Beyond Joe Hari’s Window - Book Review

Roel Loopers reviews this must read book written by his friend Antonios Papaspiropoulos

Beyond Joe Hari’s Window, by Antonios Papaspiropoulos, is a must read book, one that I can’t recommend highly enough!

It also has a Freo connection. The manuscript was edited by former Fremantle Councillor Ingrid Waltham.

What is the book about? Flashbacks of life by a man who tried to kill himself and is now in a coma, listening to the chatter of nurses. It is a firework of life, so full of joie de vivre, joy of life, a real lust for life. It is a huge affirmation of life, and that we should not waste our precious time on this planet.

Joe Hari won’t die wondering. He won’t have a bucket list of regrets of things he always wanted to do but didn’t get to, because he just did them. Joe embraced life to the fullest and tried everything. He soon found that it is more exciting and rewarding to try and fall flat on your face, than allow the fear of failure to stop one doing amazing things.

Beyond Joe Hari’s Window is wonderful, fun, quirky, endearing, and profound. I caught myself smiling often while reading the book, because all the people Joe meets are delightfully mad. None of the characters in the book are mediocre, simply because they are having too much fun living and enjoying life, music, women, drugs, everything.

The book is an exciting journey, an adventure. It is a kaleidoscope, as I say, a firework of life, something like randomly selected slides put in a carousel for a slide show. So you find yourself hopping from one city, one country, to another. Everything makes sense, but nothing makes sense in this fast-paced book. It is a rollercoaster of fun and emotions, of disappointments and achievements, of madness and love.

Of all the books I have read in my long life, this is one of the very best. It is so good that I will want to read it again, as there is so much to absorb.

The 490-page book is published by Pegasus and costs $ 32.99 and can be ordered online.

Antonios Papaspiropoulos

Now let me tell you more, a bit about the tragic story of the author, my friend Antonios Papaspiropoulos, whom I met more than twenty years ago when he assigned me to do a photo shoot on East Timor, where we spent a week together.

This book, so immensely full of life, was written by someone who has a limited time to live. Antonios is battling metastatic pancreatic cancer. It is the same cancer his wife Michelle died from shortly after she gave birth to their third child. While Beyond Joe Hari’s Window is so life reaffirming, Antonios’ cancer shows that life is not always fair, but full of crap sometimes. I have no doubt that his three children will be very glad they have this book to reflect on as the tears pass.

*By Roel Loopers

~ If you’d like to COMMENT on this or any of our stories, don’t hesitate to email our Editor.

~ WHILE YOU’RE HERE –