The Blue Flames That Keep Us Warm: Mike McCardell’s Favourite Stories

Finalist for the 2008 BC Booksellers’ Choice Award, BC Book Prizes

Mike McCardell is known to thousands of British Columbians as the tousled gent who delivers heart-warming stories at the close of Global TV’s six o'clock News Hour. In the three decades McCardell has been a reporter with Global BC, he has discovered that everyone has a story to tell, and his job is to find it. His eye for the human condition, his humour and his ability to report on an enormous range of material have made him one of BC’s great TV personalities.

In The Blue Flames That Keep Us Warm, the follow-up to his bestselling Chasing the Story God, and Back Alley Reporter, McCardell has culled over one hundred stories from the thousands of television tales he has shared on the News Hour. These are quirky and poignant stories that best portray the rules of life, as seen from McCardell’s unique point of view. They are like little blue flames, McCardell writes, and although sometimes they can burn fingers, mostly they warm. And they go well with ice cream, especially chocolate. Many of them are still alive and you can visit and discover them for yourself. The last time I checked, the submarine is still on the balcony in New Westminster and Trout Lake still has kids fishing on it.

Like any bowl of fine ice cream, you won’t want The Blue Flames That Keep Us Warm, to end. From the inside scoop on newstime postures, to the charming lives of gay roosters, McCardell is sure to delight, entertain, and thoroughly warm.