Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.

In Search of Marvellousness. Fear, pain and the pursuit of happiness. The back story. Is your pain telling you something? Do you listen to it or just try to drown it out? What if your discomfort inspired you to push beyond, but you chose to avoid being uncomfortable? This is a story of pain, discomfort, fear and rejection and how an action man learns to embrace and listen to his spirit. In Search of Marvellousness is a story where everything happens at once and time is fluid, not unlike Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five”, but without the extraterrestrials. It’s a tale of a life filled with adventure and travel like Roald Dahl’s “Going Solo” but without a war. It reflects Louise Hay’s “You Can Heal Your Life”, where pain and discomfort keep coming until the lesson is learned, but without affirmations. In Search of Marvellousness is the inner story of Marcus Lovett, the boy from Bendigo who just wanted to travel the world and have a good time. From being Australia’s first freestyle skier in the 1988 Olympics Winter Games at Calgary to being an Acapulco cliff diver and stuntman, risking life and limb for glory and a few dollars. The physical pain of breaks and dislocations screamed lessons that were sometimes lost in translation but continued until they were understood. In Search of Marvellousness covers the mental and emotional self-doubts of imposter syndrome. Marcus produces and hosts the long-running television show called the Snowshow. Filmed worldwide and broadcast globally, the Snowshow was a skiing and snowboarding travel show. Though earning money doing what he loved, he still felt like a ski bum looking for his next free ride. In Search of Marvellousness explores the connection between physical, mental, emotional and spiritual discomfort. Marcus explores the joy of fear and discovers self-esteem is the answer, constantly reminding himself to keep the spirit.

"A self-effacing, humane and unparanoid call to change our wealthy yet often barbaric world for the better." * In this provocative cri de coeur, the philosopher John Armstrong rescues the idea of civilization from irrelevance and connects it to our search for individual happiness. "Civilization" once referred to a society's technological prowess, its political development, or its cultural achievement. In the modern era, however, the word became burdened by the legacy of colonialism and connotations of elitism. For it to have value once again, according to Armstrong, we must understand that a society balances material prosperity with spiritual prosperity if it is to merit the term "civilized"—and currently we are impoverished. In Search of Civilization is his corrective. As he roams from anecdote to aesthetic appreciation—from the banality of an early job at an insurance company to the redemptive wonders of a seventeenth-century church spire visible out an office window, from Adam Smith's philosophy to the Japanese tea ceremony—Armstrong reminds us that culture lies within us and that its nourishment is essential to a flourishing society.

Susan Gabori has woven the narrative of each character in the Pace family from interviews she conducted with Italian immigrants and their families to present an illuminating picture of people who, faced with a seemingly insensitive environment, must find a way to survive without sacrificing their dignity and pride. Each person finds a different way to hold on to some of the old while adapting to the new. With In Search of Paradise Gabori promotes a deeper understanding of and respect for the immigrant experience. The characters given a voice are Vincenzo, the father, Teresa, his wife, and their children, Franco, Roberto, Angelina, and Michele. Separated by Vincenzo's search for work in Libya and later by World War II, when the children are sent to a fascist school in Northern Italy and Vincenzo is sent to fight the British in Africa, they attempt to retain the bonds of family and culture. Reunited after the war, the economic climate in Italy forces Vincenzo and Franco to leave for Canada in 1950 in search of a better future. They are eventually joined by the rest of the family in Toronto.