An absolutely delightful book!

Congrats on being the sweeps winner and enjoy!

I can not believe that I am so lucky to get another Stuart McLean book, my second in two day!! Thank you so much for sending me the gift of laughter AND all those wonderful "I AM CANADIAN, EH?" labels for all the Canadian books I am saving for Canada Day. I have been blessed!

Apr. 15
I have not released this book because I am going to read it...BUT, I thought I would share a few books with my fellow Calgary bookcrossers, I am going to grab it back in a few months once my TBR mountain is more managable.

Caught the book at the April meeting.

This was a funny book. It was also heartwarming. The chapter about the hardware store was priceless - there has been a hardware store in my family for 3 generations. The section about the dance wax -SO TRUE! My Dad would often disappear from a dance and reappear armed with dance wax as the floor "did not slide". When he was finished with it, it sure did - watch your step everyone!

Bringing to the June meeting to pass on to a certain friend whose husband has to visit the local hardware store in every town they camp in.

was passed to by a friend at the bookcrossing meeting. she suggested I read it aloud while traveling in our motorhome.

Brought back some nice memories of things I had forgotten.

Just got this book back from letting my husband read it. It is a nice read so far as each story is a couple of pages to read at a time.

Very intersting read. I now know that I am not to be a spelunker as his description caused me the willies!

This book has stories about everyday stuff that you never wondered about. A good bathroom read!

Off to the bookcrossing meet up. Hope someone can't wait to read it.

Picked up at the Calgary BC November 2011 get together

Only one year and two months after I first picked this book up and I'm finally done it. It it's just a lot of short articles I just put it on a counter in my house and read a paragraph or few on days where I could spare a moment. There were quite a few interesting stories within this collection, and I learned some new things about Canada's history!

Thanks for the good read!

Taken to Joshua Tree get together

HOORAY!!
The book is finally back in my hands, thank you so much to loveamystery and the Calgary Bookcrossers for keeping this warm for me. Now it HAS to go on the top of my TBR pile.

I finally got to read this and I found it to be a darker Stuart McLean than I am used to. Interesting!
Well no takers at the meetup yesterday so I suppose I will find a RABCK for it!

Three months later and here is my book at, still in the same place I left it!
This book will be sent for the next Canadian Literature Sweeps.

This book showed up in the mail today, because, *woohoo!*, I am the lucky winner of this year's International Canadian Literature Sweepstakes. It came with some tea to enjoy while reading, although I have discovered that reading Stuart McLean while eating or drinking can be very dangerous. I predict said tea will come snorting through my nostrils at some moment of unexpected hilarity in my reading.

So, yes. I have read some Stuart McLean but I have yet to read this one, so I'm looking forward to it. Thank you herchelle!

Loved the postcard too. It brought back memories of visiting with my daughters in Calgary one summer. We spent a day doing a madcap release of a bunch of books downtown. Another Calgary BookCrosser just happened to be doing some similar frantic releases at the same time. We noticed as the release alerts kept coming in that we often crossed paths and had been in the same place just minutes apart. We kept hoping to run into him and at one point when I was sure we were hot on his trail, I saw an abandoned book on a ledge in the shopping mall. I grabbed it and remember exclaiming, "We got one!" Of course, it turned out not be a BookCrossing book at all and as other shoppers looked on curiously, the girls and I erupted into gales of laughter. What loons we were. And we never did run into the other BookCrosser. Haha! I'm going to have to try and figure out who that was now.

I'll read this book soon and so I can get it back on the trail during the Canada Day release challenge.

Update: The BookCrosser I was hunting down was Bish0p, who, alas, seems no longer to be actively BCing. But I noticed from his shelf that his books continue to move around. :)

So I couldn't help myself. I've gone and read every one of the stories in this book. Stuart McLean is just so readable.

Herchelle is right though. The stories in this book are not quite so hilarious as others I've read, such as those in the Vinyl Cafe series for example. Rather, while filled with tiny joys, these stories also harbour a bit of sadness and a certain wistfulness for times gone by. I do admit though laughing out loud when I read "Meccano Metaphysics". I now feel more than a bit of kinship with Stuart McLean. It seems we are both masters of creating the "L".

Many of the stories had me thinking about things I haven't thought about in a long time. "What's the Matter with Rubber Boots?" was surprising. I thought only my mother was so "out of touch" and possibly down right cruel to insist her children wear those brown rubber overshoes with the buckle at the side and the fur cuff. Strap-ons is what Stuart called them. I called them ugly. I had no idea all the rest of the kids in Canada had to wear them too. When I was in grade 5 an older cousin mercifully passed on to me a pair of shortie boots with sealskin trim. And I never wore those godawful rubbers again. Never mind that I probably never had warm toes again in the winter. Of course Stuart being a boy, only had to undo the buckles and fold down the tops (out of sight of his mother of course) to be cool like the other boys.

I found out things I didn't know too. Who knew that Canadian kids reigned supreme in the art of yoyoing? And I thought I knew all the cool facts there were to know about the history of baseball. For example, did you know that the wood in baseball bats is ash? Did you know that once upon a time the dirt in baseball diamonds, to be really official, was shipped in from Baltimore (or was it Georgia?) and that baseballs were rubbed with mud from New Jersey to scuff them up? Well, in "The Sneaky Art of a Baseball Groundskeeper" I also learned that the home team's groundskeeper can give his team some secret advantage just by how long or short he cuts the grass, or how much he waters the dirt, or even how high he builds the pitcher's mound. Ooh, sneaky!

I'm reserving this book to release in gypsysmom's Canada Day release challenge. Thanks Herchelle for a wonderful read and I'll hope we hear back from this book again.

This book was released for the 2013 Canada Day release challenge in celebration of Canadian books and authors. The challenge runs from June 22nd to July 1st this year. Yesterday I filled the Little Free Library exclusively with Canadian books. This morning I noticed some gaps on the shelf. Yay! So I've added this one.

To the finder of this book:

I hope you enjoy this wonderful book by a Canadian author. Happy Canada Day on July 1st!

Welcome, also, to the wonderful and wacky world of BookCrossing! Here you'll find a unique and worldwide community of book lovers sharing their books. This book is now yours! Read it, enjoy it. Keep it or pass it on to someone you know, return it to any Little Free Library or even release it into the wild. It is all up to you.

If you make a journal entry (you can do it anonymously or as a BookCrossing member) all previous readers of this book will be notified by e-mail and can follow this book on its travels. BookCrossing is free to join, completely confidential (you are known only by your screen name and no one is ever given your email address) and it's a whole lot of fun!

What can I say other than the fact that I love Stuart McLean. Live is one thing, but spending an hour with him on Saturday mornings on CBC is something that always brings me back home & reminds me of how big the simple things are.

I found it in a little neighbourhood library at the end of someone's driveway on a day when I needed something - something to take with me to the river - to take time for just me to relax and find hope, laughter...you know.

Looking forward to passing it on to my folks, as we have shared such much in McLean's work over the years & the laughter and joy and connectivity that brings us across the provinces, between family and friends and people we've never met.

I've spent ten fabulous days with my sister and her family in British Columbia & am returning home today. Leaving Stuart McLean with them to read, as I return home with a beautiful old copy of Arabian Nights!