The Salt House

The Salt House: A Summer on the Dunes of Cape Cod
By Cynthia Huntington (183 pages)
Published by University Press of New England
Bookish rating: 3.75

This in this memoir, Huntington lives in a little shack on a dune in Cape Cod for a summer. Granted, she has to share it with her surly boyfriend, but she's a freaking WRITER and she has day after day after day wide open to her. No wonder she gets books written.

Anyway, if you can get past your initial jealousy of a young person living on the beach with zero responsibilities, you'll find a super perceptive, lovingly written piece of autobiography that carefully studies the writer's creative process as well as the surrounding environment. Although I admit I got bored with so! many! descriptions! about freaking birds. Yeah, they're interesting WHEN YOU'RE ACTUALLY AT THE BEACH, but water fowl just aren't as interesting to someone reading in an armchair while the children wail about who got the pink cup.

I started this book during our week at the beach, and it's definitely a more appropriate book to read during that openness that comes with beach living. Granted, I was on the Carolina coast, not Cape Cod, and I'm smugly certain that Cape Cod has nothing on my beautiful Carolina coast, but salty air and sand IS pretty universal.

Recommend for a summertime read.