Why Book Blogging Is Not Like Real Life
I work with someone who tells a story about the time her tall blonde friend went out to a bar wearing an entirely yellow outfit. At one point, for some reason, a drunk guy started yelling at her, “Shut up banana!” Now, occasionally. when we really annoy her, my coworker tells us to “Shut up banana!” It’s the perfect insult. There’s no comeback for it.
Every time I looked at the cover of this book I could hear her voice saying “Shut up banana!” It was sort of annoying. So I decided to tell her about it.
“I’m reading this book called Banana. I keep hearing your voice say..”
“Shut up banana. Why are you reading a book called banana? Is it actually just about bananas?”
Why? That’s a silly question. Because it’s there. Because it gives me knowledge. Because it’s a book. Of course I read it.
“To get smart. Did you know that there is a disease called Panama disease that’s wiping out banana plantations all over the world? All commercially raised bananas are genetically alike. They could go extinct. It happened once before. The Gros Michel was wiped out but they found the Cavendish variety just in time.”
She stared at me, horrified. “I like bananas. I don’t want them to die. What would I eat?”
That’s me- an absolute fountain of knowledge. Now every time she insults someone she’s going to worry about mass extinction.
I took the book to work one day and another coworker with a biology degree saw me reading it.
“Is the banana book just about bananas?”
“Yep.” I gave her the whole run down about bananas going extinct.
Pause. “I would read the @#$% out of that book.” Yes! I spent the rest of the day handing out random banana facts like how many governments in Central America the banana companies overthrew. There is a banana variety in Brazil that never turns brown but has the texture of an apple. I pointed out how many suicides there were by high ups in the banana world. Bananas are way more complex than I’d imagined.
I love bananas and I love learning new facts! Maybe I should get a copy of this book.
[…] God, what now?” (Yes this is the coworker from the banana book conversation and yes, I think she does thank the universe EVERY DAY that I share my random insights with […]
This book review made me giggle. I like your sense of humor. Also, it is kinda funny that the recommended books from the Goodreads page for “Banana” are: “Potato”, “Olives”, and “Beans” (among others). Like the rec engine just gave up and was like, “Well, I guess these people like one-word food titles.”
If you like BANANA you will also like POTATO.
Gave me a laugh, anyway.
Goodreads might be onto something there.
lol, this sounds so fun. You’re right foodies appreciate a book all about bananas and don’t think it’s weird at all.
Haha! It’s not weird at all to read about bananas. I read about the banana fungus a couple of years ago in The New Yorker magazine. Now I have started to seek out alternate varieties of banana, since some are available to me here in Singapore. I figure it’s useful to increase their popularity so that the other varieties keep being grown and we don’t live in a future world which has no bananas. That would be awful.
I’m jealous of your other varieties of bananas. I wanted to try some after reading this book but most can’t ship to North America.
This sounds like a book my husband would totally love. He adores quirky fact-filled books like that.
I’m going to read this too. It sounds great.