Virginia Woolf often said, “Nothing has really happened until it has been described.” At ninety, Ann Smith Gordon has published her eagerly anticipated book Ann’s True Tales from the Bermuda Triangle, and in it she has given full meaning to Woolf’s timeless quote. And, indeed, Ann’s book is timeless. It is also one of the rare literary delights of the year. One is taken on “journeys” into the past with such ease that they give whole new meaning to bedtime reading. I couldn’t, in fact, put the book down and finished it almost overnight!
The stories which make up True Tales are simply wonderful. Many of us know the tireless work Ann has given PALS through many years (and indeed part of the proceeds from the sales of the book are going to PALS), but Ann talks about so many other facets of her life, not only her deeply poignant years with PALS. She recalls the old Bermuda Railway with unique pleasure, along with the ocean liner Queen of Bermuda, and her many vividly described diving expeditions, even encountering whales up close, make you feel you are really along on her every journey.
Some of the touching encounters in the book come from characters who have long left us and whom Ann brings back to life, like the immitigable Weather Bird, who would perhaps be completely forgotten if not for Ann.
True Tales should find its way under every Christmas Tree. As one critic describes it:”You will be lost in the ‘Triangle’ and not come up for air until the very last page.”
Ann’s True Tales from the Bermuda Triangle is available for purchase at the Bermuda Bookstore, P.A.L.S., The Bookmart at Brown & Co, Robertson’s Drug Store, and the BUEI Gift Shop.
