Parnassus On Wheels - by Christopher Morley

I grew up in a home with very few adult books.  (That’s OK, I had a library card and my Mother wrote me a note giving me permission to use the adult section of the library.)

We had one novel which my father received as a prize from business school, .99 cent Parnassus on Wheels  (No UK edition) by Christopher Morley.  Of course I was drawn to this book and it was a great find for me, a funny romantic novel about selling books!

I read it a couple of times decades ago, but not recently.  However, I think this is a book that will hold up.  It has never completely disappeared because it is a quirky little book for book lovers.

"Andrew and I were wonderfully happy on the farm until he became an author. If I could have foreseen all the bother his writings were to cause us, I would certainly have burnt the first manuscript in the kitchen stove.

Andrew McGill, the author of those books every one reads, is my brother. In other words, I am his sister, ten years younger. Years ago Andrew was a business man, but his health failed and, like so many people in the story books, he fled to the country, or, as he called it, to the bosom of Nature. He and I were the only ones left in an unsuccessful family. I was slowly perishing as a conscientious governess in the brownstone region of New York. He rescued me from that and we bought a farm with our combined savings. We became real farmers, up with the sun and to bed with the same. Andrew wore overalls and a soft shirt and grew brown and tough. My hands got red and blue with soapsuds and frost; I never saw a Redfern advertisement from one year's end to another, and my kitchen was a battlefield where I set my teeth and learned to love hard work. Our literature was government agriculture reports, patent medicine almanacs, seedsmen's booklets, and Sears Roebuck catalogues. We subscribed to Farm and Fireside and read the serials aloud. Every now and then, for real excitement, we read something stirring in the Old Testament—that cheery book Jeremiah, for instance, of which Andrew was very fond. The farm did actually prosper, after a while; and Andrew used to hang over the pasture bars at sunset, and tell, from the way his pipe burned, just what the weather would be the next day.

As I have said, we were tremendously happy until Andrew got the fatal idea of telling the world how happy we were."

 Since I am talking about books about books, here is something I saw that amused me:  How To Make A Kindle Cover From A Hollowed Out Hardback Book Guess this is as good a use as any for a DTB (Dead Tree Book.)


I am starting to make serious sweeps of my bookshelves for books I am unlikely to read if they are not on my Kindle.  I am downloading so many books in the course of doing this blog, that I am now willing to let go of DTB's, knowing I will not read them.  I am either sending them to http://www.PaperBackSwap.com (tell them marilyn at marilynlitt dot com sent you) where they can be swapped for DVDs that I can send to military serving overseas or I am donating them to my local library.  (Spring Branch, TX)


Happy Reading!  I hope you will think Parnassus is the gem that I do!

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