Tuesday, March 11, 2008

A Piano in the Pyrenees



This was a pretty good find. I was glancing through the "Travel Essay" section at the bookstore, to see if there was anything I'd missed recently, and A Piano in the Pyrenees caught my eye for a few of reasons. 1) I try to keep my eyes open for piano related books for Mich. 2) I've driven through the Pyrenees and thought it was a pretty cool area. 3) I've read and enjoyed almost everything else by Tony Hawks.

The couple of Hawks' other books that I've read centered around obscure bets he's made with drinking buddies: whether he could hitchhike around Ireland with a refrigerator in less than a month, or whether he could beat the entire Moldovan soccer team at tennis. Funny stuff. This one was a bit different; the classic story of Londoner buying second home in some part of France and dealing with the culture, bureaucracy, people, etc. Yeah, I know it's been done before, but this one sure was fun. Hawks' sense of humor and comedic timing had me giggling an embarrassing amount on the plane ride I was reading this on. Excellent.

Book 14

2 comments:

SnowLeopard said...

No wonder you don't talk to other people on the plane- if you're giggling in an embarrassed manner, I might wonder what kind of strange literature you were reading... Or maybe that would MAKE me want to talk to you to find out what the story was about. Sounds like an interesting book- where does the piano come into play?

Turi Becker said...

The author figures he'll have time there to practice the piano more, and one chapter deals with the trials of trying to transport his piano from London to France.