- Adventures in Solitude: A reading, slideshow and short film presented by author and CBC Radio personality Grant Lawrence, with a musical performance by wife Jill Barber, Sunday, Dec. 19 at 2 p.m. at the West Vancouver Memorial Library. Free. Info: grantlawrence.ca or www.westvanlibrary.ca.

Grant Lawrence is no stranger to love.

The West Vancouver native has long pursued his passion for music, recording and touring with rock band The Smugglers, which got its start at the now defunct Hillside secondary. As well, he's a well-known music journalist for CBC Radio, hosting a number of programs and a popular weekly podcast.

He also recently married his sweetheart, the lovely Jill Barber, a talented singer-songwriter, in a rather public manner, seeing him discuss their wedding planning extensively on-air.

It's fitting then that his debut book, Adventures in Solitude: What Not to Wear to a Nude Potluck and Other Stories from Desolation Sound, explores another of Lawrence's favourite things -- time spent at his family's cabin in the remote area of B.C.

"The book is a love story to the West Coast. It's a tribute to the West Coast and coastal people and a coastal way of life," he says. "There's some really dark moments in the book and there's some really humourous moments in the book; but the main thing, what I try to put across is, it's really written from a place of love."

While Lawrence now lives in English Bay, his parents Garth and Jean still call West Vancouver home, residing in the same Dundarave house he grew up in. His younger sister Heather, a central character in Adventures in Solitude, has also stayed close to home, living with her own family in Deep Cove.

"It was a great place to grow up and we were a small "c" conservative family like a lot of West Vancouver families," he says. "Nardwuar the Human Serviette lived a couple blocks away, Douglas Coupland up the hill -- so it was a pretty rich artistic environment to grow up in."

Lawrence attended Irwin Park elementary, then Hillside secondary and West Vancouver secondary. He went to Hillside at the same time as Nardwuar, a fellow successful music journalist. Three years his senior, Nardwuar proved to have quite an impact on Lawrence as well as many of their peers. Unlike other local high schools that would feature disco music or DJs for school dances, class president Nardwuar opted to do something more representative of the then 1980s Vancouver music scene.

There were a number of bands making waves -- 54-40, The Grapes of Wrath, D.O.A., Pointed Sticks, Young Canadians and Skinny Puppy included.

"Nardwuar would get all of these bands to actually perform at our high school dances in West Vancouver and it influenced a generation of students that all became musicians in some way or another," says Lawrence. "There's so many people that I know from West Vancouver that went to that high school that play music or are in bands or what have you."

In Lawrence's case, Nardwuar inspired him to get involved with music as a concert promoter -- first helping Nardwuar with the many local shows he went on to organize and then on his own --and to form his own band following in the footsteps of Nardwuar's collective, The Evaporators, which are still together today.

"We thought The Evaporators were so cool because there's all these bands that came and played our dances from downtown but here's a band right in our high school that's really neat and played this kind of weird rock and roll music," says Lawrence.

Lawrence and his friends formed The Smugglers in 1988, with him as lead singer, and stayed together until 2005. They toured all over the world and recorded eight albums (some of which were on Nardwuar's label in the early days).

Originally, Lawrence considered writing a book about The Smugglers as he kept extensive tour diaries.

"I did think of doing that but they were extremely sordid and they're very honest and it kind of confirms everyone's wildest imagination of what rock and roll touring is like," he says. "I got distracted by Desolation Sound, which has been (home to) our family cabin where we've been travelling from West Vancouver, for 30 years."

As a child, Lawrence detested vacations at the rustic cabin, much preferring the city and the pursuit of a rock and roll lifestyle. He hated Desolation Sound so much that as a teenager, he'd often stay in West Vancouver when his family made the trek, entrusted with their home. He came to host many parties, unbeknownst to his poor parents.

His cover was blown in July 1991 when they had to call their vacation short. Having taken a day trip to Lund, Garth and Jean picked up a Province newspaper and read about a wild house party broken up by the cops -- at their home. The front-page story was also covered in the North Shore News and Lawrence included clippings of both in Adventures in Solitude.

"After the band wound down I ended up, reluctantly at first, going back up to the cabin, which I had completely forsaken while being in The Smugglers," he says.

At this point in his life, he was captivated by the area's natural beauty, a welcome relief from the last 17 years he'd spent in urban areas, performing in darkened, smoke-filled, windowless bars.

"When I got up to Desolation Sound it was almost like a cleanse, like a detox, and I really fell in love with the place in a lot of ways for the first time," he says.

Lawrence also fell in love with the area's residents, different from anyone he'd ever come across, and came to realize all the random music connections; for example, Neil Young's drummer lived a couple cabins over, one of the doctors at Woodstock was also a resident and another man was from Crawdaddy!, considered the first critical rock and roll music magazine in the United States.

Lawrence initially started telling the stories he uncovered on the radio -- he hosts a daily program on CBC Radio Three as well as other specials -- however, a producer urged him to write them down.

"I did and a book eventually emerged," he says.

Adventures in Solitude, its title the name of one of his favourite New Pornographers songs (found on Challengers), was published this fall.

"It's always been my dream to write a book and Harbour Publishing made that dream come true and I thank them for that," he says.

The book is a personal account of Lawrence's experiences in Desolation Sound, as a child and an adult, including a discussion of the area's history and folklore, and interactions with a cast of colourful characters. His proposal to Barber also occurred while at the cabin, documented in romantic detail.

Adventures in Solitude has received many positive accolades from reviewers, and has so far reached No. 1 on the B.C. Bestsellers List and No. 2 on the National Nonfiction Paperback Bestsellers List.

It has also received positive feedback from his parents who had to deal with his incessant whining about not wanting to go there when he was a kid. "They've come to a few readings and my dad, who's generally a really stoic guy, was really laughing and having a great time," he says.

The North Shore has shown him a lot of support, including his hockey team, the Vancouver Flying Vees, comprised of a number of his former classmates and other artist and musician-types, based out of Canlan Ice Sports -- North Shore. Despite his missing a few recent practices, due to his busy book tour schedule, his teammates have ponied up for some copies.

"I've been completely overwhelmed by the response to the book especially on the North Shore," says Lawrence. "Everywhere I go, on the North Shore people have been coming up to me talking about it, whether it's at the mall, or Edgemont Village or Deep Cove or Dundarave. It's been a real thrill. It's been like a homecoming to me. The ultimate homecoming will be at the West Van library on Sunday because that was my library as a kid."

The West Vancouver Memorial Library holds many fond memories for Lawrence, mainly centred around The Adventures of Tintin, a series of comics he adored as a child and would check out and purchase at book sale events. Tintin is referenced multiple times in Adventures in Solitude.

"Here I am coming back to that library with my own book of adventures, so it means a lot to me," he says.

Lawrence's appearance won't be a typical reading, instead it will include a slideshow and a short film as well as a Desolation Sound-inspired performance by Barber, who's set to release a new album, Mischievous Moon, in March 2011. She's also just released a book, Baby's Lullaby, a board book based on her song, "Lay Down," which was written and recorded for Read To Me!, a Nova Scotian non-profit society that promotes early literacy.

Lawrence has a number of book tour events lined up across Canada in the New Year.

He plans to pen a second book, the topic yet to be determined. While his Smugglers tour diaries are still an option, it's possible his love life may take centre stage. He did a column for CBC Radio that ran for a number of months called Wedding Bells: The Planning of a Wedding from a Man's Perspective.

"I did a weekly column about what I went through in planning a marriage and I often do a lot of stuff around my marriage to Jill, so I don't know, maybe it will be something like that," he says.

He's also keeping busy with CBC Radio, and has a holiday special set to air on CBC Radio One, Tuesday, Dec. 28, called Home For The Holidays.

"It is a request show, a national show that is linking up loved ones from across the country," he says.

Home For The Holidays will feature the requests of those who can't get home for Christmas and will also be a podcast.

Lawrence is an extremely popular Canadian broadcaster and is often called on to host major events, including the Polaris Music Prize gala.

"I try to bring humour to everything I do," he says. And I try to take a light approach to everything I do. I can be serious as well and I can be, I believe, thoughtful and sensitive to situations. I think that I'm able to reach the right tone in certain situations."

He used to train people, fresh out of journalism school, coming into CBC to work.

"What I always said to them is, 'Be yourself and don't put on a voice, don't put on a character. Don't put on a persona, just be yourself because that is what people get attracted to, is personality,'" he says.

He also endeavours to be incredibly honest with audiences, as radio is a very intimate medium, especially when listened to with headphones or in an enclosed space like a car.

"Listeners can sniff a phony a million miles away so that's why I just try to bare all and be very, very open and it's worked," he says.

emcphee@nsnews.com