Category: Books

Booking Through Thursday – Read with Abandon?

Published on by Margaret11 Comments


Today’™s suggestion is from Cereal Box Reader

I would enjoy reading a meme about people’™s abandoned books. The books that you start but don’™t finish say as much about you as the ones you actually read, sometimes because of the books themselves or because of the circumstances that prevent you from finishing. So . . . what books have you abandoned and why?

There are only a few books that I’ve abandoned recently, although there have been quite a few that I’ve taken back to the library unread. That’s not because I’ve abandoned them, but because they’ve been due back and I haven’t even started them. My eyes are always optimistic in the library, or greedy may be a better description and I nearly always come home with more books than I can possibly read during the loan period.

There was one library book I did completely abandon completely and that was Female of the Species by Joyce Carol Oates, a book of short stories that I just couldn’t read as the first couple were too nasty.

Another book I’ve started but not finished is Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, because I kept starting it and putting it down; frankly I found it just a bit boring. Maybe I’ll have another go sometime as I know that other people think it’s a good book, but it’s not on my radar right now.

Mostly the books that I’ve started but not finished are those that are long and detailed, like Claire Tomalin’s biography of Thomas Hardy. I don’t consider that I’ve abandoned it because I do intend finishing it, but not just yet because I want to read more of Hardy’s own books first. I’ll go back to it and probably have to start it again.

I’ve also started to read Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie and although I’ve stopped I certainly haven’t abandoned it – it looks just the sort of book that I enjoy – it’s because I’ve been reading other books, in particular The Verneys by Adrian Tinniswood, which is a library copy and was due back a few days ago. I can’t renew it as lots of people have reserved it. It’s a great book – a post on it is in progress.

Christine Kringle by Lynn Brittney

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

Although it’s still only October Christmas is already making an appearance. Christmas catalogues have been delivered through my door, the shops have had Christmas cards and wrapping paper on sale for a few weeks and the superstores have Christmas trees and other seasonal goods on display. In the light of this it seems appropriate to write about Christine Kringle, which the author Lynn Brittney kindly sent to me.

This is the story of a potential disaster when it is announced that the Town Council of Plinkbury, a town in England has banned the celebration of Christmas – no Christmas tree in the town square, no Christmas lights in the shops and no carol singers in the streets. (As an aside I’m reading The Verneys, set in the seventeenth century English Civil War period when Christmas celebrations really were banned).

Although the myth is that there is one Santa who flies all round the world delivering presents this book reveals that there are many Santas, known by different names in all the different countries, world-wide. They are gathered together at the Annual Yule Conference when news of the ban hits the headlines. They are busy debating a number of controversial issues ‘“ the introduction of some extraordinary Christmas Lights, fuelled by flying reindeer droppings; choosing an International Gift-Giving date; and the most controversial of all – that a female can inherit the role of Gift-Bringer if there is no male child to carry on the family line. This is the suggestion from Kriss Kringle from the US as he has no son and wants his daughter Christine to take over his ‘job’ when the time comes. However, the news from England throws everything into turmoil.

Christine and her friends, Young Nick from England (son of Santa Claus) and Little K, the son of Santa Kuroshsu) from Japan (who invented the Christmas lights), fly to England in Babbo Natale’s (the Italian Santa) red Ferrari (the latest in sleighs) hoping to re-instate Christmas and also to show that females are capable of being Santas. Helped by Nick’s beautiful mum Zazu (a tall elf) and her charming brother Egan they descend upon Plinkbury to carry out their plans to foil the Town Council’s ban. I really liked Zazu, the inspiration behind Barbie dolls, with her jewellery, beautiful clothes and most of all her impossibly high heels.

This story, aimed I think at young adults, kept me fascinated right to the end. There’s plenty of magic and I was quite taken with the idea of a car boot that’s enormous inside, a bit like Dr Who’s Tardis and a magic cleaning fluid that really does remove all stains, even squashed blueberries, not to mention chocolate liqueurs filled with real Christmas spirit. The story also brings out various issues, that I found interesting, not only the prejudice against women entering into what is considered to be a male preserve, and the distinction between the elves and the Santas, but also the way commercialism has become a dominant theme of Christmas, and the position of people of other faiths at Christmas time.

I particularly liked Christine’s speech on the meaning of Christmas and give just a short extract:

Christmas unites everyone, of every creed, race and colour, in a winter celebration of love, peace, light and joy. Over the centuries, the day of Christ’s birth has become a universal symbol of hope, fellowship and reunion.

A Country Walk on Public Rights of Way

Published on by Margaret10 Comments

Being a bookaholic means that I spend a lot of time inside, as I don’t really like reading outside even on sunny, warm days. But I do love walking and maps. Although we haven’t got nearly as many maps as books we do have quite a large collection of maps because every time we go to a new place we buy a map and explore the countryside and towns. The photo shows a small selection of our maps.

I’ve been meaning to write about walking since I started this blog. England is criss-crossed by many, many miles of public rights of way and my husband and I spent many years working as rights of way officers dealing with the maps, landowners, walkers, horse riders and cyclists, and not forgetting the trail riders. We love walking, although now we don’t walk as much as we used to do. We went for a walk today and although the sun wasn’t shining it was a perfect autumn day. The trees are just turning bronze, yellow and gold and the views were beautiful. The fields have been ploughed and the new crops are just showing through. It was so peaceful; we were alone in the countryside, apart from the birds, cattle and sheep and not another soul in sight.

These are some of the views from our walk.


When we go out walking we can’t help looking at things from a Rights of Way point of view. The public footpaths are all open and easy to use, but the photograph below is a good example of what I mean. It should have been marked out at least 1 metre wide by the farmer as it is a cross-field path. But it’s really narrow and because it’s only been walked out through the crop by people using the path it is only just wide enough to walk along in single file. Anyway, as we’re retired now we just moan about it to each other and carry on – it’s still walkable after all. We can’t help noticing when paths are not quite in the right position either and that’s another little gripe.

There were cattle in the next field. They weren’t the slightest bit interested in us and carried on munching the grass as we walked by.

Further on our walk we left the fields and continued down a little enclosed path, the ground covered in fallen leaves.

This led to a another narrow footpath fenced in between two fields – sheep in one and more cattle in the other. Looking at old maps I can see that it was originally an unfenced path across a larger field. At some time after 1930 the field was divided in two and the path enclosed between the two fences.

This is an awkward path to walk along as it is on a slope and is stepped, one side being slightly higher than the other and is uneven – you have to watch where you put your feet. But I’m just being picky now, it’s not hard to walk along and many people use it every day with little difficulty.


As we walked along the cattle ignored us but the sheep were very interested and came to see us.


This Land is Our Land by Marion Shoard is about the history of the British countryside and has some interesting information about the origins of public rights of way. Now the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 has made more areas of the countryside open for public access, but rights of way still provide the main access available for the public to use.

Good places to find information on public rights of way are Defra and the Ramblers’s Association. The Ordnance Survey publishes a series of Pathfinder Guides for walks in the British Isles. They’re excellent and give details of walks of varying lengths and difficulty ranging from gentle strolls to quite challenging routes over rugged terrain.

Celebrate the Author Challenge

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

Celebrate the Author Challenge

After writing the last post about not buying any more books for a while I found this challenge. It is a twelve month challenge from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008, set up by Becky. The challenge is designed to “celebrate” authors’ birthdays. Choose one author for each month of the year. Read at least one book a month. You can choose alternatives for each month and you do NOT have to choose a book until the very moment you’re ready to start reading. You can change your mind so long as you change your list to reflect that change.

This suits me very well as I have a long list of books to be read and so the authors I’ve currently chosen are all taken from that list. I particularly like the idea that I can change my mind as I do like to read spontaneously and this gives me that freedom of choice. I hope that this challenge will help me clear the backlog of unread books!

January – Virginia Woolf or Edith Wharton or Lewis Carroll

February – Amy Tan or Alice Walker or Charles Dickens

March – Elizabeth Jane Howard or William Morris or Robert Frost

April – Sebastian Faulks or Ian Rankin or Anthony Trollope

May – Daphne Du Maurier or Richard Adams or Margaret Forster

June – Orhan Pamuk or Thomas Hardy

July – Alexander Dumas or Joanne Harris

August – Irving Stone or Jorges Louis Borges or Mollie Panter-Downes

September – Kiran Desai or Chimananda Ngozi Adichie or Elizabeth Gaskell

October – Melvyn Bragg or A N Wilson

November – George Eliot or Chinua Achebe or Mark Twain

December – Jane Austen or Sophie Kinsella

I will not buy any more books … for a while at least

Published on by Margaret13 Comments
I read Nan’s post at Letters from a Hill Farm with complete empathy this morning. She has resolved not to buy any more books for a long, long time.

I can’t understand why I keep buying books and borrowing yet more from the library and other people when I have so many unread books. It’™s become an obsession and I keep meaning to stop, but then I’™ll go shopping and think I’™ll just have a look and I come home with yet more books. I do the same at the library ‘“ I think I’™ll only return books and not take out any more, but it never happens.

Here are just a few of my unread books and these are just the tip of the iceberg. It’s all getting out of hand and it’s got to stop.

So, I’m joining Nan in resolving not to buy any more books for a while – at least until after Christmas. Having so many unread books around makes me feel hassled – and it’s all self-imposed and unnecessary and getting expensive too. I have stopped adding to my wishlist (well nearly stopped, because I added one this morning, before I read Nan’™s blog). I also intend not to borrow any more books until I’™ve read the ones I got out now.

I’™ve done very well so far. I went shopping this morning at the supermarket and only looked at the books. There were a couple I could have bought but I resisted. Then when I paid at the checkout I was given a voucher for 100 extra points if I buy a book from the supermarket’™s recommended reads before 4 November. Oh dear, it would be a shame to waste it. Maybe I could buy one as a present for someone else?

Wish me luck, please!

A Reading Meme

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

I’ve seen this meme on several blogs recently and thought I’d like to do it too. I don’t know where it started but the last blog I saw it on is Emily’s.

Number of Books You Own

I don’t know exactly how many books my husband and I own. We have books all over the house. I had started to catalogue the books in a database on our laptop when were burgled and the laptop was stolen. I felt too disheartened to start again. Later when I found Library Thing I started to use it and I keep adding to it gradually.

Last Book you Bought

Completely Unexpected Tales by Roald Dahl – bizarre and macabre stories. I bought this at The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre when we visited it on Sunday. I have so many unread books that I really shouldn’t have bought another one, but I enjoyed the museum so much that I wanted to read something by Roald Dahl. This book includes all the stories previously published in Tales of the Unexpected and More Tales of the Unexpected – I remember watching the TV series years ago. I’m looking forward to reading them soon.

Last Book someone else bought you

My husband bought me some books for my birthday, including Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. He knows that books always please. This is one that I’ve heard is very good, so again I’m looking forward to it.

Five books that Mean a Lot to Me:

Books as a whole mean a lot to me so this is impossible to choose just five. I would probably choose different ones tomorrow but these five came to mind today.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I think I like this one best of all Jane Austen’s books. I’ve read it so many times since I was about 12 and still have the copy that belonged to my mother. Elizabeth Bennet is the character I most admire for her forthright, strong character. I love the way she rejected Mr Collins and stood up to Lady Catherine de Burgh. I can even forgive her initial prejudice against Mr Darcy.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. This was the first Dickens I read. My Great Aunt gave me this for Christmas one year when I was a child and I’ve loved it ever since. She gave me a beautiful little illustrated book and I can’t find it just now, which is just awful.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. I could have chosen Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, but decided on Wuthering Heights as it was such a revelation to me the first time I read it. I was completely engrossed in the story – the tragedy, passion, love and mystery of it all.

An Evil Cradling by Brian Keenan. I was completely taken with this book. It’s the autobiographical account of Keenan’s captivity in Beirut. It’s beautifully written, compelling, sensitive and hauntingly horrific and sad. I read this along with Taken on Trust by Terry Waite and Some other Rainbow by John McCarthy and Jill Morrell also telling of their experiences as hostages. They’re all remarkable books, but Keenan’s is outstanding.

Windows of the Soul by Ken Gire. This is about seeing beyond the ordinary, mundane moments of our lives to the eternal. He uses examples from art, poems, novels, music and films as parables to illuminate the deeper meaning in everyday life. I love this book.