I’m often reading more than one book at a time, sometimes as many as four or more. Sometimes I think it would be better to read just one at a time but that rarely happens. A library book may be due back and I can’t renew it so that has to take precedence, or one of the books I’m reading may be so compelling that I have to finish that one and I drop the others for a while.

At the present I’m reading two books and both of them are non-fiction, which is a novelty for me. I usually have one non-fiction on the go along with one or more fiction books, so not reading any fiction is very strange for me. Both my non-fiction books are autobiographies and are riveting and remarkable books. They are:

• Agatha Christie: An Autobiography
• Seeing Things: a Memoir by Oliver Postgate

I’ve written some posts already about Agatha Christie’s book and will link to those in my Author Index. I’m nearly at the end of it now, but she is only still writing about 1943. She wrote the Autobiography in 1965 and the twenty intervening years are compressed into 25 pages – as she wrote ‘Time has altered for me, as it does for the old.’ (page 525). I’ll try to write a summary post about the book as a whole when I’ve finished it.

Oliver Postgate’s book is absolutely amazing. I’m enjoying it on several levels. There are the autobiographical details of the chronology of his life, the fascinating accounts of how he created those wonderful TV films of Ivor the Engine, The Clangers, Noggin the Nog and Bagpuss, and his own philosophical thoughts.

It’s quite difficult to write about such books as a whole but I’ll try to concentrate on what I most liked about them, which in both cases is a lot.

Now, after sorting out what to buy the grandchildren for Christmas, which of course will include some books, I need to decide what to read next – I think it will be fiction for a while.