Customer Reviews

11 reviews

• Julie

  Your book is now number one on my list of favourite reads. Yogi Bhajan taught that when we become one with ourselves, our thoughts, words and actions will have no gaps; there will be no contradictions. We do not model ourselves after someone else; we are who we are ......... and that is you ..............a guru. For a small book, it is loaded with yogic philosophy. I bow to you my friend. Thank you for being you.

• Edie Daponte

  Already read it and it’s brilliant! Touching and whimsical ❤️

• Val

  The highlight of my day is to read a few more pages of this delicious book!

• Bruce

  I feel like I’m a voyeur as I read about your adventures - it’s so well-done

• Bobbi

  Started your book can’t put it down, a real fun read!

• Dr Larry Licht

  Jan Stirling’s book describing her friendship with Ted Harrison is an amazing, life-affirming story. Her detailed descriptions of their trips and meetings for drinks, coffee, to hear music or simply to chat are truly uplifting. Jan and Ted’s musings on varying moods of joy, laughter, sadness -life itself- that are experienced in a relationship between friends - are moving and profound. What a beautiful book!

• S.B

  After I finished the book, my cheeks wet with tears, I heard stirring downstairs. My family was waking. And there I sat, feeling elevated, shifted, changed in a way that a meaningful book, a unique work of art can change me. I more deeply felt the preciousness of my own life, and of the people I love. And I felt a wave of desire to make sure I love them in real ways, so that they feel it. Thank you Jan, for being you, and for creating your book. Thank you for being the unique, precious person that you are, and for sharing yourself so genuinely and generously. I love your book

• V.T.

  Love your book.....the style reminded me Mitch Albom´s Tuesday’s With Morrie

• R.M.

  I have just finished reading the book. I am dazzled. I wish I could express my awe and appreciation fo you and for your having brought Ted Harrison into it too. Thank you

• Katherine Gibson, accomplished author and keynote speaker http://www.katherinegibson.com

  Jan Stirling’s memoir of her friendship with Canadian artist Ted Harrison during the last years of his life is a warm commentary on an unlikely relationship that developed between the artist, then in his eighties, and the author, a talented musician, who was decades younger. It calls upon us to suspend our typical notion of male-female associations as the older man and younger woman explore many facets of life. She, a vivacious musician, he the contemplative philosopher share thoughts on family, marriage, happiness and friendship.
  Stirling used her experiences with Harrison as a framework on which to structure her deeply personal story. We learn about the inner life of the author, which reflects universal angst, through short chapters that end with reflections attributed to Harrison.
  To say this work is purely memoir would be misleading as the author employs the license of creative non-fiction to re-create dialogue and scenarios between herself and Harrison, who was deceased at the time of writing.
  While this work gives the reader an insider’s view of the eminent artist in his declining years, it more often gives us a window into the psyche of the woman who befriended him. This book will bring nostalgic pleasure to those who knew Ted Harrison as well as those who seek to better understand the artistic temperament of its author.
  

• Deborah Rogers Member of the Professional Editors Association of Vancouver Island

  Jan Stirling’s creativity is apparent to anyone who has heard her play. A talented and successful composer and musician, Jan has also recently published a wonderful memoir of the friendship she had with English-Canadian artist Ted Harrison.
  “You know how sometimes you meet someone and you just click?” Jan Stirling’s relationship with Ted Harrison was as simple as that. Described by an early reviewer as a love story, what Ted Harrison’s Rainbow Road really does is show you how people can connect on the most elemental level. Once they’ve done that, their friendship can take them anywhere.
  In 2007 when Ted was in his eighties and Jan in her forties the two Victoria, BC residents met at a Rotary Club meeting. Ted made a connection with Jan, touching her heart with his considerate compassion. Ted Harrison’s Rainbow Road tells how that friendship developed over the following years, until Ted’s death in 2015. Along with wonderful memories of time spent together, Ted Harrison – renowned painter, Order of Canada – also left Jan with a series of ‘word paintings’. These free form poems came about from a need Jan saw in Ted: “I saw that he wasn’t painting, and needed a creative outlet. I noticed when he spoke that he was so eloquent in the moment, and I would sometimes prompt him to speak about topics that came up naturally.” Those freestyle improvised words were captured and saved. Now the painter’s words have been revisited.
  Jan Stirling’s life was in flux at the time she met Ted, and the narrative of Ted Harrison’s Rainbow Road reflects some of the ups and downs of the musician’s journey. The book is filled with laughter though; sweet, funny moments captured in little vignettes. It’s impossible not to laugh at the image created by improvised poems such as ‘The Fall’:
  
  “The sun was shining as I walked with my friend down the streets of Sidney. Then I began to boast about having lost weight. No sooner had the boast floated from my lips, than my pants floated down to the ground. I was too late to save them …”
  
  It’s a tender reminiscence of a unique friendship. Jan approaches the memoir with a free form – perhaps jazz-inspired – touch, allowing the moments to build, one upon each other, and leaving the reader knowing a new side of the great painter, Ted Harrison.
  Ted Harrison's Rainbow Road is available now on Amazon and at bookstores. For more information www.janstirling.com
  

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