Jane, a woman in my exercise group, was looking for an Ann Patchett book at the library. Because she is tiny, she couldn't reach the shelf Patchett was on and no step stool was nearby. But another book was eye level: THE UNLIKELY ESCAPE OF URIAH HEEP, by H.G. Parry. She can hardly put this found book down. Has a book you never meant to read, never heard of even, become a real favorite.?
I have this on my kindle already. The story of her find is worth the price
3 comments:
I never heard of that one. Great title, though.
Yes, in the past I've often picked up books almost at random like that and read them. One that comes to mind - not a book I "loved" but certainly one I enjoyed more than I expected to at the time, was The Drifters by James Michener. We were at Jackie's parents' apartment in Brooklyn, and at that point she still had books. I guess she had several Michener books from a book club. The book was published in 1971 so this was probably two or three years later. I'd read and enjoyed Hawaii and The Source, but was skeptical about a book about teens roaming around Europe, mostly Spain and Portugal, where we'd never been (and still haven't been to). I think we were doing the laundry there and waiting to have dinner, so I just picked it up and started reading. I know the NYT found it "superficial" (and maybe it was), but by the time we sat down to eat I'd read 100 pages.
I'm on the other side of your friend's experience, by the way. Because I'm tall, I am always being asked by short people (mostly women) to grab something for them off a high shelf in the supermarket.
I saw this post last night and was so intrigued I went and read about the book and ended up putting it on the wish list.
I cannot remember a book that I picked up at a whim and became a favorite although I bet that happened a lot when I was younger.
At 6' 1", there are some shelves at the local Acme (now absorbed into the same conglomerate that bought up most California supermarket chains before swallowing Safeway, and thus Safeway store brands run rampant) where I have some difficulty retrieving items for the backs of the top shelves, so I will help out.
As noted on Fb, I've always loved "shelf-reading" as they call it in the library trade...I haven't found too many of my lifetime favorite books thus, but not a few interesting ones.
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