The book is set after the Civil War, in Reconstruction times. At the readings, he passes a bucket for people to pay a nickel apiece and in that way ekes out enough to make it.

He tries to make his readings almost fairy-tale like, taking the listeners out of their ordinary life, to other lands and other peoples. 89)Ĭaptain Kidd purchases several newspapers at larger towns and finds good articles to include in his readings. He read about a great windstorm in London that toppled chimney pots ( What is a chimney pot? He could see it on their faces.) and then of the new packing plants in Chicago which would take any amount of cattle if they could only get them.The Captain read of the Irish pouring into New York City, ragged crowds from the passenger steamer Aurora, of the railroad driving into the plains of the new state of Nebraska, of another eruption of Popocatepetl near Mexico City. to small Western towns where the people do not hear or read 'news of the world.' They often are aware, and even contentious about, local politics, but they do not hear of the news of far-away places such as events in lands like India, Ireland, England, even Chicago, and other far-away cities, 'THE LATEST NEWS AND ARTICLES FROM THE MAJOR JOURNALS OF THE CIVILIZED WORLD,' as Captain Kidd's posters said. The main character is Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a 71-year-old man who travels around the U.S. There are other weird people like me who are fond of books for their feel, their look and even their smell (at least in my case). But then I thought it's probably not so weird or publishers wouldn't do it, right? So there you go.

As I started writing about this, I was thinking it's probably kind of strange for me to care and like the physical things of a book like this. And I like the rough-cut pages, also a little thick with uneven sides. I like the feel of the front of the paperback cover, kind of rough and thick. Once again, I was charmed by the physical aspect of the book.

News of the world by paulette jiles