Thursday, August 23, 2018

Top ten books about strange towns

Shaun Prescott edits Crawlspace magazine and PC Gamer AU. His debut novel is The Town. One of his ten favorite books about strange towns, as shared at the Guardian:
What Do People Do All Day? by Richard Scarry

I’ve read this to my daughter countless times. It takes place in Busytown, so named because its animal inhabitants are very busy. All of the industries support each other. The farmer sells to the market, and the wheat growers also mill the flour, which is then shipped off to the local baker. The lumberjacks fell trees, and the wood is used to build houses nearby. Children’s authors write books upstairs, which are then sold in stores downstairs. Rarely does a working person survive a day without witnessing some devastating-yet-comical disaster. Folk are jailed for stealing bananas. Women are paid for their labour with shoddy jewellery. Busytown has the resources to fund its own space travel too, but what on Earth for? Just more of this, in space? Busytown on Mars?
Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue