Sunday, May 21, 2006

Reading

The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Banks.

I remember avoiding this book initially when it came out, 'cause every time I picked it up, I was disappointed that it wasn't a real girls' guide to hunting and fishing.

However, it's an excellent book. A novel constructed from chronologically-linked short stories.

Clean elegant prose, with a gem of a metaphor or a startling turn of phrase on just about every page. Not the sort that makes you roll your eyes as the author tries too hard, but the sort that makes you pause, thinking, "that's exactly the right description (and I've never thought of it that way before)".

It's a quick read, emotionally satisfying and highly recommended.

Found it in the apartment complex' little library. It has a Book Crossing ID on it. It's an interesting idea - mark a book with an id number, register it online and release it 'into the wild' and track its progress.

A sticker on the inside cover reads: "I'm a traveling book and I'm making new friends..."

Banks has another book out called "The Wonder Spot". I might read that when I go home.

1 comment:

tyroscribe said...

I'm only a few stories in, and it is very well-written, but there's something, I dunno, overly familiar about the whole thing. Why is it always a precocious, cute-but-not-beautiful narrator surrounded by cultured intellectuals and fruit salads and vacations in St. Croix. Writers of the world, stop "writing what you know."

Also, you should write an actual girls' guide to hunting and fishing, complete with tips to combine fashion with comfort, and reduce squeamishness. (Sexist, yes. Marketable, OH yes. Wait, this is a public forum, and now someone will steal it. oWELL.)