WONDERMENT:
A Love Affair with Adventure, Writing, Travel, Philosophy, and Family Life
“[A]lthough each of us gets a different life story – a different part of the puzzle – our tribe needs the wisdom of us all for truth to emerge,” wrote Tristine Rainer in Your Life as Story (Putnam, 1997) After reading this, I felt almost duty-bound to write my own autobiography. And so, as a lifetime science writer and journalist, I decided to do just that. I finished the manuscript in the spring of 2012 and gave it the name Wonderment: A Love Affair with Adventure, Writing, Travel, Philosophy, and Family Life. It began its debut on international markets on September 15, 2012.
As a writer and journalist I spent most of my career meeting people and writing about their lives in articles and books. I’ve been at it for decades, sniffing out stories, writing about philanthropists, Druids, engineers, scientists, nuclear weapons, travel in faraway places, crazy people, ballet dancers, you name it.
After I reviewed my diaries, journals, and clippings I decided they contained enough interesting, out-of-the-ordinary content to make a very good read. Wonderment is my sixth book; named to suggest my gratefulness for my life journey.. My previous book, The SDI Enigma (Potomac, 2006), was entirely different, and drew on original research to tell the behind-the-scenes story of Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative.
Early in 2012 I decided which route to follow on the way to press. Agents and editors regularly remind me that their world (and of writers as well, I could add) has changed radically since the arrival of the new media, and continues to do so. So I decided to self-publish under the Matador label. More detailed information
is available at www.nigelhey.com or the UK publisher’s site, http://www.troubador.co.uk/book_info.asp?bookid=1860.. It's a substantial book, topping 153,000 words, and the retail price is set at $22.99 (US) or £14.99 (UK) .
The autobiography starts at the point when my parents and I left Lancashire, in the north of England, to make a new life that eventually brought us to New Mexico. At the time they were looking for someplace where I would be less troubled by chronic asthma, while I was more concerned with my separation from my Lancashire home and the unknowns of my future life. We didn’t know it but were starting five years of semi-nomadic wanderings that eventually found us a home in the American West.
Life in a small Mormon town taught me lessons in the art of survival as an outsider. My teenage job at a small newspaper strengthened my interest in a writing career. These encouraged a spirit of independent thought and action. After college I escaped to my first fulltime newspaper job, in Bermuda, then to a second in England. This started an exhilarating rollercoaster existence that I have no desire to leave, now that the responsibilities of parenthood and the heartache of two failed marriages are consigned to history
The life story includes a few brushes with death. But they were worth it because I was living the life of a genuinely curious man -- exploring the vestiges of colonial Spain that survive in the mountains of the Southwest, driving a tunnel in the mountains of Greece, dancing with native Americans, flying to Moscow to uncover the history of high-tech Soviet weapon science, exploring my family roots, gingerly navigating the skills of middle-age courtships, surviving brain fever, traveling the world.
The back story includes the exploration and development of a personal philosophy, surfing the big changes in media, and the job of tackling the biggest question of all – where in the world do I really belong?
There you have it, in seven dry paragraphs, minus the juicy bits, color and detail.If you're intrigued, read on!
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Wonderment is described in full at www.nigelhey.com. It is available from bookstores and internet retailers including Amazon and Barnes & Noble. The reviewers listed below agree that it's a good read. Consider getting your own copy to enjoy!
Against the backdrop of Nigel’s relationships and family dramas are tales of his travels and, most interesting to me as a fellow journalist, an eclectic and successful career as a science writer. An absorbing read about a fascinating person. The writing is a mix of description and dialogue that flows beautifully. -- Ricki Lewis, author, The Forever Fix: Gene Therapy and the Boy Who Saved It and other science books
If you go with Nigel Hey on this journey you’re in for an enlightening experience, embodying a great deal of triumph and some occasional tragedy. – John Gardner, Communications Consultant
For those wanting to find out how a world-class thinker comes to terms with problems that impact most people, for those with an appreciation for humor and adventure, or for those simply looking for an interesting and a stimulating escape, this book is a must read. -- R. Samuel Baty, author, Footsteps to Forever and Darkness into Light
Nigel Hey combines the essential components of an excellent memory, an eye for important details that are often missed, a sense of humor, and the writing ability one would expect from a professional. – Francis Roe, author
[A] story that depicts one man’s journey in search of Wonderment, these moments in life where you feel as one with the universe around you, when all parts seem to fall precisely in their right place, when you feel, or indeed you are, truly happy. Mr. Hey is an engaging writer, with aphorisms that deserve their place next to the ones he quotes in the beginning of each chapter . . -- Zohar Lederman MD, for The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine
A tremendous story about a man's search and struggles for love, family, truth, and spirituality, while never losing the eternal quest for the mysteries of the universe and life itself. – J. Willard Williams, Director of Adult Education, US Army (Ret.).
British-born, American-schooled author Nigel Hey describes his years with a clarity and insight, a love of words and a unique sensibility that makes the book hard to put down. -- Neal Singer, author and science writer
This is the book of a restless seeker of knowledge who will travel anywhere, meet anyone, and read anything that promises to deliver the gift of further enlightenment.. -- Patrick McGinley, publisher and novelist
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