Bill Richardson (1) (1955–)

"Welcome to the Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast, a rustic retreat on a beautiful island. Your hosts are the endearingly eccentric Hector and Virgil, twins by birth though not by nature. Their B&B attracts a particular and sometimes peculiar clientele."
~~back cover

I adored this book! Which was quite a surprise -- I didn't remember why this book had wound up on my wishlist & I thought it was going to be an attempt at humor about two inept men trying to run a B&B for some idiotic reason. show more It isn't.

It's a series of reflections by the brothers and their guests. The vignettes are charming, thoughtful, and slyly funny. And if this B&B was real (& it might be) & if I could find out where it was, I'd go spend at least a week there, so quick your head would spin! The prologue says it's a real place, so there's hope!

"The brothers who own and operate this B&B, which is located on one of the islands that populate the Strait of Georgia, between Vancouver Island and the mainland, ... are twins, now in their fifties. As you may have surmised by the name of the enterprise, they are bachelors. They inherited their house, as well as an income, from their mother. Untroubled by the odious necessity of working, but possessed by humanitarian instincts, they decided to open their doors to the public as a refuge, a retreat, a haven for bibliophiles. ... They share the oppression felt by the gentle, sometimes confused people who are their paying guests; people who see the ratio of books available to time available as terribly skewed. Hector and Virgil think of their B&B as a way of redressing that dreadful imbalance; a way of offering readers the chance to finally revel in Silas Mariner or A la recherche du temps perdu or Persuasion." Doesn't that sound like heaven? show less

When I heard that this book was about literature-loving twin brothers, running a bookish B&B where guests could come to read and escape, I had an idea it might be right up my street. I wasn't disappointed! It was like reading the love child of 84, Charing Cross Road and a P.G. Wodehouse novel.

Part of the charm of the book lies in its whimsical structure. Hector and Virgil (named not after the classics but after twin bulls born locally on the same day) each 'write' their own sections of their show more story, and their narrative is interspersed with testimonies from guests at their B&B, recipes and book and author lists. The brothers share stories of their eccentric mother, thoughts on their opinionated parrot Mrs Rochester and mouse-killing cat Waffle, and musings on love, life and books. Each guest has their own tale to tell, perhaps of how they came to visit the B&B, or about their love for a particular author. There's even a little poetry from the so-bad-he's-good local poet.

I'm not sure I'd read it again, and it lost a star for a couple of slightly less sparkling sections and the way the bookish side of things slipped away a little towards the end, but this was still a thoroughly enjoyable novel. It is original, very amusing, full of charming characters and astute observations, and is a perfect book to curl up with on a Sunday afternoon with a cup of tea and a slice of cake. Enjoy! show less

Confessional: I hate it when I read a book too fast and I don't start a blog to take notes. I feel like I have a great deal of catching up to do. In a nutshell, Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast is exactly that, a slim volume about two aging twin brothers who run a bed and breakfast on an island off the coast of British Columbia. Neither has ever married or had children, although one brother is dating. Their bed and breakfast is popular despite never being advertised. Guests share their show more experiences in alternating chapters, while the brothers share reading lists (Top 10 Authors, Books When Feeling Low, and Authors for the Bath), recipes, and stories of their mother who has since passed. In a word, Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast is charming. Many reviewers have stated they wouldn't mind staying a night or two with the brothers. With only ten guests at a time, I have to agree. show less

The premise of this novel, a jumble of famous personas reincarnated as cats in a French cemetery, sounds wacky if not absurd. Oscar Wilde pining after Jim Morrison; Sarah Bernhardt the famous three-legged ratter; what? But the book never dips into absurdity at all; it's really rather sweet and clever.

All of the cats are both perfectly cat-like and perfectly human. Alice B. Toklas, our main character, spends her days as a cook, but really she's just waiting for Gertrude to be reincarnated so show more they can rebuilld a new (feline) life together. Short and sweet, and sometimes Alice's pining just makes the reader ache; this book was a wonderful surprise for me. show less