Publications by Robert Popple
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BORN IN HURONIA:
Recollections of a kid from Penetanguishene (FriesenPress, 2020) On September 28, 1941, the same day that Robert Popple was born in Penetanguishene, Ontario, Ted Williams ended his baseball season with a .406 batting average, a MLB record that still stands today. Patterned after Mark Twain’s recently published autobiography, this memoir describes Popple’s life growing up in 1950s Huronia and later, making his way in the world. With public confidence in nuclear power declining after the Three Mile Island accident and CANDU reactors supplying the lion’s share of Ontario’s electric power, Popple acted as the Ontario Hydro nuclear spokesman for five years. An exact transcript of his mother’s 53-year Family Log is included, a prized source of detail on early events. Seven-year-old Popple recalls shaking hands with one of the most famous, athletes from his hometown of Penetanguishene, Phil Marchildon — an ace pitcher with the Philadelphia Athletics in the 1940s: "The fingers on his right hand felt hard and lean — the very hand that had delivered those hundreds of pitches while thousands looked on, millions more listening on radio as each pitch was registered into those eternal MLB statistics — batter by batter, pitch by pitch.” |
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COLD WAR WARRIOR: CANADIAN MI-6 AGENT LAWRENCE FOX
Foreword by Maj.-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie (FriesenPress, 2016, Second Ed. 2018) Lawrence Fox was born and raised in Midland, Ontario and enlisted in the RCAF in 1952. Distinguished by his outstanding marksmanship from the beginning of his military career, he was selected immediately as a candidate for dangerous espionage work and formally recruited by MI-6 in 1956. His first of five Cold War missions as an espionage courier behind the Iron Curtain was carried out in November, 1956, arriving in Budapest amid fierce action just after the Russians had ordered 1000 tanks into the city. Four highly dangerous missions into Czechoslovakia, Poland (2) and Russia followed. His assignments included bringing important people, microfilm and information out to the west. His MI-6 work was Top Secret, resulted in long term PTSD and greatly complicated his private life. Nothing is left out of this nonfiction espionage thriller. This book is dedicated to increasing awareness of the dangers and sacrifice that the military undertake on our behalf. "Lawrence Fox’s five missions... contained more excitement and action than most military personnel pack into an entire career." - Maj.-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie |
Reader Reviews.....
"What a story! What a read! I enjoyed this book immensely. It would be exciting were it fiction. It is incredible because it is true. A Canadian kid from small town Ontario who ends up as a MI-6 courier, his story written in snappy, fast-moving prose. I could hardly stop reading once I started, and was sorry when I reached the end."
-Sylvia Sutherland, Amazon.com Review
"This is a great read of an incredible story [about a] kid from Midland, Ontario and his James Bondian adventures. These come complete with spies, shoot-em-ups and gorgeous women. It's a book that is difficult to put down - and best of all, it's a true story! Author Popple captures the drama and tension well, making the reader wonder how Lawrence will extricate himself from the latest in a string of action-packed predicaments."
-G.R. Racine, Amazon.ca Review
"What a story! What a read! I enjoyed this book immensely. It would be exciting were it fiction. It is incredible because it is true. A Canadian kid from small town Ontario who ends up as a MI-6 courier, his story written in snappy, fast-moving prose. I could hardly stop reading once I started, and was sorry when I reached the end."
-Sylvia Sutherland, Amazon.com Review
"This is a great read of an incredible story [about a] kid from Midland, Ontario and his James Bondian adventures. These come complete with spies, shoot-em-ups and gorgeous women. It's a book that is difficult to put down - and best of all, it's a true story! Author Popple captures the drama and tension well, making the reader wonder how Lawrence will extricate himself from the latest in a string of action-packed predicaments."
-G.R. Racine, Amazon.ca Review
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JOHN ARPIN: KEYBOARD VIRTUOSO (2009, Dundurn) Born and raised in Port McNicoll, John Arpin discovered his musical talents early: at the age of four he could pick out tunes on the piano that he had heard on the radio; by ten, he had been identified as a child prodigy by a Royal Conservatory of Music adjudicator. He would go on to become one of Canada's finest keyboard virtuosos, playing at concert halls around the world. Equally at ease performing solo piano concerts, being accompanied by a full symphony orchestra, jamming with jazz greats, or accompanying opera singers, he was, perhaps, best known as the premier ragtime pianist of his day. This authorized biography is based on more than 40 hours of conversation during the last four years of John's life and supported by extensive research. Included are his friendships with Glenn Gould, Gordon Lightfoot, and others, his years as the designated artist for Yamaha, and his rise to prominence as a veteran of the concert stage. His stories represent pure Canadian music history. |
Reader Reviews...
"I heard John Arpin play both solo and with his trio several times in music venues like the King Eddie and George's in downtown Toronto. The guy was excellent, his arrangements were unique, that amazing left hand, not to mention his right. Oscar Peterson's right hand is likely the best ever with those blazing riffs, the most albums of any Canadian but all in the same idiom. But did you ever try to hum an Oscar Peterson tune?
Arpin played virtually every idiom and in that sense, was more versatile, most notably his ragtime renditions, the reason Eubie Blake dubbed him 'the Chopin of Ragtime.'
Robert Popple's biography of this outstanding Canadian musician is a compelling read."
-Gregory Ast, Author/Goodreads Review
"This is a lively and sympathetic portrait of a seminal figure in Canadian music. Some of the best material comes directly from Arpin’s own comments, based on Popple’s [taped] conversations with him before [his death] in 2007. Popple annotates them meticulously in his endnotes. About Glenn Gould, a friend from student days at the Royal Conservatory, [it is noteworthy that] Arpin says, “He wasn’t welded in a rigid way to the strict, mechanical setting of the notes that the composer wrote. He’d try things, experiment a lot [with the timing]. He was constantly analyzing the music, trying to get inside the composer’s mind, always trying to imagine ‘What was he thinking?’ But he couldn’t play anything that wasn’t classical, written right there in front of him.”
-Whole Note Magazine, Sept 2009
"I heard John Arpin play both solo and with his trio several times in music venues like the King Eddie and George's in downtown Toronto. The guy was excellent, his arrangements were unique, that amazing left hand, not to mention his right. Oscar Peterson's right hand is likely the best ever with those blazing riffs, the most albums of any Canadian but all in the same idiom. But did you ever try to hum an Oscar Peterson tune?
Arpin played virtually every idiom and in that sense, was more versatile, most notably his ragtime renditions, the reason Eubie Blake dubbed him 'the Chopin of Ragtime.'
Robert Popple's biography of this outstanding Canadian musician is a compelling read."
-Gregory Ast, Author/Goodreads Review
"This is a lively and sympathetic portrait of a seminal figure in Canadian music. Some of the best material comes directly from Arpin’s own comments, based on Popple’s [taped] conversations with him before [his death] in 2007. Popple annotates them meticulously in his endnotes. About Glenn Gould, a friend from student days at the Royal Conservatory, [it is noteworthy that] Arpin says, “He wasn’t welded in a rigid way to the strict, mechanical setting of the notes that the composer wrote. He’d try things, experiment a lot [with the timing]. He was constantly analyzing the music, trying to get inside the composer’s mind, always trying to imagine ‘What was he thinking?’ But he couldn’t play anything that wasn’t classical, written right there in front of him.”
-Whole Note Magazine, Sept 2009
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NORTHERN BELLE: THE LIFE STORY OF HALIBURTON'S ETHEL CURRY, INCLUDING HER CONNECTIONS TO THE GROUP OF SEVEN
(2003, RTP Publications) An avid collector of Canadian art, writer Robert Popple is a former executive of Ontario Hydro with over 32 years of experience in their nuclear-electric program. With extensive research and vivid imagery, he brings the pioneering history of Haliburton to life, leading up to the arrival of Ethel’s family onto the village scene in 1906. Twenty years later, her father had become the town’s leading citizen through hard work and unswerving perseverance. Ethel, his eldest daughter, who had exhibited artistic talent even as a teenager, headed off to the Ontario College of Art in 1924. There she met the likes of J.E.H. MacDonald and Arthur Lismer, then on the college faculty and like most students of the day, began to emulate their artistic style. She graciously hosted several college faculty and students at her parents’ home in the 1930’s and 1940’s, thereby contributing immeasurably to placing Haliburton on the Canadian art map, painting herself extensively locally and in the Gaspe. Although she never married, her oft-times fiancé was a famous Canadian baritone Wishart Campbell, known nation-wide as the “Golden Voice of Radio.” An art teacher of outstanding ability to motivate her students, she taught at Northern Secondary School in Toronto for over 30 years until her retirement in 1965. |
Reader Reviews...
"This book, one of the best biographies I have ever read, is written in an unusual format where separate facets of [a notable] life are explored. Canadian art history at its finest, this story includes previously unpublished material on selected Group of Seven members and the progress of women in the art world. Ethel Curry painted alongside the Group of Seven, as well as with her lifelong friend Doris McCarthy; only recently has her work been garnering the attention it deserves. Recommend this book highly."
-Anonymous Review, Indigo Books 2007
"Gifted wordsmither Robert Popple paints a vivid word portrait of an outstanding Canadian artist, Ethel Curry. She would inspire young painters in any era."
-Edward Lawlor, Goodreads Review
"This book, one of the best biographies I have ever read, is written in an unusual format where separate facets of [a notable] life are explored. Canadian art history at its finest, this story includes previously unpublished material on selected Group of Seven members and the progress of women in the art world. Ethel Curry painted alongside the Group of Seven, as well as with her lifelong friend Doris McCarthy; only recently has her work been garnering the attention it deserves. Recommend this book highly."
-Anonymous Review, Indigo Books 2007
"Gifted wordsmither Robert Popple paints a vivid word portrait of an outstanding Canadian artist, Ethel Curry. She would inspire young painters in any era."
-Edward Lawlor, Goodreads Review
This title is available at Schooner Books Limited, AbeBooks.com, Dustjacket.ca and Amazon.ca
