Sunday, March 23, 2008

Weekly (or not so much) Book Review numero dos

I wish to apologize for telling the world that I would write a weekly book review and then writing one once a month. You see, the past month has been especially busy with things like vacation on the brain.

Therefore, I wish to make it up to my "readers"- which is apparently my parents and their friends (not that I'm complaining). The most recent book I have read will probably be extremely familiar to my mother's friends. It involves a blog and a paper clip...

You guessed it, One Red Paperclip by Kyle Macdonald. The inspirational story of a man who decided to play Bigger or Better until he is offered a house. He made it after only 14 trades and one year.

It sounds pretty insane, and it is. In fact, I'm sorry to admit that the insanity of the story is just about all this book has going for it. It's a very easy read because the language isn't very extraordinary. However, the language aside, you will not be able to put it down. Shock value can do that to a reader, can't it?

If you are looking for a happy-go-lucky story that may keep your interest for a few days (or in my case, a few hours), this book may be the one for you. That in mind, you may just want to go to his blog and read it from there instead of making the effort of visiting your local library.

My rating for this non-fiction story: 7 out of 10 for effort. It's certainly worth looking him up on Google. Just don't waste the $17.95 (Canadian) it costs to buy his book.

By the way, WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF TRADING A PAPERCLIP FOR A HOUSE? I could be living in my own place by now. Besides that, now that the story is told and published, I can't even steal the idea for a fiction story. Perhaps I could trade it for something bigger...

4 comments:

Dave Bircher said...

Sounds interesting. I live about 45 min. from the town that gave Kyle the house. I'll have to check out his blog. It's hard to believe something so simple has gone so far!

Katkol said...

Hi,
My name is Katherine and I came across your blog today. I've heard of the paperclip guy and I think it's truly amazing that he was able to do that!

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Durff said...

I read your blog! Have you heard of the man with one red shoe? tom hanks movie i think. hilarious. well if you have my sense of humour, which is a bit odd...

booklover472 said...

Hadn't heard of this book before. Sounds like a bizarre, but interesting, concept! Thanks for your honesty - you saved me some $$$. Will just look for this at the library!