"From surviving Typhoon Odette and the emotional fallout of the pandemic to cultural clashes and environmental upheavals, Haldane brings his signature clarity and candor to the page. His writing offers a rare blend of historical perspective, personal depth, and narrative drive." –Manila Times These are tales of resilience. This heartfelt collection of essays begins were David Haldane's award-winning 2023 book, A Tooth in My Popsicle , left off. After making the difficult decision to settle in the Philippines where his wife, Ivy, had been born and raised, David and his family spent two years building their dream house overlooking the sea, getting their kids settled in local schools, and falling in love with a vibrant culture that, for him anyway, was like something out of a fantasy novel. Then disaster struck. First came the COVID pandemic, prompting their adopted country to declare the world's longest and strictest lockdown, followed closely by a Category Five Super Typhoon that nearly knocked their house down and blew it away. Besides pandemic pandemonium and typhoon terror, however, this book explores a land and sea of profound perfection, a colorful culture crisp with courage, and the rumblings of distant events threatening to reinvent the world. Mostly, it's a book about change, something all of us must finally endure. "Haldane's storytelling is rapid, fast-paced, devoid of filler and heavy on action." - Long Beach Press Telegram "Instead of exoticizing things he does not fully understand, he tries to actually understand them...Haldane's descriptions can be a source of social history." -Manila Times "...a series of light personal essays...some of them hilarious, others refreshingly tender." -Manila Bulletin "Haldane's work expresses the joy of living a full life and meditating seriously upon it." -Ron Featheringill, PhD, author of The Tension Between Divine Will and Human Free Will in Milton and the Classical Epic Tradition "That blend of journalistic rigor and personal truth is powerful...What drew me in was the immediacy of [Haldane's] voice and the way [he manages] to balance humor, resilience, and reflection while writing about very real upheavals [making] a personal story feel so universal." -Graham Swift, bestselling author of Last Orders and Wetlands David Haldane is an award-winning American journalist, author, and radio broadcaster known for his insightful, poignant, and entertaining books, essays and short fiction. A former staff writer for the Los Angeles Times, where he contributed to two Pulitzer Prize-winning stories, Haldane has published three previous books. Currently Haldane lives with his Filipino wife and two young children in Northern Mindanao, Philippines, where he writes a weekly column for The Manila Times called "Expat Eye" and occasional cover stories for the newspaper's Sunday Times Magazine. When not writing, he can often be found relaxing with a mug of rum on his veranda overlooking the sea or, more likely, hustling the children to bed.