Kylie

Oh dear. Sad news about your laptops. My computer has been sending me a message every day to tell that I haven't back up in about 40 days. I think I better get on top of that now!

So far so good! Notes from a Small Island is probably my least favourite of Bryson's books, so I'm interested to see how this one stacks up. It's delightful so far, and the tone isn't as negative as I remember it being in NfaSI.

Yes, it's about his travels from the bottom of England to the top of Scotland. He did a similar trip 20 years ago and wrote about it in Notes from a Small Island, and in this book he returns to see what has changed. He's a very funny writer. Ooh, I hope you're enjoying Go Set a Watchman! I'm hoping to get to the third Flavia book soon. Yes, I recall him mentioning a sequel at the recent talk I went to. It'll happen eventually!

Thanks! I got rid of my video tapes a couple of years ago, but I still have my old VCR player. I have old home movies that I need to digitise, so I've been keeping it for that. I can't wait to get rid of it though! I'd love to! I think about it a lot and try to picture what my dream library would look like.

One of the things that happens when you get older is that you discover lots of new ways to hurt yourself. The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson

I read nearly 100 pages of The Road to Little Dribbling today. An unexpected but welcome burst of reading. It's so easy to get absorbed in Bryson's writing.

I think I'll read Spark Joy too. I started a bit of tidying with my clothes the other day. I didn't have time to do it all at once (Marie wouldn't be happy with that ) but I managed to sort a small pile of clothes into throw-outs and donations. Still got loads to do, but I'm already feeling a bit happier. They do look lovely, don't they? But I recently read a blog post by someone who showed the reality of living in a tiny home. Her one chair was piled high with clothes and other stuff, and there was stuff everywhere. As I've heard tiny house people say, you really have to put everything back in its spot as soon as you've finished with it. I don't think I could do that! I think there's a happy medium for me between tiny houses and large houses. A small cottage would be perfect for me.

This is one of the easier questions to answer! I'm intimidated by Tolstoy and Virginia Woolf and Moby Dick (and probably loads of others that escape me at the moment).

I bought Bill Bryson's The Road to Little Dribbling yesterday, as it's finally come out in the edition I wanted. It ended up being free because I had a few dollars left on a gift card and enough reward points to cover the rest of it. I read the first page earlier and was in stitches laughing by the end of it. In other news, I've gone back to reading Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde. I had only read a few pages of it before, but I read about 20 pages in one go the other day, and that allowed me to get into it a bit more. I've also decided to pick up Guns, Germs and Steel again. And on top of that I picked up Christopher Hitchens' The Portable Atheist, which I think will be fascinating. It's quite a big book, and full of essays, so it'll be one that I dip in and out of.

I meant to comment on your inclusion of Dracula. I don't think I knew (or I'd probably just forgotten) that you had read Dracula, much less enjoyed it enough to add it to your top 3! I agree with your second comment. Although it's just as likely that I haven't been reading as many classics as I should.

Thanks for the pics! I haven't heard of most of those books, but some of the covers sure are nice.

Your bookcase is soooo tall, Frankie! Do you know how high your ceilings are? I'd love to live somewhere with higher ceilings (only partly because I could then fit more books...) I love your shelves too, Alexander. Is that a loft-style room?

I remember enjoying The Virgin Suicides, but feeling a little underwhelmed. I think I had hyped it up a lot in my mind. It's been ages since I read the book or saw the movie, but I think the movie was a fairly good adaptation. I wasn't at all interested in reading Middlesex, but I heard so many good things about it that I bought it anyway. It sat on my TBR pile for ages before I finally decided to give it a go. For me it was one of those 'OMG. Why didn't I read this sooner?!' books. It blew me away. Awesome book. And I know Frankie will back me up on that. These two reading experiences nicely explain my philosophy in life: 'If you don't get your hopes up, you won't be disappointed'.

Perhaps Amazon should have done some market research here before launching their new product.

Ooh, yay! Lots of books. Can't wait to see what you got (hint hint).

It's really bizarre that they'd charge so much more for what appears to be essentially the same product! Just look at the last two columns! In fact, I like it less; I would want my screen to be 'centred'. It would drive me nuts having it to one side. And it's $450 in Australia. I'll stick with my iPad thanks. ETA: The price is because of the cover, which apparently extends the battery life and means you don't have to charge as often.

I've decided to try and get back into Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, which I think I started reading nearly a year ago! I've also picked up The Portable Atheist, which is a collection of essays selected by Christopher Hitchens spanning a couple of thousand years.

Goodness me—it's been almost 8 years since I posted my list! I have to say that my top 3 are still the same, and in the same order too.

Buy it anyway. I bet he'll make you a fan!

I'm surprised you didn't hear of them while you were here! A singlet is an essential piece of bogan clothing! (Google 'bogan singlet', if you dare!) I now hate to admit it, but I'm currently wearing one. I wear them a lot around the house during the warmer months. It's basically like a t-shirt, but with thin shoulder straps. Some men wear them under work clothing. But yeah, I guess they're call tank tops elsewhere (and I think that term is becoming more common here).

Excellent news, thanks! According to the Book Depository it'll be published on the 25th of October.

I've read two different articles today about the effects of the colouring trend. According to Buzzfeed, 'Sales of physical books increased for the first time for five years in 2015, driven in part by the adult colouring book craze...Sales of paper books rose 8.5% in 2015, the first sales spike in five years, according to new figures provided to BuzzFeed News...E-book sales increased 3.1% to £362 million, meaning the pace of growth in paper books was more than twice as fast'. Then I read that the '300 per cent sale growth in adult pencils and colouring books has created a global shortage' in pencils.

I'm so pleased to know it's been working for you! One reason why I'm particularly keen to go through my stuff is because I'm seriously considering selling up and moving later this year, and I just can't stomach the thought of packing up all of the junk I've accumulated in the past 8 years and carting it somewhere else, where it will only get in my way again while I procrastinate instead of doing something about it. As I type this, I'm sitting on my bed, and to one side is a huge pile of clothes and linens that I have to keep stepping over, and on the other side is a huge pile of junk in (and on top of) boxes that I put there when I was having my downstairs floors redone nearly a year ago! Every couple of months I half-heartedly look inside a box, see what's there, and think 'Oh dear, I'll deal with that later'. At least the piles of stuff give the cats something to lay on/explore. I've also been fascinated for quite a while with the tiny house movement. I don't think I could live in one myself (not with 2 cats and all of my books, anyway!), but I love the idea of having just the possessions you really need. It's really inspiring to see people turning away from consumerism. Living in a digital world also helps, as it makes it easier to get rid of old DVDs, CDs and photos. My Mum recently asked me to buy her some Beatles music for Mother's Day, so the next time she came over I gave her all of my Beatles albums, plus loads of other music I knew she'd like. I know Kondo says you shouldn't unload your stuff on your relatives (oops!) but every time I speak to Mum she tells me how much she's enjoying the CDs, so I know it was the right move.

Ooh, great review of We the Living!

Thanks Athena! On a whim, I've started reading Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I noticed early on that she likes to repeat herself a lot, so I'm more skim-reading it so I can just take away the most important bits (I'm not interested in thanking my objects for their service or anything). The problem with reading it now is that I immediately want to spring into action, but I can't because I have a lot of work on my plate. I can't wait to pile all of my clothes on the floor and start culling! I mostly skipped the sections on getting rid of books. It just ain't gonna happen, Kondo! Every single book I own 'sparks joy', so there's no need to even go into it. I laughed at this bit: '...it seems to me that people have far more unread books than they once did, ranging from three to more than forty'.