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| This is how I picture Scotland looking. Except with more rocks. This is a park in Southwestern PA. |
Today Bibliomama’s post prompted me to log onto my library’s website to find out official library policy on # of holds. In the scrolling bar of newly acquired books, the title “Some Like It Scot” flew by. I like reading about Scotland, perhaps due to my ancestry, our area’s topographical likeness to Scotland, or my Presbyterianish soul. My original info quest was derailed.
My library’s Libby has two books with this title, apparently both bodice-rippers. (Storygraph has even more with this title – all romances.)
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The first book
Here is the first part of Libby’s description of Some Like it Scot by Suzanne Enoch (published in 2015), copied exactly as I see it on my screen:
CAN A CLASH OF WILLS
Nineteenth-century, Scotland:
When a mad lass in trousers shoots at him, Munro “Bear” MacLawry isn’t sure what impresses him more-the girl’s sure aim or her irresistibly tempting curves. Catriona MacColl has fled to the Highlands with her half-sister to escape an unwanted wedding, and wants no part of him, nor any man. But he can’t abandon the flame-haired, sharp-tongued wildcat now that he’s discovered her-not when she fits so perfectly in his arms…
LEAD TO A LOVE FOR ALL TIME?
(etc etc etc)
That first line really threw me. What? Can a clash of wills do WHAT? Put the clash of wills in a can?
Sidebar for family nostalgia moment. When we were kids, we had a book about an ill-mannered, prankish, and orthographically-challenged British schoolboy named Nigel Molesworth, who attended a suboptimal boarding school. My father attended a British boarding school in India, so we felt a family connection. Molesworth describes a geography test, with the following questions:
Q: Are the Andes?
A: I ask you! Are the Andes? wot a question. Wot does it mean clot? Do you mean WERE the Andes? Of course they were. They didn’t pop up overnite you kno. Nor will they pop off agane but i wish you would.
Q. In Africa?
A. i am waiting. the lunatick bin is second turning on the right. they will be waiting for you. In africa indeed! n.b. if the words “in Africa” belong to “Are the Andes” i neither kno nor care.
(I found this quote at this blog post about witty exam answers: https://schutzer9.wordpress.com/2013/12/04/whats-the-best-thing-thats-ever-happened-to-you-as-a-tramp-and-other-stories-to-be-contd/ This book was apparently a big thing Britain during a certain era.)
In any situation, if you want to make my brothers or me laugh, just say, “Are the Andes?” This is what the first line of this book description reminded me of.
Back to the important matter at hand. After reading the whole book description, I realized it’s meant to be read as a movie trailer. The book title does not capitalize “it”. What should be em dashes are written as hyphens. The library categorizes this book’s audience: “Mature Content”.
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The second book
Libby’s description of Some Like It Scot by Donna Kauffman (published in 2010), copied exactly as I see it on my screen:
There Goes The Bride…
She’s cautious, careful – and about to lose control of her future to a marriage of inconvenience. So, what can reluctant bride Katie McAuley do? Easy – let a modern-day prince charming spirit her away for a month to his Scottish castle. There she can take refuge from her overbearing family and finally figure out what she really wants. But the more Katie sees of Graham McLeod, the harder it’s getting to keep their arrangement strictly business…
(etc etc etc)
And here are some of the blurbs:
“Their Scottish brogues and sexual prowess will tingle your spine and…just make you feel good.” – Romantic Times on Bad Boys In Kilts
“No one does a Scot quite like Ms. Kauffman.” - Coffee Time Reviews
The library categorizes this book’s audience: “General Content”. I wonder who decides these things.
Thankfully, this book description employs the em dashes properly.
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Despite these tantalizing reviews, I’ll be sticking to the “44 Scotland Street” and “Isabel Dalhousie” series by Alexander McCall Smith, for my Scot needs. Or maybe I should read up on Adam Smith or David Hume, two fine Scottish men, I’m sure.
I still don’t know my library’s Kindle hold policy.
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| Or maybe Scotland looks like this sometimes. This is somewhere along the PA Turnpike, taken in 2021. No bodices in evidence. |
2 comments:
Whoo-hoo, a resonance! I now can't stop picturing A Clash of Wills, like Prince Will and William Shatner fighting in a ring. Some of my best reads have been accidental Libby finds while looking for something else (some of my worst as well, but whatever). Still don't know the holds policy, lol. The rabbit-holing is the best thing about exploring library policies, I think.
I need help! I don't actually know what the proper use of em dashes is. I see them attached and it just doesn't read right to me (like—this), but my mind wants them to be like — this (with a space), but then I also mostly just use a "-" hyphen even though I know that's not right, but it's easier than getting an em dash...
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