“Following Atticus” by Tom Ryan – A Snowy Adventure Melted by Love

Tom Ryan was a newspaperman like many others before him, and nothing really set him apart from anyone else. However, on a sad day one his very close friends passed away from cancer, an even which ended up spinning Tom inside out, making him re-evaluate his own life and his decisions. 

As a manner of paying tribute to his deceased friend, Tom decided to do the most daring thing he will probably attempt in his lifetime: climbing the forty-eight four-thousand foot peaks found in New Hampshire… twice in a single winter. Apart from paying tribute to his friend, Ryan’s exploits would also be an effort to raise money for charity.

In Following Atticus, Tom Ryan chronicles his adventures, his perilous journeys across the snowy mountains only in the company of one of his best friends, his dog. However, the book goes much deeper than simply stating facts about what happened on the journey. 

When he sets out on it, Tom can be described as a bit of a pessimist, or perhaps cold-hearted would be more appropriate. However, as he goes on and on with his journey, it seems his heart starts to melt as he begins to really appreciate the greatness and beauty of what he lays his eyes upon.

Following Atticus by Tom Ryan (Book cover)
Another interesting facet of Following Atticus is the relationship between Tom and his dog. I guarantee that those of you who are dog owners will be reading the passages about Atticus with a big smile on your faces, and if you never had the fortune of owning one, then you will be quite amazed at how intelligent, sensitive, comprehensive and communicative dogs can be. 

I’d rather not go too deep into the events that occur in the book for fear of spoiling it, but from the way I saw it, in the big scheme of things, Atticus had the bigger, more important role on this journey… he may even have been the reason Tom was able to go through with his plan in the first place.



Tom Ryan (Author)

Tom Ryan


Tom Ryan is the founder of the Undertoad newspaper, and came to the public's attention upon publishing Following Atticus, wherein he detailed the journey he undertook with his faithful dog to climb the 450 mountain peaks in America, some of several thousand feet.

He was inducted into the Massachusetts Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Hall of Fame after after raising thousands of dollars for the Angel Animal Medical Center located in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

“The Locked Door” by Freida McFadden – Roots of a Lost Innocence

Image
  Freida McFadden has been quietly writing some exciting and original thrillers in her spare time from being a practicing physician, and The Locked Door is one of her latest offering in the genre.  It tells the story of Nora, a surgeon and daughter of a serial killer now in jail, who sees her life assaulted from the dark as someone begins to recreate her father's work with the exact same signature.
Read more

“The Lost Colony” by A.G. Riddle – A New Home Among the Stars

Image
A.G. Riddle's Long Winter Trilogy Series is one many of us will remember for the amazing story it brings of humanity's last stand against an overwhelming enemy in times of hopelessness. In The Lost Colony , the third book in the series, we follow James and Emma on their own respective struggles as humanity tries to settle itself on a new planet with an unseen danger none could have foreseen.
Read more

“Winter World” by A.G. Riddle – Ice Age from the Void

Image
A.G. Riddle is a true literary explorer seeking to push humanity to its limits and beyond, setting them on a desperate collision course with something beyond its understanding in Winter World . With a sudden ice age dawning on humanity entire swathes of land become uninhabitable and people begin dropping like flies, with anarchy reigning supreme. Looking to the stars for a miraculous solution, the remnants of humanity find a massive mysterious object floating near Mars ...whatever it is, our civilization's hopes of survival rest entirely in its hands.
Read more

“The Girl on the Stairs” by Barry Ernest – The Small Thorn you Can’t Ignore

Image
Girl on the Stairs , by Barry Ernest and with a foreword written by David Lifton, is an exploration of one specific aspect of the JFK assassination. More precisely, it looks into what a little girl by the name of Victoria Adams saw on that day while standing in the staircase of the Texas School Book Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald was supposedly making his escape.  Actually, it is more about what she didn’t see than what she did see. Victoria was on the staircase Oswald supposedly used, at the exact same time he supposedly used it. If he were to be there, even the little girl she was, Victoria would have noticed a nervous man quickly running down the stairs. However, she says that on that day, she was alone there, with nobody to be found, especially Oswald.
Read more

“Three Comrades” by Erich Maria Remarque – The Other Side of the Barricade

Image
The two World Wars have been documented, discussed and depicted from virtually every perspective imaginable, ranging from small children caught in a crossfire all the way the leaders of each country. However, it seems that here is a startlingly small amount of attention dedicated to the small hiatus period between the two wars, a time during which many changes came to pass in Germany in a very short amount of time.
Read more