement awards and honorary doctorates from twelve Canadian universities, the citation for the University of Calgary describing him as “the cartographer of the Canadian soul.”

He was the author of many best-selling books, including The Game of Our Lives, his memorable work on hockey (1981), The Private Voice, his memoir from 1988, five collections of Morningside Papers, the retrospective The Morningside Years, and two collections of columns, Canadian Living, and Friends, Moments, Countryside. His most recent book, published last fall, was an anthology of his best work entitled A Peter Gzowski Reader.

Peter Gzowski passed away on Thursday, January 24, 2002.