Bachelor Brothers' Bed & Breakfast Pillow Book [Hardcover]

Bill Richardson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 1997

A pair of endearingly eccentric bachelors--in their fifties, and fraternal twins--own and operate a bed & breakfast establishment where people like them, the "gentle and bookish and ever so slightly confused," can feel at home. Hector and Virgil think of their B&B as a refuge, a retreat, a haven, where folks may bring their own books or peruse the brothers' own substantial library. An antic blend of homespun and intellectual humor, Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast is a place readers will want to return to again and again.

Bachelor Brothers' Bed & Breakfast, originally published by Douglas & McIntyre, won Canada's prestigious Stephen Lecock Award for Humour in 1994, and was published in hardcover by A Wyatt Book for St. Martin's Press in 1996. Its sequel, Bachelor Brothers' Bed & Breakfast Pillow Book, is a Canadian bestseller, and will be published in hardcover by A Wyatt Book in October 1997.

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

A sweet nothing of a sequel to Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast (1996), a collection of recipes, book lists, and slightly silly narrative noodlings about the lives of fraternal twins Hector and Virgil, their pets, their guests, acquaintances, and idle hours at their British Columbian island retreat. When we last left the brothers, whose stories have become Canadian broadcaster Richardson's coyly amusing stock-in-trade, life was close to perfect, even if the inn's assortment of eccentric, blue-haired guests could be counted on to set off controversies about breakfast garnishes and yogic breathing. After being offered lists of the brothers' favored cookbooks, some peculiar recipes, and titles appropriate for lavatory reading, we learn that Hector has adjusted to his intermittently passionate relationship with lubriciously feminine journalist Altona, and Virgil, who still can't abide the sound of a saxophone, can smile kindly on the fishy belches of Waffles the cat. The brothers have taken on a handyman, Caedon Harkness, an unemployed roof-thatcher and proud owner of Canada's only thatched-roof mobile home. Harkness was found acceptable by Mrs. Rochester, the inn's Bible-quoting parrot, and now shatters the mornings by humming arias from Tosca and Turandot as he dusts. A whiff of a plot appears about 70 pages in, when local poet Solomon Solomon, disreputable lecher and drunk, is apparently incinerated when his 12-foot-thick ball of cigarette foil is struck by lightning. Could the mysterious, coded manuscript found in a locked safe behind a bad painting in the brothers' inn be the poet's perverse masterwork? Did he know the bachelors' long-deceased mother? And, oh, yes, does anybody need a recipe for bottled pickles? Harmless, sweetly miscellaneous glimpses into a pastoral paradise that, at its best, resembles its author's definition of a good bathroom book: so ``sufficiently pithy that it can be absorbed in brief spurts.'' -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review

"A funny, cozy tale." --Anniston Star

"A whimsically gentle fiction." --Minneapolis Star Tribune

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press (September 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312167792
• ISBN-13: 978-0312167790
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #995,266 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fun, but far too far over the top, March 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Bachelor Brothers' Bed & Breakfast Pillow Book (Hardcover)

Much of the joy of the first book was that the stories were told with such a light touch and in such different voices that you could almost believe they were true. Virgil and Hector, while iconic, could almost be real, and I loved them for it.

In this second book, the humour is broader but I ceased to believe. The first book has characters, the second caricatures. The difference is disheartening. I laughed, but didn't love.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A so-so sequel but with some surprising revalations, August 14, 2004

By 

Beth Cholette "doctor_beth" (Upstate NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bachelor Brothers' Bed & Breakfast Pillow Book (Paperback)

After enjoying the first Bachelor Brothers Bed & Breakfast book, I decided to check out the sequel. In particular, what I had most liked about the original novel was its focus on books and reading, so I was disappointed to discover the that sequel does not have the same emphasis: occasional reading lists are included, but they are interpersed with recipes and a much more eccletic collection of anecdotes. Whereas the first book was genuinely funny and quirky, it seems that in this follow-up work, the author tried TOO hard to be both humorous and unusual, and for the most part, his efforts fall flat. Much of the book centers around a character who was only briefly mentioned in the original story, the eccentric local poet Solomon Solomon; the little that is of interest about the character is stretched way too thin here. The only real bright spot in this book is that towards the end, there are some interesting revalations which provide a bit more information about Hector and Virgil's ancestry. Whether it's worth it to read 172 pages of a mediocre novel for less than 20 pages of slightly more entertaining level is up to you, but I definitely wouldn't recommend this sequel to anyone who hadn't read the first book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars More from Hector & Virgil, October 19, 2001

By 

Sandra Mitchell "Sandra Mitchell" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bachelor Brothers' Bed & Breakfast Pillow Book (Paperback)

As a sequel to the first book, The Bachelor Brothers Bed & Breakfast, the Pillow Book provides more stories from our beloved brothers Hector & Virgil. One of the lines from the novel sums up my love & appreciation for the writing: "..They wanted to create a place where people who are oppressed by the notion that there are too many books and too little time to read them might carve out a retreat;where gentle souls who carry the burden of knowing that the world is too much with them can set aside a week or ten days to whittle down their list of 'books to which I must one day get around'"-As a lover of books, this idea sounds like the perfect escapism. That is what Bill Richardson accomplishes in his writing-escapism with the various characters we meet at the Bachelor Brothers Bed & Breakfast, and another peek into the family unit of Hector & Virgil. The book is speckaled with funny little anecdotes throughout. While not quite as good as the first novel, it's still a charmer.