Preposterous - Tales to Follow

Book excerpt: It’s a long way from a northern Ontario mining town to the most prestigious piping competition in the world, the Northern Meeting in Inverness, Scotland. It’s perhaps slightly less far when your Scottish father starts teaching you bagpipes at the age of five—but only slightly. William Livingstone went that far and more. This “upstart Canadian” not only won gold at the Northern Meeting, he became one of the world’s most celebrated pipers and for many years led one of the world’s most celebrated pipe bands. Along the way he played rock and roll to put himself through university, completed law school, got married, battled depression, travelled widely, and made countless friends (and a few enemies) among the many characters in the piping community. In Preposterous, Livingstone tells the story of his life—and especially his life as a piper—with humour, honesty, and grace. Both an engaging memoir and a fascinating behind-the-scenes window into the colourful, exacting and sometimes frustrating world of competitive piping, Preposterous is a book that anyone can enjoy, and that piping fans everywhere will cherish.