The Rawness of Time

At a certain age, one is permitted a cutting honesty.

This collection of reminiscences and poetry is for those whose sensibilities have matured.

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Ben’s other books…

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Rhyming Fun With Billy and Trish

Enchanting romps through life, as seen by Billy and his sister!

Grandpa Ben delights the reader with delectable images and rhymes – sure to capture the imagination of your children.

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Grandpa’s Homestead

Buy this delightful collection of haiku, how-to and illustrations by Uncle Ben!

Special offer:

Ben studied Theatre, Voice and Music at McGill University, Saint Michael’s Choir School in Toronto and at the University of Windsor. He has a degree in Education from McGill and a Master’s Degree in Theatre from Western Washington University. He has taught Theatre and Voice at all levels from primary school classes to senior secondary school and adults as well as directing numerous Theatrical and Musical productions.
Ben has worked as a radio announcer and has experience as an actor, performing numerous roles including Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady and Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. Ben is an Honorary Life Member of the Federation of BC Writers.

Check out his website: Ben Nuttall-Smith

And, for Italian translations of Ben’s poetry: https://poetarumsilva.com/2014/09/15/ben-nuttall-smith-poesie-inedite/

To purchase any of the books please click the PayPal button under each description. Payment may be made by either PayPal or your credit card – shipping included in the following prices.

Margot: Love in the Golden Years   $29.40 – colour illustrated Henry Hamster Esquire   $19.10 CAD – colour illustrated children’s book. See the order form at bottom of page. Mad God of the Toltecs $28.40 CAD  —  for ebook at C$4.96 see: Mad God of the Toltecs Discovered in a Scream $28.20 CAD  — for ebook at C$7.59 see: Discovered in a Scream Crescent Beach Reflections $25.60 CAD  — for ebook at C$4.01 see: Crescent Beach Reflections Flying With White Eagle $18.75 CAD  — for ebook at C$5.22 see: Flying With White Eagle

Mad God of the Toltecs

“If you enjoyed Gary Jennings’ Aztec, Ben Nuttall-Smith’s Mad God of the Toltecs is the book you’ve been waiting for. This blending of Irish, Norse, and Precolumbian mythology will keep you turning pages. Peopled with intriguing characters and with a meticulously researched historical background the action is non stop from shipwreck to Aztec sacrifice as the legend of Quétzalcoatl the feathered serpent is given a truly original twist.”
Patrick Taylor – New York Times and Globe and Mail best selling author of the Irish Country series.

“This far-reaching novel eloquently displays the author’s love of history and storytelling. Mad God of the Toltecs rampages from monastic life in the old world to exotic practices on a distant continent. En route the reader is treated to the lifestyles of impoverished Irish monks, marauding Vikings, the first nations in a new world and the early civilizations of what would one day become Central America. Ben Nuttall-Smith has crafted a fascinating tale of enormous scope.”
Anthony Dalton. National President Canadian Authors Association Author of ten non-fiction books about the sea and about exploration.

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Discovered in a Scream

When I was born, a hyena laughed. My mother screamed and cursed me for the pain. A black hand slapped my pink bottom and made me cry.

“I have read Ben’s novel cover to cover, could not put it down … an amazing read, highlighting the uniqueness of each human being’s life relating to God, neighbour and self in their journey to wholeness.”

– Father Tom Nicholson, Catholic priest

“Ben not only survives the misplaced guilt of childhood rape, he carries the weight of instilled Catholic guilt. Then members of the religious order to which he had dedicated thirteen years of his life are convicted for child sexual abuse. Guilt by association is added to an already overburdened conscience and the load becomes unbearable. Despite all this, Ben retains his faith conviction.”

– Nora Sterling, Retired Counselling  Psychologist

Barriers and traps erected in the mind are more pernicious than brick walls.
Torn from his parents’ fairy-garden by the London Blitz, Ben is dragged through childhood horrors, ending up in the New World. It turns out to be more of the same. Some sadistic treatment in a religious order, debilitating family battles, being punched and kicked to near death in the deep south, driven into the deep dungeons of his mind by officious school administrators, and then destroyed by his wife, Ben finally buries himself in a decrepit “fixer-upper” on the Sunshine Coast where he builds what will become his healing garden.
Out of that misery comes a light that draws him to Crescent Beach, his new-found love, further healing and recovery.

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Crescent Beach Reflections

Ben has collected all his best poems in this book and included several of his full-colour paintings:

The Poem

Where will you go when this poem’s done?

I’d like to join those of my persuasion

sighing contentment on library shelves

where books read themselves between the covers.

Some share dreams with romantic balladeers

while others grow sharp teeth,

hiss angry utterance at timid readers.

The page that holds these words was once a tree

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Flying With White Eagle

As told to Ben while they both lived on the Sunshine Coast, Ayliffe “Pat” Carey’s experiences, as a homesteader, logger and, his passion, as a bush pilot, provide an exceptional insight into pioneer life in the first decades of the twentieth century on Canada’s West Coast.
While logging his homestead island in BC’s Fraser Valley, Pat developed a passion for flying. He would go on to overcome countless barriers and setbacks – broken airplanes, horses that didn’t fit in the cabin, corporate bosses who didn’t care about weather.
Pat speaks, through Ben Nuttall-Smith, matter-of-factly, without drama, about flying between, over (and into) mountains of the vast coastal ranges and the desolate north.
His vivid recall of details takes us with him through his amazing journeys as if were all merely another walk in the woods.

Send Ben some love:

Henry Hamster Esquire

Uncle Ben’s colour illustrated children’s book has been updated and published as of December 2018.

Henry Hamster is snatched from his cage by Ginger, the family cat.

Henry gets away, then is rescued by Jeremy, the neighbour’s pit bull terrier, but Henry runs into a rat named Reginald Repulsive and a grass snake that eats mice!

The story ends happily when Henry is found by his master, Billy, in the garden shed.

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