Remind Me

Why write? Why history? Perhaps it started with my being an army brat. Not a typical army brat, mind. Not like my temporarily close friends who disappeared every couple of years when their fathers were posted to who knows where.

No, my dreams of world travel were dashed when it became apparent that my father was never going to be posted anywhere but Winnipeg. But, even if I didn't get the unique perspective that comes with early travel, there was still Dieppe.

Unlike my father, I'll never know what it was like to drag myself up on that beach through a hail of bullets, to manhandle that machine-gun inland, to see my best friend cut in half by enemy fire.

I?ll never know what it was like to realize I wasn't going to make it back to the beach. To be disarmed by laughing Nazi soldiers. To be marched from the coast of France to a prison camp in Eastern Poland. To live in fear every day until the Russians found me in the spring of 1945.

I'll never know any of that. But, ever since I first heard the story, I've been in love with history. Not history as a sterile record of dates and events, but history as the story of our species. Why would a farm boy from Shoal Lake, Manitoba find it necessary and right to go to Europe in order to kill people he?d never met? How did he and the rest of his regiment end up on that beach? What else was going on in the world before 19 August 1942 that informed the decision to send him there? How has the fact that he was there affected how we live today? Will it affect what happens tomorrow?

How can you not be excited seeking answers to questions like those? I'm convinced that, well done, a history can be every bit as engaging and revealing of the human condition as a novel, which is why my nightstand tends to be non-fiction heavy.

A Terrible Beauty: The People and Ideas that Shaped the Modern Mind by Peter Watson (Weidenfeld & Nicolson History)

One might think there's a bit of hubris in a title like that, but Mr. Watson delivers. Frankly, he's left me in awe, not only with the breadth of his knowledge, but also the ease with which he's able to explain even the most abstruse philosophical and scientific hypotheses. Every important thinker and idea of the 20th century in a single volume? The Times Literary Supplement had it exactly right-a tour de force.

The Pity of War by Niall Ferguson (Basic Books)

Ferguson is my favourite contemporary historian, and World War I the period in which I'm most interested. His scholarship is excellent but, more importantly, he's an able communicator; a writer who can make history-even financial history-come alive in a way that most academic authors are simply unable to accomplish. In The Pity of War, he not only offers new insight into the catastrophe that birthed the 20th century, but provides a necessary reminder that a war is far more than a military event.

At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson (Doubleday Canada)

If there is a non-fiction author writing today who has a better eye and ear for the telling detail, I'm unaware of his or her existence. Like James Burke (Connections) before him, Bryson has the ability to take engaging, but seemingly unrelated bits of trivia and weave them into a compelling narrative. This is writing that's rarely deep, but endlessly entertaining.

I've also been dipping into Wild West: Nature Living on the Edge by Heather Beattie and Barbara Huck. It's a beautiful, wonderfully comprehensive-and somewhat terrifying-book on endangered species in North America. I'm not surprised it won the Mary Scorer Best Book award last year.

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Tim Higgins has lived in Winnipeg since 1952. His B.Sc. in zoology and graduate work in human genetics naturally led him to a career in acting, directing and writing for television. He has two Blizzard nominations for screenwriting; one for an historical documentary, the other for drama.

Dancing Backwards: A Social History of Women in Canadian Politics, co-authored with Senator Sharon Carstairs, was nominated for both the Margaret McWilliams and Alexander Isbister Awards. His latest book is Just Common Sense: The Life and Times of George Taylor Richardson, launched at our Grant Park location in November 2010. Along with Winnipeg writer and publisher Laird Rankin, Tim is also a co-author of a book on Winnipeg's new airport terminal, which is scheduled for release in 2011.