Just Say Yes

Auteur

Bob McDonald has been the host of CBC Radio's Quirks and Quarks since 1992. He is a regular science commentator on CBC News Network and science correspondent for CBC TV's The National. He has been honoured with the 2001 Michael Smith Award for science promotion from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, as well as the 2002 Sandford Fleming Medal from the Royal Canadian Institute for Science, and the 2005 McNeil Medal for the public awareness of science from the Royal Society of Canada. In November 2011, McDonald was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. He is the recipient of thirteen honorary doctorates and, in 2014, asteroid 332324 was officially named BOBMCDONALD in his honour. He lives in Victoria, BC.

Texte du rabat

Bob McDonald, host of CBC Radio’s Quirks and Quarks, offers a personal and inspiring memoir of life-changing events in his early years through five decades in science journalism.

Revered science reporter and radio host Bob McDonald has devoted his career to turning our attention away from everyday perspectives and outward to the vast, intricate wonders of our planet and universe. Now, in this revealing and captivating memoir, he looks within, offering an intimate view of the path that brought him from a blue-collar background to his long-standing role as Canada’s foremost explainer of all things scientific.

It’s an engrossing and often jubilant story that allows McDonald to share powerful insights on overcoming fear of failure and tackling life-transforming challenges. Early on, he describes a childhood and youth plagued by difficulties in school that eventually convinced him to drop out of university. Yet, despite the academic obstacles, his love of science burned bright. Soon, through an innate stage sense and sheer enthusiasm, he landed a gig doing high-spirited demonstrations for the public at the Ontario Science Centre, which in turn led to self-produced TV spots.

And as each hard-won, never-certain success built on the last, he arrived at the role that would make him a national figure: the witty, engaging, passionately curious host of the perennially popular CBC Radio show Quirks and Quarks, reporting from the frontiers of scientific exploration and rubbing elbows with such luminaries as Chris Hadfield, Buzz Aldrin and Stephen Hawking. Told with all of McDonald’s trademark pace and humour, Just Say Yes is bound to please, surprise and inspire his numerous fans in entirely new ways.