BooksPlease

A Winter Walk

Published on January 5, 2010 by Margaret10 Comments

We had a break in the snow this afternoon, the sun came out, the sky was blue so we ventured out for a walk across the road into the fields alongside a wood and then down to the river.

: In the garden at the start of our walk

: Field edge path

: View across the field

We climbed over a ladder stile and then went down a narrow path towards the River Tweed

: Path above the River Tweed

and then looked down on the ice flows on the river.

: River Tweed

The views were spectacular.

: Sun going down on the River Tweed

Then the sky darkened and snow began to fall and so we made our way back home through the woods.

: Into the wood

: Woodland path

For more photos see Flickr.

Reading Challenges

Published on January 5, 2010 by Margaret1 Comment

I’ve been thinking about reading challenges and seen that many bloggers are signing up to lots of interesting-looking challenges. I’m always attracted to them and enjoy thinking about the books I could read to complete the challenges … and then I find they become a chore. I find myself thinking “what have I got to read next for a challenge?”, not looking forward with pleasure at the thought of reading the next book. So this year I’m easing off them.

The challenges I am taking part in this year are:

Attacking the TBR Tome Challenge. Last year I listed 14 books as my own To-Be-Read Challenge and only read 1 of them, so for 2010 I’ll be taking part in this challenge – the books are shown on my sidebar, in the hope that this will encourage me to read them soon. The idea is to read at least 20 of your tbr books before buying any new books.
The Agatha Christie Reading Challenge – this fits in well with my reading as I love AC’s books.
Alphabet in Crime Fiction – this is now up to the letter L (which I haven’t done). The letter M next week.

2009 Books

Published on January 4, 2010 by Margaret8 Comments

I’ve already written two posts on the books I read last year, with lists of my favourite books and top ten crime fiction reads. Several bloggers have published their reading statistics and I’ve decided to join in, but I don’t intend to list all 93 of the books I read last year here – they can be found under the tab “Books Read“, nor to analyse them in great detail.

Most of my reading is fiction and about half of it this year has been crime fiction. I only read 11 non fiction books and 6 of those were autobiographies, biographies or memoirs. About half the books were my own and the other half I borrowed from the library or friends. I read about 7 or 8 books a month, sometimes less, rarely more. But in December I finished reading only 1 book – moving house and Christmas severely affected my reading!

I enjoyed reading all the books, with only less than a handful that weren’t as good as the rest and there were just a few that I didn’t finish. I don’t say abandoned because one day I hope to finish Suite Francaise for example. I stopped reading that one months ago, when it became just too much to go on with it.

Of all the books I read last year these are the most memorable (the links are to the posts on the books):

Fire in the Blood by Irene Nemirovsky
A Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell
Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill (I still haven’t written much about this)
Jane Austen by Claire Tomalin
After the Victorians by A N Wilson (still no post on this one either)

The Sunday Salon

Published on January 3, 2010 by Margaret8 Comments

I have finished reading Drood on this first Sunday of 2010, needless to say I read most of it in December! I feel relief at getting to the end and am looking forward to reading something else. I’ll write about once I’ve had more time to think it over as a whole.

Along with Drood I’ve been reading Be Near Me by Andrew O’Hagan. This is about a English priest in a small Scottish parish; as he makes friends with some of the locals and experiences prejudice from others he reflects on his past life. I’m enjoying it. Hilary Mantel writes:

[O’Hagan] is a fine stylist, a penetrating analyst, a knowledgeable guide to high thinking and squalid living. This is a nuanced, intense and complex treatment of a sad and simple story. Read it twice.

My plan to have a box of books not in storage didn’t work out because there was no room in our car for them, so I’ve only had a few books around until Christmas Day when my husband presented me with this pile.

I think I’ll start with Paul Auster’s Invisible.

And for the rest of today I intend to unpack and sort some books and choose which one to read next.

My Best Crime Fiction Reads in 2009

Published on January 2, 2010September 1, 2017 by Margaret6 Comments

Kerrie is asking for people’s top ten crime fiction reads of this year from which she will collate the books and come up with the best crime fiction reads of 2009.

The rules are

it is about crime fiction you’ve read in 2009. Year of publication doesn’t matter.
about 10 titles in the format of title, author (no need for description etc).
any order will do. If you think one was so much better than the others, you might like to put it in your list twice.
You have until Jan 7 to do it.

I’ve read a lot more crime fiction this year than in previous years (for example I read 16 in 2008 compared to 47 this year) so it’s really difficult to decide which to list as my top ten. Here they are in alphabetical order of title (tomorrow I could just as easily come up with another ten titles).