More reading time required

Just wow!

As a child I devoured most Enid Blytons : Secret Seven, Famous 5, 5 Find-outers, Malory towers, St Clare's, The Faraway tree, The Wishing chair, Brer Rabbit, The Naughtiest Girl, The Adventure series, Mr Twiddle. I just looked up the wiki page to remind myself of some of the series she wrote and was wuite dismayed to read of all the "modern" revisions that have been made to later texts. It's literally like trying to rewrite history. It's no like anyone is changing Dickens or Austen or Nesbit to suit a modern world. It does appear like it wasn't a success though, so hopefully, if my kids want to read the jolly japes of the kids in the Blyton books when they get older, they can read the same text as I did when I was young. I wonder if mum kept any of my old books. From Blyton, it was Dahl, Narnia, Dianna Wynne Jones and then I got heavily into anthropomorphic books such as The Animals of Farthing Wood, Redwall and Deptford Mice. I remember the Deptford Mice books being the first books I really cried at, cos of the death of little mousies. From there it was Pratchett - Nomes trilogy, Hobbit/LoTR and many many many Agatha Christies. As an adult, the only children's books I've read since are the Harry Potters and His Dark Materials, but I'm looking forward to revisiting some old classics and finding some new ones (such as David Walliams) as James & Ellie get older.

Last day of school today for my eldest. I can't believe how fast that year has gone! We stuffed his book bag with little pressies & cards for the teachers and teaching assistants with the hope that they'll actually pick them up as it's so bulky. He goes to before & after club Tue-Fri, so we generally have to hope they pick stuff up from his bag rather than being able to hand it over to a teacher directly. So from next week it's Mondays at home with me & Ellie, and 4 days a week at Warwick Uni holiday club. Hopefully he'll enjoy that. Then we have 2 weeks off work at the end of August to all spend together. That seems a loonng time away! Hope everyone has nice weekends/trips/time off work & hope the knee gets better soon, Charliepud!

Wow, the fantasy bookcase looks as well stocked as any Waterstones shelf. I also like how you have the horror books in a corner section - good for hiding.

I finished The Gunslinger last week some time and concentrated on my library book for a few days. Last night I started The Drawing of the Three and my god, I forgot how compelling this series can be.

I started watching that this morning whilst I was eating my brekkie. I only saw up to the credit music, but what I have seen has intrigued me so far, so I will continue on with it later. I've also been watching Poldark, which has been excellent, The Windsors, which is good fun, and a first time run through of Outnumbered, as it passed me by first time. Now I have little people of my own, I think I can probably appreciate it more. I've seen series 1 so far and it's very amusing.

Congrats on the retirement! More time for reading now?

Aww, such gorgeous markings.

So far I've been there 2 Mondays running and managed not to pick up any new ones.

I don't blame you for celebrating that one rather than July 4th! June 19th is a good date too - it's my son's birthday! Race for Life is a women-only 5K, 10K or Pretty Muddy run in aid of Cancer Research. It's a UK wide thing held at various venues at different dates in June/July. I nearly did it last weekend (I was intrigued by the muddy one) but that would have been the day after I attended a dinner/dance/drinking night out, so I didn't think I'd cope too well with running the next day.

What with the film coming out, reading the reviews of @ian and my husband stating he wanted to do a re-read (and what with him being one of the slowest readers in the world so I need to get in front of him), I decided to start a Dark Tower re-read, starting with the short story The Little Sisters of Eluria in Everything's Eventual and now The Gunslinger. It could take me some time, and now it means I've technically got 3 books on the go. That's this one, my library book and the Bill Bryson Short history of Everything book that I'm reading on the kindle in work at lunchtime - so far unsuccessfully, but I am starting to push myself to read that rather than t'internet.

That's a good idea! I often don't think of doing that. Although I did once watch a load of walkthroughs of old Spectrum games that I never finished as they were so rock hard. Inevitably the reward for finishing them was rubbish though.

Have you read the above before? I haven't read it in years, but I remember thoroughly enjoying it. Gets a bit wacky towards the end, but I loved it. Must reread it again sometime. Is that the one with black page edges? I went through a phase of reading loads of books with coloured page edging because they looked cool.. I can't remember anything about the story though! I finished End of Watch yesterday and started Thinking About it Only Makes it Worse by (comedian) David MItchell, which is my penultimate library book, after which I shall not be borrowing any more. No sirree.... I also finally spent my £20 Waterstones gift voucher last week. There was a 'buy one get one half price thing' on, so I managed to get The Long Cosmos by TP & Stephen Baxter, Nomad by Alan Partridge and The Fireman by Joe Hill, all without having to pay a penny extra. Admittedly, I could have got them cheaper on Amazon, but it was free money and it's good to support an actual bricks and mortar bookshop from time to time.

I love the Uncharted series. The first one is the worst by far, so the only way is up for you! I'm currently halfway through Uncharted 4, though I haven't been able to get round to gaming for months. I'll have to pick it back up again soon. I also played Beyond: Two Souls. Whilst it wasn't a patch on Heavy Rain (which I highly highly recommend), it kept my attention long enough to finish it. Though I wouldn't ever be bothered enough to replay it to try and get different endings.

Tea for me, though only decaff as I got used to the stuff whilst pregnant and never went back to 'full-fat'. Normal tea just tastes too strong for me now. A coffee tends to be my second hot drink of the day once I've got into the office, and I'll have the other odd coffee now and again if I'm feeling particularly tired, or if it's as part of a 3 course meal affair. I'm happy with most instants, though proper filter coffee is the best.

Yes, the ending of Dark Tower did make me think about it a lot too. I think my reaction might have been initially 'hmm', but then after pondering on it I thought it was the best way for it to end and it made sense.

I'd very much recommend NOT starting with The Shepherd's Crown as there are some events that you won't get the same emotional investment out of if you haven't read the earlier Witches book. I started with his Nomes trilogy (Truckers, Diggers, Wings) and then went onto Discworld book 1: The Colour of Magic, but I think it is probably easier to get into if you start with something like Mort.

Lately it just seems to be one awful thing after another happening. The tower block fire is just really upsetting.

I did manage to finish Rage of the Dragon a few days ago and start another library book : End of Watch by Stephen King.

I went to vote this morning. There were another 3 people in there which is more than I've seen before when voting at that particular station. Then again, I don't normally vote before work, it's usually an evening job for me. I for one am hoping for a change in government! Any other result and I'll be totally depressed tomorrow.

Again, the sort of day I do not want to be cooped up in the office, so I'm off for a lunchtime stroll round the block in a bit. Yesterday's walk was glorious!

Yes, I've been pretty good at not buying books lately - mostly due to being massively skint since moving house and having a second child. Roll on September and re-mortgage time! I do have a Waterstones voucher to use that I got for my birthday though. I've been in town so rarely lately that I haven't managed to spend it yet!

I've just been reading further about the Manchester terrorist attack and the more I read about it and its victims, the more upset I become.

Oh yes, it's being added too. And that's just my own list, it doesn't account for what both of us are watching and what we've recorded on the Tivo - Supergirl, 24: Legacy, Silicon Valley (which we are at least up to date with) and we also saw the first hour of the Twin Peaks double bill - weird and spooky so far, as I'd expect! My backlog would be even bigger, but we've had two new Tivo's in the last few months - one was an upgrade, and one was a replacement for a faulty one, so we kept losing our old recordings (the first time being the worst). It was both annoying and quite cathartic at the same time.

About 30 episodes worth of programmes - including the following: Versailles - 3 eps Born to Kill - all 4 eps Loaded - 3 eps Spin - 5 eps The Legacy - 3 eps The Trip to Spain - all 6 eps And I've just added "The Trial" to my backlog. I think this is why my reading is suffering.