Everyone in Nova Scotia hangs their laundry out to dry. Everyone. It’s as if dryers do not exist here. This makes sense, as much as anything here makes sense, I mean, the air is clean and the wind is always blowing (this morning it is gusting 56 kilometres out of the SW) so what the heck. It’s efficient and has the halo effect of adding color to the countryside.

Hard to imagine developing an appreciation for well hung laundry but the truth is some of it looks absolutely magnificent, especially when set against the backdrop of a red barn and hayfield. In Nova Scotia, there’s so much of it flapping in the breeze that they have a name for it, clothesline culture, and in Antigonish, the nearest town to where we are staying, a local bookstore has a sign in the window promoting an August 12th appearance by Cindy Etter-Turnbull, author of Fine Lines: A Celebration of Clothesline Culture. Honestly, you can’t make stuff like this up. A description of the book, from the flap copy: “Fine Lines will revolutionize the way you look at laundry.” Jeepers! “While other books pin their success on airing dirty laundry,” (titles at Knopf, for sure) “this volume is a refreshing change. It's a book about clean laundry hanging in a gentle summer breeze as well as winter laundry frozen stiff as boards on the line in the backyard. Mrs. Etter-Turnbull examines in every detail the different kinds of lines, the various hanging methods and the personality profiles of those who participate in this age-old daily ceremony. Once you've read this engaging book, you'll never look at a drying line of wash the same way again.”

In Canada, it would seem, the simple things do not go unnoticed (or unpublished). There are numerous examples of this kind of largesse, including the recent announcement by our sister company, Random House Canada, that they will be publishing a book Kyle MacDonald, a 15-year-old internet blogger/barterer who successfully traded a paper clip up to a house is Kipling, Saskatchewan (a town famous for harboring both Kyle and pedophiles – log on to any Canadian newspaper and you’ll see stories about the latter). The book deal was front page news in the Halifax paper (next to a story on bootleg lobsters). Note for my return: suggest someone check the water on Toronto Street, make sure our Canadian colleagues are not being poisoned. And if anyone in the Knopf publicity department is reading this blog, just be thankful you don’t have to promote books about laundry or kids bartering with paper clips (sympathies to my colleagues in Canada who do).