From the back cover, Diane Schoemperlen had this to say:
"Charming and sad, mysterious and memorable, 'Hair Hat' is a truly original book, unlike any other I've read, a gentle reminder that life is made up of moments, a single one of which might just change everything."

Worth a go then.

Millennium Library used book sale (one of 18 for $5.00).

You know what it's like. You pick up a book you've never heard of by an author totally unknown to you. Yet somehow it seems to call to you, so you let curiosity get the better of you, throw caution to the wind and take a chance on it. If you're lucky, you'll have picked up your little gem from the remainder bin or the church jumble sale and when the thing turns out to be drek you've suffered no great loss. I've picked up lots of these and most times at 50 or so pages in I know why it was where I found it.

But every once in a while you can say, well wasn't that a pleasant surprise. This is one of those.

This is a book of short stories. I love to read well-written stories and, while I wouldn't say this book should be nominated for or win some prestigious prize, I thought each of the stories was well written and stood on its own. But what made this a collection was the presence in each story of a curiosity, a man whose hair is shaped like a hat. How odd! Sometimes he is central to the story and sometimes he appears on the periphery. To be honest, as a reader, sometimes I didn't know why he was there. Nevertheless as I progressed from story to story, I looked forward to meeting him and was relieved when I found him.

My favourite stories were the first and the last. The first, "Yellow Cherries", captured perfectly the uncertainty, fright even, of being a child confronted with stuff you haven't met yet, sad stuff and you have to make sense of it, organize it somehow. Each of the ensuing stories were reassuringly familiar - ordinary people, ordinary events - and yet in each there ran an undercurrent of sadness. The final story, "Chosen", spoke to my heart and was a perfect end piece to a delightful collection.

Well, I do have to say that that was... What? 28 cents?... 28 cents well spent.

I'll release this, my 12th book for John Mutford's Canadian Book Challenge, into the wild shortly for someone else to take a chance on. What's better than free!

RELEASE NOTES:

If nobody claims this book at tonight's meeting, it will go on to the shelf at the back of the cafe to await a new reader. Will it be you?

Enjoy!

Snatched this at Tuesday's meeting to give a go.
I'm a sucker for short stories, and even more of a sucker for recurring characters.

Up it goes on Mt. TBR!

What a delightful little read!

So glad I gave this one a go. It really was my type of book. I loved piecing together little pieces of the Hair Hat Man's life. I can't wait to let this one go for gypsysmom's Canada Day Release Challenge! It seemed to me very Canadian.

Well, I'm stuffing it with an O Canada bookmarker, and it is being added to my growing pile of Canadian releases! Thanks for sharing Pooker3!

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Bringing to Polo Park to hopefully leave this book by a hat with some fake hair attached to it. I will try looking at Spencer gifts, and Zellers. If I don't find one at either of those locations, it will be left in the hat section of Zellers.


Edited to add:
Well, I didn't find a hat with hair attached to it :( But I ended up leaving it in the Bay and it was snapped up pretty quickly!