211 Things A Bright Girl Can Do

Not a list, but a book (which contains, by way of the contents, a list).

211 Things A Bright Girl Can Do by Bunty Cutler is an entertaining and informative book for bright girls! (Note: not actual girls, unless you want your nine year old to be mixing cocktails.)

This is a sister book to Tom Cutler’s 211 Things Bright Boy Can Do.

Part of the blurb (because it’s long so I won’t write it all out) says:

 “The essential life-skills handbook for bright girls of every age, featuring all the subjects they DIDN’T teach you at school or Girl Guides”.

The tone of the book is, in part, reminiscent of the instructional handbooks of yore, but with a tongue-in-cheek edge and a good dollop of wit served alongside the information, which is in itself pretty interesting.

Content of the book is split into several sections:

The Queen of Cuisine

The Compleat Homemaker (no that’s not a typo)

The Perfect Hostess

How to be Completely Gorgeous

Powder-Puff Mechanics

Jolly Hockeysticks!

How to be Bad

These sections make it pretty easy to pick and choose what to read, according to your mood and desires. So, if you’re feeling like a bad girl you can check out the Belly dancing for the complete novice or if you’re entertaining guests, why not take a gander at How to mix a Harvey Wallbanger?

However, don’t get your hopes up if you’re expecting this book to teach you how to make a macramé bikini. (Anyway, why would you want to?!)

I would have found some of this book very useful as a teenager, such as the part where it explains how to throw overarm (something my school PE teachers omitted to teach us, but expected us to know…)

I suppose I might find some of it useful in future, too!

Thanks to 211 Things A Bright Girl Can Do, I have learnt not only the art of tossing a cricket ball at a poor unsuspecting batswoman, but also handbrake turns (never mind that I don’t drive), how to prune roses, the best way to disembark from a ski lift, but also that it is far better to sit down with a Sidecar cocktail than attempt to look glamorous in the sidecar of a motorcycle.

Thank you, Bunty Cutler, for your pearls of infinite wisdom.

I think I’ll mix that cocktail now.