The Butterfly Hunter
I found this book at my favorite local used bookstore, Edward McKay's in North Raleigh. Books I might not normally buy seem more acceptable when they're really cheap (and when you have $50 worth of store credit to use). In this case, I think it was a wasted $8.
The premise is intriguing: Interview people who have found their occupational calling, and find out how they figured it out and what makes them tick. The problem is, I didn't care about the occupations or the people he chose to interview. They were so silly and out of my interest area that I wasn't even interested in reading about them.
I want to find out what my calling is, and reading about someone else who found theirs did not help me to find mine. To be fair, the subtitle reads, "Adventures of people who found their true calling way off the beaten path," so nothing in that subtitle would lead me to believe that reading this book would help me find my own path. Still, I was hopeful I would glean something from reading these other peoples' stories, but I really did not.
The book was mostly boring, though it started off very strong and interesting in the Introduction -- when the author, Chris Ballard, describes how he found his own path -- but goes downhill once you start reading the first chapter. He interviews a building inspector named Spiderman (literally, that's his real name), a guy who paints eye prostheses, a lady lumberjack, a model train expert, and I don't remember the rest -- though I have a sneaking suspicion that someone he interviews is a butterfly hunter. I stopped reading the book after the lumberjack. Although it's true that I'm probably built like a lumberjack, I'm not interested in being one.
This book's going back in the pile for selling back to the bookstore.
The premise is intriguing: Interview people who have found their occupational calling, and find out how they figured it out and what makes them tick. The problem is, I didn't care about the occupations or the people he chose to interview. They were so silly and out of my interest area that I wasn't even interested in reading about them.
I want to find out what my calling is, and reading about someone else who found theirs did not help me to find mine. To be fair, the subtitle reads, "Adventures of people who found their true calling way off the beaten path," so nothing in that subtitle would lead me to believe that reading this book would help me find my own path. Still, I was hopeful I would glean something from reading these other peoples' stories, but I really did not.
The book was mostly boring, though it started off very strong and interesting in the Introduction -- when the author, Chris Ballard, describes how he found his own path -- but goes downhill once you start reading the first chapter. He interviews a building inspector named Spiderman (literally, that's his real name), a guy who paints eye prostheses, a lady lumberjack, a model train expert, and I don't remember the rest -- though I have a sneaking suspicion that someone he interviews is a butterfly hunter. I stopped reading the book after the lumberjack. Although it's true that I'm probably built like a lumberjack, I'm not interested in being one.
This book's going back in the pile for selling back to the bookstore.
Post a Comment for "The Butterfly Hunter"