You know how when you come across a book that is a pleasant surprise, is so much better than you were expecting (not that you were necessarily expecting something terrible), you have a tendency to find yourself growing extra enthusiastic about it?  Recommending it to friends and family with a 'it's so much better than you might think!'  Well, this was one of those books.  A friend handed it to me with a 'check this out' approach.  I looked at the cover and description and thought, 'I'm not really sure this is my kind of book. A newspaper guy reminiscing about various things New Brunswick? Interesting isn't the first word that comes to mind.'  And yet it was just that, interesting. Engaging, warm, funny.  Sure, the author sometimes writes about public figures I've either never heard of or only have a passing knowledge of, but it's the way he writes about them that wins you over.  And the personal anecdotes, the memories of his childhood, his family, growing up in the Depression, are absolutely engrossing.  

It's the memoir of the late Ralph Costello, a big name in Atlantic Canadian journalism, called The Price of Honesty: Life, Laughter and Liquid Lunches.  And it's one of the best nonfiction books I've read all year.  He certainly had a way with words. It's like O'Henry meets Paul Harvey, or something along those lines. There are chuckle-out-loud moments when he points out the vanity and foibles of the small and great, but there's always a warm-heartedness about it all that is absolutely refreshing in these cynical times.  What comes across is the affection Costello had for most of these people, whether family member or friend and colleague or political leader.


I inhaled the book in two days and was rather sad when I reached the last page.  Of course, the lovely thing about books is you can just go back to the beginning and start all over again.