Dad's biog
He's the coolest person I know. I googled my Dad and found this:
John Dyson is a "sea-journeyman" writer whose books and articles have covered a wide range of subjects. Mostly they concern adventure under sail, history, science, technology and lifestyle.
Sailing the high seas and roving the world on assignment, John has made remarkable voyages and journeys. He roamed much of the Pacific in South-Sea trading ketches and cockroach-infested copra cutters. His breadth of experience in both the polar regions is probably unrivalled in journalism. He worked in a British trawler fishing Arctic waters in winter and has voyaged in icebreakers, square-riggers, liners, tramps, tankers and warships. He has a coastal yacht-master's ticket, served as mate (ie, chief officer) in a British sail-training ketch, and now sails his own little ketch in English waters, often single-handed.
As one of Reader's Digest's top investigative writers, John has covered a wide variety of topical stories from genetic engineering and the drug-resistant Tb boiled out of Russian jails to the need for DDT to fight malaria and Uganda's dramatically successful stand against HIV/Aids. His documentary books and sea-adventure novels have been widely reviewed. One book, acclaimed by The New York Times, was an account of the sinking of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand. His last two books about Columbus have together sold more than half a million copies in sixteen countries. His NBC Special, Treasure at the South Pole, won an award for best TV documentary on the environment.
John Dyson is a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society in London. He has lectured to that Society and also to the Explorers' Club in New York and to a number of U.S. corporations. He and his wife Kate, who runs a successful antique shop in London, have four children aged between 32 and 22. They live in a large old house on the banks of the River Thames. It was once owned by a French spy who, in 1805, was assassinated on the stairs by an agent of Napoleon Bonaparte.