What Remains

What Remains is a latter-day road book, travel in the extreme – old man, old motorcycle, 3000 miles of old broken backroads.  It takes him through mountains, deserts and small-town America, three hundred potholed miles at a time.  The narrator captures the grit and grace it takes to live there, the natural beauty that revives affection for people as they are.   The lessons of stillness gradually take over, re-igniting his sense of adventure about aging and the ingredients of a mindful and passionate life.

Buy What Remains

Author-inscribed copies of What Remains can be purchased here, using PayPal for credit and debit cards.

(Please provide the first name of the person to whom John should inscribe the book in the field below.)

$15.00 plus $3.50 for shipping and handling
What Remains is only available for purchase from this website for shipping within the continental US. International readers, please contact your local bookstore to order this book on demand.

Sailing Grace

Sailing Grace begins with John’s heart attack in a local health club.  It ends thirty-one months and four thousand miles later when he, Barbara and their two youngest children maneuver their sailboat, Grace, into Schull Harbor, Ireland.  A gritty account of one family’s struggle to do better than simply survive, it is also a commentary of how love heals, dreams energize, and trauma can be a wake-up call.  From hospital ward to the stormy Atlantic, this hard-edged story will resonate with anyone who has struggled with the “heavy weather” that unexpectedly blows through every life.

Buy Sailing Grace

Author-inscribed copies of Sailing Grace can be purchased here, using PayPal for credit and debit cards.

(Please provide the first name of the person to whom John should inscribe the book in the field below.)

$15.00 plus $3.50 for shipping and handling
Sailing Grace is only available for purchase from this website for shipping within the continental US. International readers, please contact your local bookstore to order this book on demand.

Two-Pack

Author-inscribed two-pack of What Remains and Sailing Grace can be purchased here, using PayPal for credit and debit cards.

(Please provide the first name of the person to whom John should inscribe the book in the fields for each book below.)

$24.00 plus $3.90 for shipping and handling
What Remains and Sailing Grace (two-pack) is only available for purchase from this website for shipping within the continental US. International readers, please contact your local bookstore to order this book on demand.

Bulk Purchases of Books

Bulk purchases of books for individuals or organizations can be obtained through the Contact page on this site.

Advanced Reviews of What Remains

“Do we ever stop learning to live?”

“Channeling Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and a healthy dose of Kerouac, Otterbacher embarks on a great American journey of self-examination and discovery. Searingly self-aware, driven by curiosity, John takes seriously Rilke’s injunction: ‘Let everything happen to you.’  He holds nothing back, racing ahead where others fear to tread, on a trip that is pastoral one moment and harrowing the next.  We’re along for a glorious ride in this spare and daring travelogue of the heart.”

Hank Meijer, author of Arthur Vandenberg

“John Otterbacher’s What Remains beautifully blends a late-life adventure across an often overlooked America with brutally honest self-evaluation.  His erudite tangle with age, declining abilities and increasing vulnerabilities, while maintaining a vibrant desire to live fully, is both entertaining and an essential guide to everyone. In his eclectic view as a psychologist, survivor, former legislator, family man, and adventurer, Otterbacher delivers humor, dramatic scenery and provocative insights into both his inward and outer journey down a road rarely travelled.”

Steve Callahan, author of bestselling Adrift

“John Otterbacher invites the reader along for an unforgettable, transformative journey through time, space, memory, and into the future.  The sense of openness and curiosity with which he encounters everything – from the most sublime to the most painful – offers the reader a model of attention and awareness.  This memoir changes the reader.  After reading What Remains the world and its inhabitants appear more familiar and also more extraordinary. The place to which this remarkable journey returns us is more meaningful than it was before, and, having seen through the eyes of this great writer, we more easily see and appreciate what we might otherwise overlook.”

Laura Kasischke, author of Mind of Winter

“John has a way of befriending the stranger in the coffee shop, the dog outside and the reader of this memoir.  He laughs at his foibles and makes it easier for us to laugh at our own.  This old man on a motorcycle has a mystic’s eye for our connection to each other and all of life.  What Remains is a great ride, one I encourage you to take.”

Barry Johnson, author of And, Founder of Polarity Management

“…a thoroughly engaging narrative of a late-life excursion down back roads and through small towns, with ruminations on a life fully lived. A gripping ride”

Dan Gerber, author of Particles

“Life’s essential journey is in search of ourselves.  In What Remains, John Otterbacher beckons his readers to come along for another remarkable ride.”

Thomas Lynch, author of Bone Rosary and The Depositions

Reviews of Sailing Grace

Most book reviewers don’t spend much time and column space on unknown authors from midget presses. In spite of that, John, Barb, and Sailing Grace are getting some very good coverage.  Here are some selected samples: