Review: This Isn't A Business Book
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 21, 2012
Bobby Hutchinson calls "How Not To Run A B&B;" but it's very easy tosee, almost from the first, that this isn't a book about business, but rather a book about how to live your life - and unlike many books in which spiritual values are held in sharp focus, this one doesn't look down a sharp nose critically at you. I'd love to have Ms. Hutchinson as a sister - and her creator surely is proud of this woman as well."Dreams - and significant others - are like buses," she writes.  "There's always another one coming down the street.  And if this one didn't stop for you, it just wasn't your bus.  By ranting and raving and flagging it down, you're blocking the way for yours, which is trying to pull up in front of you, but can't because of the obstruction.  Let go, smile, and start watching for the next one."Books, I have found, are much the same. I used to borrow 10 books from the library - because I didn't want to carry more - and I'd find half of them, I never finished.  It wasn't the subject matter; I could enjoy a book on quantum electrodynamics if it were well written. I find that in the last year, I've obtained 1200 books (or previews) on Kindle, and found that the ratio of good to dreck hasn't changed much, and surprisingly, isn't much different for major publishing house versus aelf-published books.Part of it is that tastes differ.  There's the story of the guy who finds his best friend in bed with his wife; I have to, Sam; she's my wife, but why you? I don't expect everybody to share my tastes, which is why I try to explain in reviews why I liked or disliked a book; with any luck you'll avoid buying a book and wasting your time on something I loved but you'll hate.So understand this: Ms Hutchinson had written something like 43 Harlequin romance novels before she took up the B&B; trade, and this book pretty much is a series of love stories about her guests, friends. neighbors, and lovers, not all of whom are particularly loveable.  She doesn't posit herself as blameless; she says her nickname justifiably was "Catch and Release" Hutchinson.  People generally do what they can, because they are who they are, and she believes people enter her life when she has something to learn from them.And now I've entered her life, if marginally, with this review. Towards the end of the book, she dreams of concentrating more on her new fly fishing resort, and less on writing. She is, however, what she is, and she needs to do what she does - which is to write.  Perhaps she can morph a little to titles which are more appealing to a general audience, rather than the niche audience that Harlequin markets to - but writing, none the less.