chesilbeach

Been reading from my hardback and paperback current reads today - You Took The Last Bus Home which is the hardback poetry collection, which has lots of humour and wordplay in it, and I'm enjoying much more than any poetry I've read since my children's book of humorous verse from when I was nine! Also, my paperback is The Lost Plot by Genevieve Cogman, which is the fourth in her Invisible Library fantasy series, and is so much fun, I'm already 100 pages in!

I'm trying to even out my nature reading across the year and not only read it over the summer for the Wainwright Prize, so I asked for some books for Christmas, and I've just read Hidden Nature by Alys Fowler. If any one is a long term viewer of Gardeners' World, you might remember Alys from about 10 years ago, and she also hosted her own series, The Edible Garden. In 2016, while still married to her husband, she realised she was gay and came to the difficult decision to end her marriage and brought about a dramatic change in her life. Through this book she tells her story and how at the same time, she started her own project to traverse the canals of Birmingham using a pack raft (an inflatable kayak style boat) and uncover the plants and animals who lived there, hidden from everyday view. The book is a much a memoir as a nature book, but she is incredibly frank about the emotional journey she started when she made this momentous change in her life and the impact it has on her mental state, and how she coped - and didn't - throughout. I loved reading this book, and found it incredibly engrossing, with an engaging style.

Just finished and I absolutely loved it. I'm going to start You Took The Last Bus Home by Brian Bilston for my next hardback. It's a departure for me, as I don't usually read poetry (as I don't really understand it), but I've seen some of Brian's poetry on Twitter, and it's mostly lighthearted so nothing too deep for me to try and decipher!

That freaks me out as well - I'm am a bit claustrophobic and potholing doesn't appeal to me in the slightest!

OH is making twice baked cheese and mushroom soufflés with sautéed potatoes and steam veg for dinner tonight

Apple juice

I've been trying out the new Wicked vegan range at Tesco. While I'm a vegetarian not a vegan, when I need a ready meal or sandwich for work, it's often difficult to find something that takes my fancy, but I've just tried the Hoi Sin Mushroom wrap for lunch, and it was quite tasty. I've also tried their Carrot Pastrami Spiced Wrap which I liked more, but you don't know until you've tried it, eh?!

I like the sound of these - I've added them to my wishlist for when I next fancy this type of book. Have your tried the Stacy Justice series by Barbra Annino? They sound quite similar in style and I really enjoyed the escapism of them, and I think you'd probably enjoy them if you haven't already read them (and the first one called Opal Fire is on Kindle Unlimited, which I know you have at the moment.)

Not done much this weekend. Went up to my cousin's yesterday morning for a couple of hours which was lovely, although her youngest (my goddaughter) was just going out to a birthday party when I got there, so didn't see much of her. The rest of the weekend has been mostly reading and will probably carry on that way too, but nowt wrong with that!

It doesn't sound silly to me at all - I find science fiction set in space a struggle, and also can't watch some science programs about space and cosmology, as I just find it so hard to comprehend the enormity of anything not on our own planet

We watched Boxtrolls last night. I thought it was ok, but OH disliked it immensely. Still, at least we've managed to actually watch a film at home - it's been ages since we last watched a film together properly!

Damp and murky today.

I've read some more of Hidden Nature and it's been a wonderful read - I've probably got about 40 pages left to go now, so hoping to finish this afternoon. Made some more inroads into The Essex Serpent but it's a long book with long chapters, so it's going to take a while. I'm reading it on Kindle, so it's been more of a "away from home" read, during lunch breaks and while out and about, so I think it'll take a while to finish yet, as I'm still only at 23% read, but I am enjoying it.

Back to work today so a busy day catching up, but home in front of the fire now for some reading before tea. Only tomorrow at work, then it's the weekend again! Planning to do some sewing and reading and not much else.

Lovely to see you too @poppyshake... I'm already looking forward to next time! I need to be organised with so many books on my TBR at the moment, and I suspect when we finally sort out and catalogue our books, there'll be more I've forgotten I had!

Back to work today, and spent my lunch hour getting stuck into The Essex Serpent and pleased it's living up to the recommendations so far. Read some more of Hidden Nature last night and I'm loving it - the writing style is so welcoming and it's a lovely read so far.

Good to see you both too! I'm sure you'll enjoy it more than me ... I'm a grumpy gus! Looking forward to hearing what you think of Caraval too.

Hope you have a great year of reading ahead of you. Looks like you’ve already had a fabulous start!

Finished Poppy Pym and the Beastly Blizzard yesterday, and today I’ve read a bit more of The Essex Serpent and I’ve started Hidden Nature by Alys Fowler and I’m already enjoying it hugely

Thank you! I’m not sure why I keep putting off Middlesex but it’s on my Round Robin Challenge list now, so no getting out of it now Mary Stewart was my favourite newly found author of last year, and I’m looking forward to reading more. I can’t believe how long it’s taken me to get around to Heyer but definitely want to make some inroads on her books this year.

(Copied from my reading blog) Finished my first book on the Round Robin Challenge yesterday evening - Wildfire At Midnight by Mary Stewart. A murder mystery set on the Scottish island of Skye originally published in the 1950s. This is my second book by Stewart, who had recently had new editions of most of her novels published, and what I found incredibly interesting was that it's only sixty years since it was first published, yet there's a few things that I found incredible. The first was just how often someone smoking a cigarette was mentioned, and the second (slightly more shocking) was that the characters regularly referred to catching the murderer so "he could hang". It's hard to believe that it's still fairly recent that capital punishment was abolished in this country, and that it was automatically assumed that the culprit would receive the death penalty. Despite all that, it was a really enjoyable read. Lots of twists and turn, with secrecy and dalliances thrown into the mix, as well as fantastic descriptions of the mountains, walking and climbing them, and the a nod to the first group to successfully climb Mount Everest. Unexpected happenings, red herrings and some genuinely creepy moments, it was a perfect winter evening read. This was my challenge book from @Madeleine, and I'm really pleased I got such a great deal on these Mary Stewart books - in fact most of the recent reissues are still 99p, £1.99 or £2.99 on Kindle - and it was a great start to my Round Robin challenge, so thanks Madeleine!

Ha! Excellent review of I Am Pilgrim ... you might not have enjoyed the book, but I certainly found your thoughts on it entertaining. One to avoid, methinks.

Nothing special, a bit grey, and a bit sunny, but dry and not too cold

Met up with Janet and poppyshake today (in a bookshop, obviously) and ended up coming home with a couple of new books. I'm going to have to sneak them onto the shelf so other half doesn't notice, but they're both small, so should be ok. I came home with the next Anita Brookner on my list, Family and Friends and also Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman by Stefan Zweig.

I've finished a few books this week. I started the week listening to The House of New Beginnings by Lucy Diamond, and it wasn't really a romcom as such, but a sort of comedy drama with a tiny bit of romance in there, but mostly the story of the female tenants of a house in Brighton, and as the title suggests, each one finding their life taking a new direction. It's a story of friendship and overcoming hurdles, told in a gentle way, but lovely to relax with. I snuck in a quick read in the middle of the week, with the latest short story in the Chronicles of St Mary's from Jodi Taylor called Christmas Past. A good in-between story as these Christmas short stories usually are, and I enjoyed it as I always do. Finally, yesterday I decided I needed to finish Ma'am Darling by Craig Brown, which is a biography of Princess Margaret. I'm not a huge fan of biographies in general, as I find them very dry, and don't like the constant name checking with that person's dates of birth and death, and on the whole, I find it difficult to get involved with the subjects. This is not your usual biography. The subtitle of the book is actually 99 Glimpses of Princes Margaret and what it does is try to look at her life from different viewpoints, whether it's from media reports, diaries, memoirs or letters from sources such as servants, friends, family and acquaintances, and some are fondly affectionate, some are critical and slightly nasty, some are guarded and some very candid. There's even some made up by the author himself, and what this all leads to, is a variety of viewpoints on the life of a royal that none of us can really have any idea what it would be like to experience. It shows us many different aspects of a complex character, and whether you are in favour of the monarchy or not, had a privileged yet difficult life in and out of the media spotlight. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.