There's something wonderfully British about Gurdon's wry little memoir about traveling around the United Kingdom with his chicken, promoting a book he'd just written called Hen and the Art of Chicken Maintenance
—which is a good thing, as this book doesn't exactly have much on its mind. A freelance writer who cheerfully admits, "basically, I'll write about anything," Gurdon stretches out his small store of anecdotes to book length, but at least he doesn't overstay his welcome. There's plenty of humor in his accounts of appearing on morning TV shows, chicken in tow, and visiting various tiny bookstores where he and the chicken (named Tikka, naturally) are accosted by eager chicken farmers and bored teenagers. On more than one occasion, Gurdon veers off track, neglecting his chicken-discussion duties for thoughts on various characters he meets on this journey, as well as for some self-deprecating ruminations on his career as a "serial opportunist." And any book that ends with the tale of how the author ended up driving to the Edinburgh Fringe Fest with an angry-looking tattooed wooden chicken affixed to the car is worth at least a passing glance by most appreciators of the mildly offbeat. Illus. (Nov.)
