BooksPlease

Life is Too Short – Booking Through Thursday

Published on November 12, 2009 by Margaret10 Comments

Suggested by JM:

‘Life is too short to read bad books.’ I’d always heard that, but I still read books through until the end no matter how bad they were because I had this sense of obligation.

That is, until this week when I tried (really tried) to read a book that is utterly boring and unrealistic. I had to stop reading.

Do you read everything all the way through or do you feel life really is too short to read bad books?

Like JM I used to read books to the end even if I didn’t like them, but I soon decided that life really is too short to read a book I wasn’t enjoying. It’s easy with library books – I take out books that look interesting and quite often return them unread. If it’s a book that I’ve bought I’m more reluctant to give up on it and will return to it at a later date. Sometimes it’s the wrong time to read a book, or I’m not in the right frame of mind. But if it is truly boring me I stop reading.

Crime Fiction Alphabet: The Falls by Ian Rankin

Published on November 11, 2009January 4, 2018 by Margaret5 Comments

My contribution this week for Kerrie’s Crime Fiction Alphabet meme is letter F

F is for The Falls.

The Falls (Inspector Rebus, #12)

I first wrote about The Falls by Ian Rankin last March. Since then I have watched the TV version which was very different. I wonder why I bother to watch dramatised versions after I’ve read a book because they very rarely live up to my expectations and this version was particularly bad because it completely changed the story. Instead of investigating the disappearance of university student Philippa Balfour, known as ‘Flip’ to her friends and family, the TV version starts when a retired doctor gets killed in his home, tied to a chair, his wrists slit, bleeding to death.

The book is so much better. DI Rebus and his colleagues have just two leads to go on – a carved wooden doll found in a tiny coffin at The Falls, Flip’s home village and an Internet game involving solving cryptic clues. Rebus concentrates on the tiny coffin and finds a whole series of them have turned up over the years dating back to 1836 when 17 were found on Arthur’s Seat, the extinct volcano within Holyrood Park, east of Edinburgh Castle. DC Siobhan Clarke meanwhile tries to solve the cryptic clues.

There are many things I liked about this book – the the interwoven plots, throwing up several suspects; the historical references to Burke and Hare, the 19th century resurrectionists; the spiky relationship between Rebus and his new boss Gill Templeton; Siobhan Clarke whose liking for doing things independently matches Rebus’s own maverick ways; and above all the setting in and around Edinburgh. All the way through I kept changing my mind about ‘who did it’ and it was only just before the denouement that I worked it out.

Teaser Tuesday – City of the Mind by Penelope Lively

Published on November 10, 2009 by Margaret16 Comments

I’ve been away for the weekend celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary. We took the family to Center Parcs in Sherwood Forest. It was a wonderful weekend, if rather exhausting too. I’ll be writing about it and posting some photos later. In the meantime this is just a short post to get back me into the swing of blog writing.

My teaser today is from City of the Mind by Penelope Lively. I’m about to start reading this book and this quote is from page 2. I think it captures my amazement at the nature of time, and of the power of thought to transport me to different places and different times. It’s also significant now thinking back over the last 40 years, so many people, so many places, so many happy and sad events, so much to celebrate.

And thus, driving through the city, he is both here and now, there and then. He carries yesterday with him, but pushes forward into today and tomorrow, skipping as he will from one to the other. He is in London, on a May morning of the late twentieth century, but is also in many other places, and at other times.

The Sunday Salon – My Desk

Published on November 8, 2009 by Margaret9 Comments

Not much reading being done today – it’s our wedding anniversary!

Here’s a little look at my desk. Actually I share this desk with my husband. It’s an incredibly messy desk so I can only show part of it. It’s in the smallest bedroom surrounded by books and piles of paper. Above the desk there are shelves going up to the ceiling full of books, magazines, CDs, files and lots and lots of paperwork.

At the moment it’s even worse than usual as behind me the bunk beds have been dismantled and laid flat on the floor with towers of boxes stacked up on top of them. We’ve emptied the loft in readiness for our move and there’s nowhere else for the boxes to go.

When we have moved and got sorted I hope to post a photo of the new and tidy (some hopes!) new office/library.

Library Loot

Published on November 7, 2009 by Margaret2 Comments

I went to the library this week just to return some books and had no intention of borrowing any more as I don’t think I’ll be able to finish the ones I’ve already got out before we leave the area.

But I made the mistake of looking at the first display stand, which contained some very short books in the Open Door series. I hadn’t come across these books before. They are by Irish writers and all the royalties from the sales go to a charity of the author’s choice. I chose The Builders by Maeve Binchy. The royalties go to Our Lady’s Hospice, Harold’s Cross, Dublin. From the back cover:

With family complications and crooked property developers things are about to get very messy.

I have a feeling it’s going to be too short.

Next I wandered over to the fiction, looking for more slim books and picked up The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith. I’ve been wanting to read this for years. It’s Mr Pooter’s diary first published in book form in 1822, a record of

…the daily grind in respectable suburbia and the City office. It tells of his constant war against insolvent tradesmen and impudent juniour clerks, his incomprehensible, irrepressible son Lupin, and his overwhelming feeling that the biggest joke is on him. It is both entirely fictional and transcentally true.

Inevitably I was drawn to longer books and chose City of the Mind by Penelope Lively, one of my favourite authors. According to the book jacket this is a

… wonderfully rich and audacious confrontation with the mystery of London, with the buried lives that make us what we are …

I hope I don’t have to return them unread.

As I shan’t be going there for much longer I’m posting a photo of the oustide of my local library.

Northumbria

Published on November 6, 2009 by Margaret6 Comments

It’s looking likely that we’ll be settling in the north-east and as we don’t know much about it we bought an AA Leisure Guide to Northumbria and Coast. It’s a beautiful part of England with a National Park, the Cheviot Hills, golden sands, castles and dramatic ruins, Holy Island and the Farne Islands, nature reserves, historic towns, Hadrian’s Wall and the cathedral cities of Newcastle-upon Tyne and Durham – so much to see and explore.

We’ve also been pouring over Ordnance Survey maps of the area:

Berwick-upon-Tweed (incl Eymouth, Duns, St Abb’s Head & Cockburnspath)

Holy Island & Bamburgh (incl Wooler, Belford & Seahouses)

Kelso, Coldstream & Lower Tweed Valley (incl Jedburgh & Duns)

I’m always interested in the history of the places I’ve lived in. I know very little about the history of Northumberland and the Borders, so I’ve been looking in some of my own books and found very little. I can see that I’ll be visiting the local library for some local history information.

I’m also interested in the literary connections. One author that immediately springs to mind connected with the North East is Catherine Cookson. I’m not a great fan of her books but I haven’t read many of them, so I really shouldn’t comment. But I have read her autobiography Our Kate which I thought was very good. I also have her book Let Me Make Myself Plain, an anthology of her poems and essays, including some her paintings. Both books are very open and honest, and very down to earth.