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Sunday, December 28, 2014

String Too Short to Be Saved

 
Today is a shout out to my good blogging (and real life) buddy, Vanilla. His blog is String Too Short to Tie, and he often spins well-told tales from his rich family history.

Imagine my surprise when I had an hour to kill last week, not at home, and pulled from a bookshelf a small volume, entitled String Too Short to Be Saved, by Donald Hall. He returns home to a New England farm, and finds in the attic of a relative's house a box filled with tiny scraps of string. The lid was neatly labeled "string too short to be saved."

The book is a wonderful collection of essays of life in the early 20th Century on hardscrabble farms, and tales of the ofttimes strange, and always frugal people he remembers from his childhood.

I highly recommend this book.

I also HIGHLY recommend to Vanilla (David) that he collect his own tales into a volume. They are at least as good. Excellent reading, both.

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5 comments:

Ann said...

The title of the book intrigues me. Saving the bits of string sounds like something I would do :)

Lin said...

How perfect! Funny how you found that book that so perfect ties (no pun intended) in with David's story-telling blog. He does have some wonderful stories, doesn't he?

rose AKA Walk in the Woods - she/her said...

Sounds like a charming read ... and I love the title ... *and* the story of the labeled boxes that inspired the book. I'll be checking out Vanilla's blog too. :)

vanilla said...

Thank you so much, Sharkey! Last summer my sister-in-law found a copy of Hall's book while on vacation. She bought it and brought it to me. Good reading.

Secondary Roads said...

Vanilla does an excellent job on his blog despite the shortage of string.