It’s not often I find a book that makes
me laugh out loud but I just finished one that had me bursting out loud
countless times. “The Woefield Poultry
Collective” by Susan Juby is hilarious as it describes an idealistic girl’s
dream of a sustainable farm which is seen through the eyes of four different
characters. I love it when I can
recommend a Canadian author and I can in this case.
I especially liked the way the character
of Prudence was eternally optimistic even as she takes her pitiful little
“crop” of radishes to the farmer’s market and manages to survive the
humiliation of the real farmers’ competition.
Fortunately for me I don’t have dreams of attending a farmer’s market so
I will be spared such embarrassment! But
the misadventures were very relatable and funny.
I also enjoyed “The Readers of Broken
Wheel Recommend” by Katarina Bivald.
This is a Swedish author who writes about a Swedish book clerk who
travels to the American mid-west to meet a fellow book lover. It’s a nice little tale about a dying town
embracing a foreigner for the sake of one of their own. I found it very well translated which is
unusual as I often find myself re-editing a translated book from the
Scandinavian languages. I didn’t find
any awkward translations which was really very surprising.
Last on this week’s list is Stephen King’s
“Joyland” which was so un-King like I felt it was a little flat. I didn’t find any horror or suspense in the
book and it did not end on a gruesome note or even a discouraging one. There were a few times in the story when I
got confused and thought maybe I was reading a Thomas H. Cook novel but that
bit of suspense diminished almost with the next sentence. Don’t get me wrong though, it was a nice read
but it was not typical Stephen King. It
was a nice surprise, actually.
It was a quiet couple of weeks in the reading
department but next week I will review “Nine Parts of Desire” by Geraldine
Brooks.
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