by Greg Klein | January 18, 2018

Southern Africa, a land beautiful but perilous: Erratic baboons, poisonous snakes, cultural confusion, frustratingly scarce women, downright angry vegetation and, maybe most challenging of all, Boere dance hall music. Life’s an ongoing tribulation. Even so, it seems unfair to everyone involved that they should be subjected to a geologist.

As this story begins, however, Timothy’s still at that relatively innocent stage occasionally seen in the younger practitioners. His temptations with the roguehood more typically associated with the profession coincide with life lessons at the Yellow Snake Mine, where pretty much nothing is as it should be. That’s the background for Jon Ardeman’s first novel, Miner Indiscretions.

A number of excerpts from the Book, and from a sequel entitled Miner Altercations, are available on the Republic of Mining (for example here and here). Ardeman’s books can be ordered from Amazon here and here.

Another mining wit will be signing books at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. Northern Miner cartoonist John Kilburn’s background includes time as a mining engineer, broker, journalist, equity analyst and investor.

For all that, he retains a sense of humour. Meet him at VRIC booth 913 on January 21 between noon and 2 p.m., when he’ll autograph copies of The Art and Humour of John Kilburn.

And you thought this industry’s hilarity was limited to stock picks.