Usually I don't write about books I'm not keen on but I'm making an exception today because I am bemused. I am hoping you can tell me if I'm missing something.
The book is called Misadventures and it's by Sylvia Smith, first published in 2001 and republished in 2020. It's a collection of vignettes of people the author encountered in her lifetime. I came away thinking I didn't like her and many of the people she meets aren't very pleasant. Maybe this is where I've gone wrong. I expect people to be like the ones I know and this is a glimpse of another world.
Most of the descriptions occupy a page or less, like this one.
I noticed one review mentioned that she spent her life working as typist and that this explains the style in which the book is written. I'd agree. Good grammar and punctuation but nothing about how it affected her.
These are some reviews.
Have you encountered this book? If so please explain it to me.
8 comments:
Well, that story is a good example of wry understatement -- the "uneventful" drive that was in fact a series of harrowing near-accidents. That's about all the slim merit I can see in that one excerpt.
I'm not familiar with this writer, but I think I want to read her now. That excerpt reads like a prose poem. Not superficial.
A book of shopping lists might be as interesting . . .
Am I in spam?
Terrible book. Why did it get positive revues ?
You had me at Sylvia Smith. It is my MIL’s name too.
I sometimes catch youtube videos made by bored teens. This excerpt reminded me of those.
I often dislike books the critics rave about, and vice versa. Opinions about books are so much based on personal taste and preferences. I certainly wouldn't enjoy a book full of thoroughly unlikeable characters.
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