Category: Personal

Book Piles

Published on by Margaret11 Comments

I decided yesterday that I was tired of having my fiction double shelved and spent most of the afternoon taking books off the shelves and rearranging them. The result is that I now have the fiction separated into read and unread shelves and a pile of non-fiction with nowhere to go. At the moment they’re on the floor in the hall waiting to be sorted.

When we moved here 17 months ago I shelved the non-fiction quickly, trying to put them in roughly subject order but they got hopelessly mixed up. So now I’m going to get them in order, sort what to keep, shelve what I can and box up the rest. It’s amazing how much time this takes, not helped by me stopping to look at whatever takes my fancy.

But now I can see all the fiction at a glance, which has made me more determined than ever not to buy any more books for a good long time. After saying last week that I was only going to buy a book when I’d read six of the unread books, I did acquire 7 more books during the week. My excuse is that the one brand new book that came in the post was one I’d ordered some weeks ago. As for the other 6 books, they’re not really purchases as I got them from Barter Books in exchange for 15 books I’d taken in, so I’m not counting them!

I’ve finished reading two books this week, so now I really won’t buy any more books until I’ve read at least 4 more of my own.

And I’m really going to enjoy standing in front of my shelves and deciding what to read next.

Saturday Snapshot – Pets

Published on by Margaret15 Comments

I’ve dug back into our photographs looking for photos of Zoe, our Golden Retriever. She was our first dog we had when our son was 5 years old – he’s grown up now with children and dogs of his own. I can’t find the one of him holding Zoe when we first brought her home, but this is one taken a few months later in the back garden. She lived with us for 13 years and we had many happy times with her – she was the most faithful and gentle of dogs.

Here is one when she was older, with me and our other dog, Ben:

 

A Saturday Snapshot post.

Happy Birthday BooksPlease!

Published on by Margaret17 Comments

BooksPlease is 4 years old today!

I find it hard to believe that I’ve been writing this blog for 4 years. It seems like it was only yesterday I tentatively clicked on ‘publish’  for the first time.

Over these last 4 years I’ve read almost 400 books and have written about the  majority of them. I’ve also written about places I love to visit but my blog has stayed mainly about books.

The greatest change in my reading has come about gradually over the last two years or so, in that I now read a lot more crime fiction than I ever did before and that’s down to other bloggers, but also because I find crime fiction books are about so much more than crime. There is such variety in crime fiction – dealing with contemporary issues, historical crime (true and fictional), moral and ethical issues, personal and psychological crimes, and organised crime and so on. There are police procedurals, private detectives, amateur sleuths, serial killers and racial and political crime thrillers. And I love variety in my reading.

Books Please Me

I’ve also found that blogging isn’t a solitary pursuit, although it can be if you want. I’ve ‘met’ so many kindred spirits on book blogs and other blogs too. There are numerous reading challenges and memes to join and the opportunity to discuss books with people world wide. I’m very happy that I ventured into the book blogosphere. Thanks to everyone who reads my blog and especially to those who’ve taken the time and effort to make comments.

Library Loot

Published on by Margaret14 Comments

This is a sign that I’m a hopeless bookaholic. Despite listing books I’ve had for ages and still haven’t read – not mentioning all the to-be-read books all around the house – yesterday I went to the library and came home with these books:

  • The Fanatic by James Robertson is historical crime fiction, described on the back cover as ‘an extraordinary history of Scotland: a tale of betrayals, stolen meetings, lost memories, smuggled journeys and disguised identities.‘ I’d enjoyed his second book The Testament of Gideon Mack a few years ago. And how could I resist bringing this book home when I saw it began in Bass Rock, which is just up the coast from us – see my photo here.
  • Stories of the Railway by V L Whitechurch. From the book cover I learnt that V L Whitechurch was a celebrated crime writer and an expert railway enthusiast. He wrote a large number of crime short stories set in the golden age of Britain’s railways – this selection was originally published in 1912 as ‘Thrilling Stories of the the Railway‘. I’d read about him on Martin Edward’s blog and was pleased to find a copy on the library shelves.
  • The Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martinez. I’d read about this book, a mix of murder and maths and wondered whether my elementary grasp of maths would be enough for me to follow the equations  and cryptic symbols involved in solving this mystery.
  • The London Train by Tessa Hadley. There seems to be a theme here in my choice, following on from the Stories of the Railway. In this book, the London train between Wales and London, connects two stories that are interlinked through ‘a single moment concerning two lives stretched between two cities’.

And last but by no means least two books on watercolour painting, because this is now taking up some of my reading time. On Thursdays I go to a local art group and dabble in paint. I mentioned this a while ago on my blog and people asked to see some of my paintings. Here are two I don’t feel too embarrassed to show:

Farewell Lucy

Published on by Margaret27 Comments

Last night our little cat, Lucy died. She was nearly 17 and was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism two years ago. Since then she did improve and coped with us moving house at the end of 2009. For a while it seemed she had a new lease of life, enjoying the garden and its wildlife. Last week she stopped eating and just declined. The vet said she had a growth in her stomach and an enlarged heart.

She was a wonderful companion, who stayed by our side like a dog, even wanting to come on walks with us. I’ve written many blog posts about her and have many photos that I’m going to bring together as a set on Flickr. Here are just a few of our favourites.

Now you see me

She often sat with me when I was blogging, sometimes on the windowsill and more often right in front of the keyboard whilst I was trying to type.

lucypainting

This is a painting of her by our friend John.

She is sadly missed!

Literary Blog Hop: Once Upon a Time

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

Literary Blog Hop

The question posted by The Blue Bookcase at the literary blog hop is:

How did you find your way to reading literary fiction and nonfiction?

Reading is like talking – I don’t remember a time when I couldn’t talk or read. My parents loved books, bought me books and took me to the library way before I went to school. So I have always had books and have always borrowed books from the library.

My early reading was all given to me by my parents and relatives – books such as the Heidi books, What Katy Did,  Peter Pan, books by Beatrix Potter, Mabel Lucy Atwell and Enid Blyton and so on. I loved books of fairy tales, myths and legends, the tales of Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm and of Brer Rabbit. Later I read books by Malcolm Salville, Louisa May Alcott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rosemary Sutcliffe and Lewis Carroll,  books that I owned or borrowed from the library.

I remember seeing a TV dramatisation of Jane Eyre and being terrified of the mad woman in the attic and the scene showing her death in the fire has remained in my mind ever since (I must have been about 12 years old as we didn’t have a TV before then). I don’t think that led me to the Charlotte Bronte’s book but a TV serialisation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice certainly did – I loved it and was thrilled when my mother gave me her copy to read. It has been a favourite ever since and I still have her copy. I always loved getting books for birthday and Christmas presents and my aunties all knew that was what I liked best. They bought me books such as Wuthering Heights and Great Expectations.

School also introduced me to more books, such as Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham, the Mayor of Casterbridge and other books by by Thomas Hardy, more books by Charles Dickens, more Jane Austen novels, Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell, the plays of Shakespeare and Christopher Fry, Moliere, Hugo and books by Antoine De Saint-Exupery and Alexandre Dumas (in French lessons).

As for non-fiction, apart from a set of 4 books called The World of the Children, which is full of fascinating facts about nature, science, art, books, music and many more things such as making things out of paper, card tricks, the night sky, and cities and countries around the world. I don’t remember reading much non- fiction at all until I was older and read books on nature, history, biographies and so on. Much later doing Open University courses introduced me to books on philosophy, religion, and art history.

So the sources that have influenced my reading include my parents, family, libraries, school, college and university, television and radio, and friends – including bloggers.