Category: Weekly Events

Evolution – Booking Through Thursday

Published on by Margaret7 Comments

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Have your reading choices changed over the years? Or pretty much stayed the same? (And yes, from childhood to adulthood we usually read different things, but some people stick to basically the same kind of book their entire lives, so€¦)

Basically my reading choices have pretty much been the same for some time now. I used to have phases in reading, though, when I read as much as I could in one category or another. For example there was my historical fiction phase, an Agatha Christie one, a religious books phase, and a yoga books phase. When I was at college I read mainly books on librarianship and quite a lot of fiction – we were all Lord of the Rings fans (well before the films made it popular again), then years later I did an OU course and read lots of art history and philosophy books. All along I’ve read fiction of most types.

Now I’ll still read all those genres but like to vary it more – so maybe my reading has evolved to be more eclectic.

Wordless Wednesday – Stuttgart

Published on by Margaret9 Comments
A selection of photos from our visit to Stuttgart last week.
Stuttgart seen from the viewpoint near the Rack Railway
Schillerplatz Stuttgart
Zum Paulaner Inn Stuttgart

 

Schlossplatz Fountain

 

Schlossgarten Lake and Fountain

Biergarten Stuttgarter Schlossgarten Menu
Ofenfrischer Schweinebraten & Bier in the Biergarten

A Wordless Wednesday post

Sunday Salon – What to Read on Holiday

Published on by Margaret11 Comments

I’ve not been doing much reading or blogging as we’ve been away for a few days in the southeast of England and today we’re off again, this time to Germany. I’ve been thinking what books to take, bearing in mind that they should not be big and heavy (in weight), so I’m not taking Fleshmarket Close even though I’m in the middle of reading it and will probably lose the thread and have to start again when I come back home.

The two I’ve settled on are The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens, (235 pages of quite small print) which should last me a while to read – I’ve never read any of Dickens’s books quickly. The other book I’ve chosen is Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden (221 pages), which looks very different from the Drood book. Both are paperbacks and are books I’ve been wanting to read for a while. It feels strange only taking two books but we’ll only be away for three days and staying with family, so there may not be much time for reading. The flight time isn’t long – the longest time is between flight connections at Heathrow, so I think they’ll last me. But I think I should also take Agatha Christie’s 4.50 from Paddington as a standby because that is a very slim book (190 pages). Deciding which books to take is a doddle compared to deciding what clothes to pack, as I find it really difficult to travel light!

Teaser Tuesday: The Gourmet by Muriel Barbery

Published on by Margaret3 Comments

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

Share a couple or more sentences from the book you’re currently reading. You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!

This week I’ve been reading The Gourmet by Muriel Barbery. It’s a slim book, packed with richness – sumptuous, and full to over-flowing with words and images. It is verbose, florid and sensational – meaning that is celebrates all the sensations experienced relating to food.

Here is a description of one of my favourite foods:

… crimson in its taut silken finery, undulating with the occasional more tender hollow, with a cheerfulness about it like a plumpish woman in her party dress hoping to compensate for the inconvenience of her extra pounds by means of a disarming chubbiness that evokes an irresistible desire to bite into her flesh.

… my teeth tore into the flesh to splatter the tongue with the rich, warm and bountiful juice, whose essential generosity is masked by the chill of a refrigerator, or the affront of vinegar, or the false nobility of oil.

The raw tomato, devoured in the garden when freshly picked, is a horn of abundance of simple sensations, a radiating rush in one’s mouth that brings with it every pleasure. The resistance of the skin – slightly taut, just enough; the luscious yield of the tissues, their seed-filled liqueur oozing to the corners of one’s lips, and that one wipes away without any fear of staining one’s fingers, this plump little globe, unleashing a flood of nature inside us: a tomato, an adventure. (from pages 44-5)

Sunday Salon – Choices

Published on by Margaret8 Comments

This morning I was wondering what to read next. I finished reading Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett yesterday, and have almost finished The Gourmet by Muriel Barbery, and think I need a change. Maybe it’s time for an autobiography or a biography. I have several to choose from, some I’ve had for years and one that I picked up recently at a bookstall at the local village fair.

Should I read this latest one – Great Meadow: an Evocation by Dirk Bogarde? I couldn’t resist the cover of this book and remembered that I’d enjoyed another autobiographical book by Bogarde many years ago. When I read the opening words in the Author’s Note at the beginning of the book I knew I wanted to read this one too:

An evocation, this, of the happiest days of my childhood: 1930 – 34. The world was gradually falling apart all around me, but I was serenely unaware. I was not, alas, the only ostrich. (page vii)

Or maybe I’ll start Slipstream: a Memoir by Elizabeth Jane Howard, or Eden’s Outcasts: the story of Louisa May Alcott and her Father by John Matteson. Or do I fancy reading Mary Queen of Scots by Alison Weir, or Shakespeare by Peter Ackroyd, or The Day Gone By by Richard Adams (he wrote Watership Down and The Girl on the Swing, amongst other books)? Maybe The Mitfords: Letters between Six Sisters edited by Charlotte Mosely. I could go on and on.

Choices, choices! Deciding what to read next is sometimes so difficult, but it’s always enjoyable.