Product Description

The Bachelor Brothers’ Bed & Breakfast is a rustic retreat on one of British Columbia’s beautiful Gulf Islands. Its owners are the endearingly eccentric Hector and Virgil, twins by birth, though not by nature. Their B&B attracts a particular and sometimes peculiar clientele of slightly confused and gentle bookish people. Bachelor Brothers’ Bed & Breakfast relates the many stories of the comings and goings and doings at the guest house in Hector and Virgil’s own words, including the romantic, improbable and even shocking story of how their mother came to conceive them. They reveal the origin of their large library in tales of boxes of books mysteriously arriving throughout their youth, offerings from their travelling salesman father, unknown to them in any other fashion. They detail how the forces of circumstance, in the form of their motley inheritances -- a big house on a small island, an enormous library, an aged parrot given to profanity and channeling, and a dozen musical eggcups -- led to but one conclusion: opening a guest home. In addition to these remembrances of things past are more recent misadventures, by turns moving and hilarious. Also included are excerpts from their visitors’ book, Brief Lives, in which their guests describe the mysterious paths that led them to this haven of old-world charm that time has thankfully passed by.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #782718 in Books
• Published on: 1995-01-01
• Format: Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Binding: Audio Cassette

From Amazon.com
"One day, I put myself in the car and simply drove. I had no idea where I was going or why. I had no idea ... I would wind up, at dusk, in a lost little valley, turning up the driveway of the Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast."

The best books, as you read them, take you from wherever you are to a place where you want to be. If you're a reader of a certain type--a lover of books, cats, and absurdity of a quiet kind--then the Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast should be on your itinerary. It introduces two fraternal twins, Hector and Virgil, unmarried men who run a cozy establishment on a Canadian island. The book alternates between notes from Hector or Virgil, and "Brief Lives," culled from the B & B's guest book. This variety of perspectives gives Bill Richardson tremendous flexibility, and he weaves all the disparate characters together with an unobtrusive dexterity. The Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast is a pleasant, soothing, quietly absurd place to be.

From Publishers Weekly
Fifty-something fraternal twins Hector and Virgil operate a Shangri-la for bibliophiles, located somewhere between Vancouver Island and mainland Canada. In this deliciously witty tale of their B&B, which has won Canada's Stephen Leacock Award for Humour, the collected autobiographical jottings?"Brief Lives"?of the brothers' guests are interspersed with chapters alternately penned by each brother as dispatches for CBC Radio (Richardson first introduced Hector and Virgil on CBC Radio's Gabereau show). Virgil is the wry, bassoon-playing, contemplative one, sending missives from thought-inspiring locales like the cemetery-cum-golf course. (On their dead mother: "In compliance with her wishes, we kept her ashes in a ziplock bag in the freezer, attending the day we could incorporate them into a household project.") The more energetic Hector enjoys the affections of cosmetics saleswoman and would-be writer Altona Winkler and harbors a penchant for trouncing librarians at Scrabble. There's also Waffle the cat and the resident parrot, Mrs. Rochester, who spouts maternal advice along with the occasional vulgar epithet. Guests are greeted by musical eggcups at breakfast, and the brothers supply suggested book lists (e.g., "Hector's List of Favorite Authors for the Bath"). Richardson's voice is impressively versatile, equally assured with such diverse characters as Helen, a Winnipeg grandmother, and Gordon, a staid attorney on a forced wilderness encounter. This quiet charmer is a bibliophile's delight.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From AudioFile
Middle-aged twins inherit a remotely situated, old house, which they turn into a B&B for bibliophiles. From this seed came a popular set of delightful, gentle, and fluffy fictive reminiscences originally read by the author over Canadian radio, and here collected on cassette for the first time. While Richardson is a better writer than reader, he is somewhat lacking in technique--the cassette is brief enough so that these bookishly whimsical pieces win over the listener in the end. Y.R. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

Listened to cats yowl that were more entertaining
I have to admit, I'm easy to please. Great audio books are few and far between, but the writing, the reading, the tone and the stories on these cds were to me pretentious and overbearing. Save yourself the money and buy a classic. I enjoyed the "seabiscuit" story on Cd. Get that. I should have known better. Was it quaint? Maybe. Interesting or well done- no. I'd have more fun just reading a log book from an inn than listening to this again.

Great book; really great audio version, too!
I love the wonderful 'play on words' which is delightfully scattered throughout this book. I enjoyed the paperback version so well that I ordered the audio version for my father to hear during long car trips. The audio is great! I recommend this book in any medium. Very entertaining. The sequel is also good.

It's time for a sequel
I have just finished my second reading of this and also the "Pillow Book". They are truly enchanting, eccentric and laugh-out-loud funny. I can't wait for the third volume (hope I'm not to be disappointed) because I can't imagine the brothers would close up the house.