Bachelor Brothers' Bedside Companion

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian studies at
Concordia University, and the author of Kurlek, Margaret Laurence: The
Long Journey Home, and As Though Life Mattered: Leo Kennedy’s Story.

In the best tradition of bedside companions, Bill Richardson’s short
bits and pieces are both philosophic and witty. The mythical bachelor
brothers, along with their bed-and-breakfast retreat in the Gulf
Islands, offer an escape, “a sanctuary of sorts.”

As Richardson notes in a prelude, the book is a place for people to
work their way through books they’ve always meant to read but for
which they’ve never made time. You get the drift when he promises “a
gumbo of poems, formulae, letters from guests, trivia, receipts, lists,
sundries and notions, charms and incantations”—in short, brief
relaxants intended to amuse and distract.

There are also contributions by fictional friend Altona Winkler,
“astrologer, cosmetician and romance consultant,” and by the
brothers’ handyman, Caedmon Harkness. Winkler’s advice on such
things as how to dress perfectly for bed is not to be missed, nor are
Caedmon’s reflections from the potting shed.

Bachelor Brothers’ Bedside Companion should earn a place beside Sarah
Binks as a choice compendium of dry wit and hyperbole. Rose Cowles’s
delightful black-and-white illustrations fit perfectly with the general
mood.