Back from the last long weekend of the summer, which means no more summer hours, hurricane season, sweaters, Halloween, and the rest of it. Not that all of those things are necessarily bad things... I guess I'm just a fan of the summertime. At any rate, I wanted to pull together a quick "best-of" review post for THE WEEK-END BOOK, since we ARE still allowed 2 days off at the end of every week, and really, from here on out, the weather just gets a little more quintessentially British...
“The British jumped on the weekend quickly. Despite the lingering half-Saturday, they managed to perfect a certain approach to leisure expressed, joyfully, in The Week-End Book. [It] is a useful mini-encyclopedia, filled with games, recipes, bird-spotting information, first-aid instructions and random, often wacky instructions for, say, making a cup out of a sheet of paper, or the proper way to kiss in the ocean."--John Mark
--The New York Times
"The prose is engaging, ambling and droll, and the topics covered reflect a clear-eyed curiosity trained on all sorts of stuff worth knowing. It could well be that “The Week-End Book” owes its staying power more to its quick sketch of a liberal education than to its undoubted charm and exurbanity.”
--The Wall Street Journal
“A charming reissue of the “guidebook” to leisurely pursuits… Learn how to mix a Satan’s Whisker, score double-handed bridge, and I.D. the cry of a golden oriole… Irresistable.”
--People Magazine
“This season’s hostess gift. Adorable novelty item, first published in the UK in 1924, includes info on how to forecast the weather, make your own paper cups, plus suggestions about games to play in the country and a little pastoral poetry.”
--Daily Candy
“It's impossible to do justice to so charming a compendium of miscellany in such short space. It's a disarming, somewhat anachronistic, and utterly quirky cross between the Farmers' Almanac and a countryside Baedeker's. …It’s worth owning if only for the way it will look on a bookshelf (or in a tote bag): the cover with its vintage feel, endpapers that include a chessboard, and whimsical line drawings throughout. Grade: A”
--Christian Science Monitor
“Here to divert us from our shallow reading is The Week-End Book, a tome that's as pretty as any Hollywood starlet and as jam-packed with information as the Sunday New York Times."
--Sunday National Post (Canada)
“If you are a lover of England and weekends, The Week-End Book...was made for your delectation. [The] illustrations will carry you back to your Beatrix Potter days.”
--Seattle Times
“This plethora of factoids distances itself from other books, such as the recent and ever popular Schott’s Original Miscellany, because of the gorgeous prose that disguises the lists and potential frivolity of The Week-End Book. In this way, the book demands to be read, not merely quoted at uncomfortable social gatherings. ... I could go on and on—there is much here to be enamored of, like the checkerboard tucked into the front cover. Did I mention there’s a checkerboard? If you are a dullard enough not to enjoy anything in this necessary tome, then at the very least get it for that. (Checkers not included.)”
--Rain Taxi
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