Changes

|title=Snapper

|author=Brian Kimberling

|reviewer=Robin Leggett

|publisher=Tinder Press

|date=April 2013

|website=http://briankimberling.wordpress.com/

|summary=An unconventional coming of age story set in Indiana. The humour is very much in the vein of Bill Bryson or Garrison Keillor - it's warm hearted and often very funny as the narrator looks back on his upbringing, his job as a bird watcher and his obsession with a girl he seems destined never to catch.

}}

There's little doubt that Brian Kimberling's debut novel, ''Snapper'' is a slightly unusual book. The publishers describe it as a coming of age story, and it is after a fashion, but it's more in the vein of an adult looking back on his young adult self than the more conventional young person grows up way of looking at things. The narrator, Nathan, shares many of the traits of his creator. Like Kimberling, he is brought up in Indiana and is involved in research of songbirds in that state; effectively a paid bird watcher. The title of the book though comes not from any type of bird, but from the snapping turtle that lives in the state. It's a broadly affectionate and wry look at the people of Indiana, known as 'Hoosiers'.

Our further reading choices don't often follow along publisher lines, but the team at Tinder Press, an imprint of Headline Publishing, have developed a knack of finding slightly unconventional but warm hearted books along similar lines, so if you enjoyed this then you are sure to enjoy [[When God Was A Rabbit by Sarah Winman]] and, one of my favourite books of 2012, [[The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey]].

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