Akiva Reads

by Mark Dunn

I've been looking for Ibid: A Life by this author for years. Today, I finally found it-- but it didn't look as good as I thought. Fortunately, this gem was sitting right next to it on the shelf.

Ella Minnow Pea is a relatively simple little satire about fanaticism told with a wonderful sense of energy and fun. As the story progresses, it also acquires darker undercurrents of divorce, madness, and death, flowing tragicomically from the extension of one ludicrous idea. I'd almost recommend it as a children's book, but the prose is honestly difficult (although always entertaining) and especially toward the end it becomes nearly impossible to read. At slightly over 200 pages, it's short-- I read it in a sitting-- so give it a shot! As for my copy, I'm torn between circulating it among all my friends as soon as humanly possible and selfishly clinging to it and reading it over again.