Boo of the Silver Rod

9781588380944

1588380947

There's Boo, a gin-sipping parakeet with an encyclopedic knowledge of literature, and then there's Tom, the ex-lawyer and gentleman scholar who keeps the Beefeater's topped up in her cup. Boo's erudition and superior attitude are constants in Tom's life, as is her annoyance with his imperfect memory. Thus begins a series of chats wherein are examined some startling facts about Jefferson Davis; Shakespeare's personal sexuality; the lady lawyer who smoked a pipe and wrote superb detective stories; a noblewoman's affair with a seventeen-year-old; Elizabethan bawdy humor; an embarrassing mistake by T. S. Eliot; and Dorothy Parker as a weekend guest. This collection of humorous essays, covering a full range of literary and historical subjects, provides an astonishing array of little-known anecdotes and stories, all through a give-and-take dialogue with a stubborn uber-parakeet.