Nomad GirlMy Adventures with Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, John Lee Hooker, the Dalai Lama and more
Since childhood Niema Ash craved adventure. This craving launched her on a life journey that embraced Morocco and Tibet, to meeting the Dalai Lama, and to connecting with performers, such as Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and John Lee Hooker, before they were recognized as legends. Nomad Girl is her account of this remarkable story.
Niema looks back to her teenage years when she met her first husband, South African musician, Shimon Ash, on a trip to Israel. Together they set off on a hitch-hiking adventure through East Africa, which was cut short when Niema discovered she was pregnant. Many might have accepted pregnancy as a call to settle down into conventional domesticity. But not Niema Ash. Moving to her home city of Montreal, the couple opened The Finjan - a coffee house and folk and blues music club that came to embody the beating heart of the new, emerging culture of the sixties. Most of the musicians who performed at the Finjan stayed at Niema's home to save on expenses. And it was there, in her kitchen, talking into the wee hours, that she got to know them. "A few became lifelong friends, a few became lovers and a few became famous". Written with compassion, humour, warmth and love, in vivid prose, this is a book to savour.
To read more about the book, or to order a copy, go to the Nomad Girl page.
Connecting DorsThe Legacy of Diana Dors
Connecting Dors is the only official story of film star Diana Dors. Written in collaboration with Diana's son Jason, it tells the amazing story of impossible dreams coming true, the rewards and pitfalls of celebrity, and the legacy of Diana Dors.
To read more about the book, or to order a copy, go to the Diana Dors book page.
Loreena McKennet bookMy Life as a Friend
Travels with Loreena Mckennitt is not only a must for every Loreena Mckennitt fan but for everyone interested in the phenomenon of 'Celebrity'. Offering the reader a backstage pass into a world behind the footlights, it focuses on two friends and the impact on their friendship when one rockets to stardom.
This is a tale where friendship, fame and travel converge with dramatic consequences..
To read more about the book, go to the Loreena McKinnet book page.
European EditionMontreal to Marakesh
Travels With My Daughter is much more than a travel book. In Niema's travels to Greece, to the Yeats summer school in Ireland and, most importantly, to Morocco with her teenage daughter, she introduces us to characters, scenes and incidences - risqué, dangerous and profound, with a literary skill that transforms the reader into participant. It also turns a world of convention and protocol upside down, in an honest and often humorous account of an extraordinary mother-daughter relationship many only dream about. Travels With My Daughter is a celebration of travel, motherhood and life itself.
Niema Ash is that rare and most admirable character – a born writer. Bravo!
Irving Layton
Niema Ash’s prose is soaring…I was beguiled.
The Mail On Sunday
A delightful read…you’ll enjoy this one.
The Canada Post
To read more about the book, or to order a copy, go to the Travels With My Daughter page.
Touching TibetA Journey into the Forbidden Kingdom With a foreword by THE DALAI LAMA (previously Flight of the Wind Horse)
A perceptive critic said "Niema Ash is the ideal author of a travel book – passionate, curious, self-critical – with a rare ability to describe not only the outward appearance of a foreign land, but to evoke, in splendidly vivid prose, its very essence". These qualities are especially evident in Touching Tibet.
Excellent – Niema Ash really understands the situation facing Tibet and conveys it with remarkable perception
Tenzin Choegyal (brother of the Dalai Lama)
Mesmerising….Book of the week.
The Sunday Times
Almost surreal in its assemblage of improbably colliding facts – a marriage of the bizarre and the beautiful that chills the spine as often as it warms the heart.
The Times
Reading the book is the next best thing to being there
Glen Mullin, Tibetologist
To read more about the book, or to order a copy, go to the Touching Tibet page.
To receive details on how to order a signed dedicated book, or for any other queries, please contact niema@talk21.com