Talisman

Sounds an interesting read - another one to add to my TBR list !

home made stir fry - brown rice with mange tout, baby sweetcorn, carrots and red and green peppers with soy sauce.

Sadly, the funding for libraries has been severely cut in recent years in the UK. Despite this my own local library is open much longer hours than it used to be and seems to keep going. I can't say that I use it that much to be honest, apart from the reference section from time to time, and to get information on walks around the area and so on for the newsletter that I edit. From what I have seen they have a good selection of books, CD's, DVD's etc, and the computer terminals are always busy.

I don't blame you Kell, I would have screamed too if anyone I knew did something like that - although music is for listening to. My leads arrived yesterday and I have been busy recording various LP's with them - I did 4 yesterday but it is tiring, as I have to find other things to do on the computer while it runs in the background and record each song individually (much easier to edit that way). My back is aching from bending down to keep lifting and replacing the needle - doesn't it give you the needle !

I was inspired to start this after reading the thread about quotes on books. Can't remember where I got most of these from now, but I am sure there are many more ... In the same way that a woman becomes a prostitute. First I did it to please myself, then I did it to please my friends, and finally I did it for money. Ferenc Molnar ...after asked about how he became a writer Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to those who are not yet born. Joseph Addison, 1672-1719, English Essayist Books are the quietest and most constant friends, they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors and the most patient of teachers. Charles W Elliot, 1834-1926, American Educator We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become. Ursula LeGuin, b 1929, American sci fi writer All that mankind has done, thought or been is lying in magic preserved in the pages of books. Thomas Carlyle, 1785-1881, Scottish Essayist, Historian and Philosopher Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness. George Simenon, 1903-89, Belgian novelist The shelf life of the modern hardback writer is somewhere between the milk and the yoghurt. Calvin Yrillin.

As a non-fiction writer, a good proportion of what I read is also non-fiction, admittedly less so than it used to be, since it is 2 years next month since the last edition of my own book was published. When I was writing it I had to read an awful lot of other people's stuff - mostly alternative history, archaeology and religion - but also a lot of more general mind, body and spirit - I was and am particularly influenced by Eckhart Tolle and Neale Donald Walsch, among others, and A Course in Miracles. I also have a sizeable collection of books on writing and publishing, which I dip into now and again, and Icelandic sagas - which are historical records of the settlement period of Iceland. I have always been fascinated by that country, and hope to go back next year, if I can afford to. Agree though that properly written, non fiction can be just as entertaining.

I found what sounds like this wonderful way of transferring both vinyl and cassettes (I have loads of these as well) to computer as MP3 files for a fraction of the cost of a USB turntable and/or tape deck. It comes complete with cables and all the software you need. I have ordered one and will let you know how I get on. http://www.vinyl-2-pc.co.uk/

Thanks Heather - will definately have to get one of them. I can't afford to replace all the vinyl with CD and even if I could, a lot of them are not available. It would be great to be able to transfer them to a PC as well to listen to in the background and take to Lundy with me on my laptop !

Nothing special here - I bought 2 small easter eggs the other day, which I expect we will have on Friday, and then whatever vegetables we have (we are both vegetarian) - stuffed courgettes maybe with goats cheese, black olives and cherry tomatoes, or whatever is in the freezer.

I have been having a major tidy up at home these past few weeks, and part of this has been going through my old record collection. I grew up listening to jazz and soul, so most of my records fall into this category. Most of this is not what people today would call soul, which is really more dance music, this is the pure, unadulterated stuff, from musicians who can stand up on stage with nothing but their guitar or piano and sing from the heart about love and life. I have some really great stuff in there and some which is quite obscure. The most obscure is probably an LP from a group called LR Superstars (the LR stands for Little Rock in Arkansas). I have no idea if it is worth anything, but it is quite rare and a fantastic piece of soul. Also an album by a group called Chapter 8, whom Anita Baker used to sing with before she became well known. Anita does not appear on this one, but looking through the list of group members, they have all since gone on to become well known session musicians with others and performed with some of the greats. The ones I am enjoying listening to the most are the jazz albums - it has been a joy to re-discover many of these. In particular George Benson's Tenderly, Will Downing's A Dream Fulfilled, Dianne Reeves Never Too Far, and some by Lou Rawls, and of course Marvin Gaye. Do any of you still have any vinyl and do you still listen to them? What is the most obscure vinyl that you own, or the one that might be worth some money ? I have a signed Kool and the Gang LP in my collection that I won in a Radio London phone in, but have no idea if it's worth anything !

The copyright issue is a pretty gray area, laws vary from region to region, but copyright usually extends for at least 70 years after the authors death, which is why Google were forced to make a settlement in the US courts for from what I understand, quite a substantial sum, in favour lof both authors and publishers. This seems only fair, given that in most cases, their works were scanned without permission. It might be good for the reading public, but is not good at all for the copyright holders, after all, why buy a book that you get for free online ?

Our next door neighbour called round half an hour ago to say he was making some home made mushroom sauce wnd would we like some - I was going to freeze it, but might have it tonight with some pasta and a nice salad, as I am getting hungry

I am looking forward to seeing this as well - I used to listen to a lot of pirate radio back in the day

sounds yummy - I normally buy them in jars, but perhaps I will have to get some fresh ones as well.

This has been doing the rounds on the various writing sites I am a member of since last summer, when I mentioned it on my own blog. I understood that the list came originally from the US Big Reads Survey, hence the fact that so many US titles feature dominantly. My own list, which I have copied from the aforementioned blog, is below: 1) Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen 2) The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien 3) Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte 4) Harry Potter series - JK Rowling 5) To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee 6) The Bible 7) Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell 9) His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman 10) Great Expectations - Charles Dickens 11) Little Women - Louisa M Alcott 12) Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy 13) Catch-22 - Joseph Heller 14) Complete Works of Shakespeare 15) Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier 16) The Hobbit - JR Tolkien 17) Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks 18) Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger 19) The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger 20) Middlemarch - George Eliot 21) Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell 22) The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald 23) Bleak House - Charles Dickens 24) War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy 25) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams 26) Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh 27) Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky 28) Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck 29) Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll 30) The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame 31) Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy 32) David Copperfield - Charles Dickens 33) (Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis) 34) Emma - Jane Austen 35) Persuasion - Jane Austen 36) (The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis) 37) (The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini) 38) Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres 39) Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden 40) Winnie-the-Pooh - AA Milne 41) Animal Farm - George Orwell 42) The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown 43) One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 45) The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins 46) Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery 47) Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy 48) The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood 49) Lord of the Flies - William Golding 50) Atonement - Ian McEwan 51) MISSING 52) Dune - Frank Herbert 53) Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons 54) Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen 55) A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth 56) (The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon) 57) A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens 58) Brave New World - Aldous Huxley 59) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon 60) Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 61) Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck 62) Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov 63) The Secret History - Donna Tartt 64) The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold 65) Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas 66) On The Road - Jack Kerouac 67) Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy 68) Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding 69) Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie 70) Moby-Dick - Herman Melville 71) Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens 72) Dracula - Bram Stoker 73) The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett 74) Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson 75) Ulysses - James Joyce 76) The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath 77) Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome 78) Germinal - Emile Zola 79) Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray 80) Possession - A. S. Byatt 81) A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens 82) Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell 83) (The Color Purple - Alice Walker) 84) The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro 85) Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert 86) A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry 87) Charlotte's Web - EB White 88) The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom 89) Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 90) The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton 91) Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad 92) The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery 93) The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks 94) Watership Down - Richard Adams 95) A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole 96) A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute 97) The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas 98) Hamlet - William Shakespeare 99) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl 100) Les Miserables - Victor Hugo The one thing that struck me about my own list is how many of the books I have seen as films rather than actually reading them. The relatively small number that I have read can perhaps be explained in part by the fact that most of them are works of fiction. As a non fiction writer I naturally gravitate more towards other works of non fiction, as this for the most part is where I do my own research.

Didn't see that one coming ... Great to see Archie get his come uppance though !

Babylon Five Star Trek Voyager Only Fools and Horses Yes Minister and Prime Minister One Foot in the Grave Waiting for God Desperate Housewives Heroes Ugly Betty The Golden Girls Cheers I am sure there are others, but at the moment I can't think of them.

When I really low and fed up I always reach for the hot chocolate - failing that I go up to the nearby National Trust centre and indulge in one of their delicious cakes with a steaming hot cup of tea. It usually works - for about five minutes !

Stir Fry for us - home made with brown rice and lots of different veggies - mange tout, baby sweetcorn, peppers, red onion, cabbage, carrot etc and soy sauce.

I live on salads and eat them every day - but then again, I am a vegetarian. Have been for 13 years now. Best thing I ever did (apart from meeting my partner of course). I tend to use all the usual things - various different types of lettuce, plus watercress, rocket, endive, radishio etc, cherry tomatoes, spring onions, cucumber, grated carrot, radishes, tinned sweetcorn, sometimes cabbage, cauliflower or broccoli and then jazz it up with either feta cheese and black olives sun dried tomatoes egg mayonnaise various seeds and nuts sometimes quorn slices veggie scotch eggs from holland and barratt various mixed beans and pulses

Reflections - I like the Michael Crawford version best Look at me You may think you see Who I really am But you'll never know me Every day, is as if I play a part Now I see If I wear a mask I can fool the world But I cannot fool my heart Who is that girl I see Staring straight back at me? When will my reflection show Who I am inside? I am now in a world Where I have to hide my heart And what I believe in But somehow I will show the world What's inside my heart And be loved for who I am Who is that girl I see Staring straight back at me? Why is my reflection Someone I don't know? Must I pretend that I'm Someone else for all time? When will my reflection show Who I am inside? There's a heart that must Be free to fly That burns with a need To know the reason why Why must we all conceal What we think, how we feel Must there be a secret me I'm forced to hide? I won't pretend that I'm Someone else for all time When will my reflection show Who I am inside? When will my reflection show Who I am inside?

Really hard one Stevie Wonder definately no. 1 though. Then in no particular order: Bliss Norah Jones Rodney Franklin Roy Ayres subject of course to change !

Thankfully the island has broadband (although very unreliable - mobile seems to be better), so I will be able to order books online and get them delivered to me on the island. The delayed gratification of post only three times a week will be all the sweeter - if I get the job.