The Overstory

I'll start with a big thank-you for all the lovely comments and favours you left me yesterday on my blip birthday. I'll finish this entry by revealing the purpose of yesterday's mystery object!
But first....    Today I finished The Overstory by Richard Powers. It took me around two weeks to read the first half of the book, and about 3 days to read the second half, as the book gripped me tightly and refused to let go.  It is the best book I’ve read this year, by far!  What is it about? It is about so much that I find it very hard to describe. It’s about 9 people, and where they each come from. It is about forest and trees, so many stories about so many trees. As the characters grow older they interact with trees and with each other in different ways. It’s about much much more too!
It's about so much I spent large parts of the day on internet, finding out more about things that come up in the book. In my post-reading research I found an interesting interview with the author in The Guardian.
I am even happier to be living on the edge of a forest, having read this book.
In a way Blipfoto is responsible for me reading this book! I had never heard of Richard Powers before, but Jan bought me the book for my birthday. She hadn’t heard of Powers either, but read earthdreamer’s New Year’s Eve comment about the book on Blip. She then ordered the book for my birthday… (I've since found several other blippers who have read the book including SooB.)
I get a lovely feeling when I find an author whose book speaks to me, who is new to me, and who has written several other books. In this case there are 11 previous books - I wonder if I’ll enjoy some of them as much as I did this one?
And now for that metal object in yesterday’s blip. There were some creative suggestions about its use. They would have worked, but weren’t really what it was bought for. Some were so good that I think the real usage is rather mundane, but here is the answer... Traditional Swedish interiors have wooden floors and lots of rugs and that is where this object comes into the picture. How do you clean a rug - you beat it!! With this device you have somewhere to lay your smaller rug, or somewhere to hang your larger rug, before you start to thwack the dust out of it.  To be honest I’ve never used one for the intended purpose, even though we inherited one when we bought our house so many years ago, but it has been used in various creative ways.