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wordmaster 's review for:
The Maltese Falcon
by Dashiell Hammett
I have it on good authority—my mom—that my father was not a big reader. When asked where my own reading habit comes from, she takes full credit. I asked what I got from dad instead (besides of course the ability to grow a fine, dignified beard) and she paused then said confidently, "His love of animals." I'll take it. I do own a dog, after all.
This "Dad didn't read much" epiphany was tough to square with my image of the man, built over time to mythic proportions in my mind, but I must confess it's corroborated by my own scattershot memories. Dad sitting on the porch with a cigarette, poring over funny pages but never paperbacks. An offhand comment while picking me up from Bible study one time (long, long ago) about how he really respected people who "get a lot" out of reading it, how he never had the patience. And Dad's other favorite book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, he owned on tape for road trips. All the pieces fit: Dad wasn't a big reader.
But this was one of his favorite books. Mom disputes this claim but it was. I remember our old home's bookshelves in vivid, photorealistic detail and I know this was up there, leaned up against a Mickey Spillane collection and not far down from a travel case stuffed with the aforementioned HHG2G cassettes.
Dad wasn't a big reader, but this was one of his favorite books—one of his only books. I guess maybe that's an endorsement, that this is a book that captured the attention of a non-reader. A book that proves the magic of reading is for everyone, not just cultish bookworms like yours truly who live and breathe it on the daily, but everyone, including those outside the Big Reader club.
3 stars for the book, and 5 for the place it occupies in my heart and everything that means to me.
This "Dad didn't read much" epiphany was tough to square with my image of the man, built over time to mythic proportions in my mind, but I must confess it's corroborated by my own scattershot memories. Dad sitting on the porch with a cigarette, poring over funny pages but never paperbacks. An offhand comment while picking me up from Bible study one time (long, long ago) about how he really respected people who "get a lot" out of reading it, how he never had the patience. And Dad's other favorite book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, he owned on tape for road trips. All the pieces fit: Dad wasn't a big reader.
But this was one of his favorite books. Mom disputes this claim but it was. I remember our old home's bookshelves in vivid, photorealistic detail and I know this was up there, leaned up against a Mickey Spillane collection and not far down from a travel case stuffed with the aforementioned HHG2G cassettes.
Dad wasn't a big reader, but this was one of his favorite books—one of his only books. I guess maybe that's an endorsement, that this is a book that captured the attention of a non-reader. A book that proves the magic of reading is for everyone, not just cultish bookworms like yours truly who live and breathe it on the daily, but everyone, including those outside the Big Reader club.
3 stars for the book, and 5 for the place it occupies in my heart and everything that means to me.