poppyshake

Very kind and noble of you I'm okay with most dogs though so I'm sure I'd be fine with your dawg Naughty Putin!

So excited, so excited, so excited, so excited, so excited, so excited, so excited, I AM SO EXCITED!!!

.. not long now

German Shepherds are on my list of 'dogs wot I'm scared of' Any dog that could feasibly eat me comes under that list though Yes ... the owners don't want him to nibble so you have to be strict. This is all excellent practice

This is brilliant news!

Oh God! I'm terrified already :D I like to listen to audiobooks and that might be one way of at least beginning .. if there is a good version .. give me a sense of the rhythms etc. It is the cowards way out of course Just looked it up actually and there's three unabridged version ranging from 27 hours to 42!!?? Either one is reading extremely fast or the other very slow (of course .. the slow one might be looking things up on wiki )

I've just read about your doggy adventure .. sounds great but totally scary in lots of ways. You did admirably to cope with what is a very large and energetic puppy and you scooped his poop too .. well done! Second hand bookshop!! .. this is excellent stuff Hooray for dog walking. My security staff would totally let you in to my palace .. it's ma'am as in jam remember

Yes!! I'm affronted!! .. you've got the nice jar .. how did that happen? All the more daunting Claire as I've been reading your massive Mapp & Lucia omnibus .. 700 odd pages!! But .. though it took a little while .. I am as happy as anything in Tilling and Riseholme .. so it's pure pleasure but .. I'm counting it as three books Claire ... I need all the help I can get

Great review of Elizabeth is Missing Noll .. I've been debating whether to get it or not and you've not put me off I hardly ever like an ending so that's not too much of a problem for me and I like the sound of the rest. Seven books is great going Best not to have targets .. they ultimately stop you from doing anything

You could .. just to make it more interesting .. use a straw and just put it over the jar and suck!!

Awww ..

Doggy walking! brilliant and such a great way for you to get exercise Frankie .. pure enjoyment Look forward to hearing what you make in your blender Kylie I have one though it's not all singing and dancing but I'm sure it would whip up a tolerable smoothie .. I just need inspiring. I used to have a juicer and I did make some of those detox kind of smoothies and they were lovely but very expensive to make (whole pineapple .. avocado .. that sort of thing) and the machine was a bit of a nightmare to clean. It went to live in the dreaded 'back of the cupboard' I think I eventually got rid of it .. not sure

It's cold .. had some snow at the weekend but it didn't settle for long. Bit icy still in places. Wrapping up warm weather as you would expect for January in the UK.

Zelah Clarke!! .. she was my favourite Jane (and Timothy Dalton my favourite Rochester) but I liked Ruth Wilson too. Joan was good also but I preferred her in Rebecca.

I look a bit like a British Royal child though with that fringe Enjoy your dinner

That's still pretty good going in one day (and a good recommendation for the book I would think) .. well done Finished Printer's Devil Court by Susan Hill and am just about to start A Strange Eventful History by Michael Holroyd. Still listening to The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters .. not quite the ordinary tale of lodgers that I thought it was going to be .. first it got a bit sexy but she's frightening me with it now

It is isn't it? .. I've been eyeing this one warily for years Thanks A great place to start is with her husband John Bayley's memoirs about her .. great they were and very moving. Her novels are a little bit challenging .. though not Woolf challenging or anything. I haven't read them all by any stretch .. one of them at least is in the jar .. hopefully it will come out soonish When the jar has stopped throwing 500 pagers at me

Yes .. I can say proudly that I have worn a muff! Might have been the one and only time but still Look at my natty outift .. red it was apparently .. I look like something from another world!!

As I was saying earlier .. I'm finding that the whole TBR jar thing is helping me to get a bit of a move on. I'm not rushing but I am resolutely ploughing on with the book even though it may be a little bit on the tiresome or difficult side And the reason for this is that I can't wait to pick again!! It really is exciting. It's like a Kinder egg without the calories .. though of course there are no real surprises .. I know all the books but still .. could be anything. So .. this morning it was time to pick again and what came out? (I was thinking please let it be a nice Agatha Christie or Roald Dahl perhaps .. with words I can understand ) Oh man! The jar really has got it in for me ... 640 pages!! let's see how much resolutely ploughing on I do now

Thanks Kylie Yes .. that's the real joy of them and I think she's on to a money spinner here because I can't imagine not buying them all They're not rubbish though .. even I wouldn't be swayed by a lovely book jacket etc if that was the case (would I? possibly I might )

Yay! I feel very liberated. Thanks for the nudge in that direction

Iris Murdoch: A Writer at War - Letters and Diaries 1939-1945 Edited and Introduced by Peter J. Conradi Synopsis: These never-before published diaries and letters will be a MUST for every Iris Murdoch fan...These collected writings, never published before, comprise a diary which Iris Murdoch kept in her last summer at Oxford, immediately before the outbreak of the Second World War, and her wartime correspondence with two men: the poet Frank Thomson, murdered in Bulgaria in 1944, and a teacher for the British Council, David Hicks. They reveal the young writer at her sprightly, original best - as gripped by her own affairs, and those of her friends and peers, as by the great affairs of the world; exuberant when in love, and yet remarkably philosophical even when love goes painfully wrong. Iris Murdoch: A Writer at War is a treasury of one of the great women writers and thinkers of the 20th century - a fascinating private memoir which sheds new light on a brilliant mind in development, but also a remarkable historical document of life behind the scenes during the Second World War. Review: The first pick from the jar! Firstly I found the intro (actually there are three as the book is split into three parts) quite testing as it was fairly long and involved .. and I was just wanting to get on! Peter was a consultant on the film Iris but didn't feel that she'd been very accurately portrayed and seemed to take issue especially with the fact that neither Judi Dench or Kate Winslet (the old and the young Iris) had actually read any of her work. He says that the general opinion to be got from the film was that Iris was mad .. either sex mad when young or potty mad (with dementia) when old. Not sure that's the case. I saw it and liked it and didn't get that impression but still I get his point .. there is so much more to Iris. I don't think he has delivered anything to make one understand her better though. Certainly the title is misleading. Apart from the fact that the journals/letters were written during the period of the Second World War there is not much else to connect them (except perhaps the last part) as Iris barely mentions the war. The first part contains her journal entries from her time in the Magpies .. an am dram theatre group who .. at the time of these writings .. were touring the Cotswolds. I quite enjoyed these diary entries .. the talk all about scenery and costumes and playing to frosty crowds in dismal theatres with not enough to eat and less than agreeable accommodation. The second part of the book was the hardest for me .. these are the letters she wrote to the poet Frank Thompson whilst he was serving in the Middle East. Their conversations centre around novels, writers, philosophy, socialism and communism etc although there are occasional mentions of mutual friends but I have to confess that the reason I didn't enjoy the letters was that the writer's intelligence soon outstripped mine and their words soared over my head The last set of letters I liked more though the subject matter didn't vary much from before, but I can't imagine it was ever Iris's intention that they be published. They're written to David Hicks .. also abroad on active service. Iris is more than a little smitten with him and the letters become increasingly more gushing not to say begging. It's an odd relationship .. without really knowing David's replies you get a strong impression from Iris that he's not all that interested though they do become briefly engaged at one point. One of the reasons I liked these letters more was that Iris talked occasionally about novel writing and her attempts thus far. In one letter she writes .. 'I am fed up with my novel, for the moment. My efforts to 'expel myself' from the characters and give them an independent life has resulted in their becoming thoroughly tiresome and unreal. For the central character, who is supposed to be a rather charming dreamy though ineffectual youth, I am developing a passionate hatred, and am almost ready to change the structure of the thing just so that he should jolly well not triumph over his difficulties in the end.' which absolutely tickled me pink. Though both Frank and David are on active service and Iris during the last part of this book is working for UNRRA .. helping displaced persons .. there is very little talk about what their day to day life entails. Iris is a little more forthcoming but nothing really from the men which is not unusual I know .. they had to live the horrors of it .. they didn't necessarily want to write it down in letters home and anyway secrecy may have been paramount (also .. we don't read any of David's replies .. and only a few of Frank's but can see from Iris's replies that she is being kept in the dark.) Sadly Frank died before the end of the war (a hero and posthumously decorated .. he has a Bulgarian railway station named after him.) David Hicks survived and stayed on friendly terms with Iris throughout her life. It would be a further nine years before Iris had her first novel Under the Net published. I Liked it! Perhaps I might have abandoned if this was about anyone else .. it was too disjointed .. but it was worth ploughing on with in the long run though, to me, she's still a bit of an enigma. The jar has thrown me in at the deep end

Printer's Devil Court by Susan Hill Synopsis: One murky November evening after a satisfying meal in their Fleet Street lodgings, a conversation between four medical students takes a curious turn and Hugh is initiated into a dark secret. In the cellar of their narrow lodgings in Printer's Devil Court and a little used mortuary in a subterranean annex of the hospital, they have begun to interfere with death itself, in shadowy experiments beyond the realms of medical ethics. They call on Hugh to witness an event both extraordinary and terrifying. Years later, Hugh has occasion to return to his student digs and the familiar surroundings resurrect peculiar and unpleasant memories of these unnatural events, the true horror of which only slowly becomes apparent. Review: I wanted to read this over the Christmas holidays but it didn't happen. Alan and I decided to read it together so I had to wait until he was at home and in the mood. It's only a short story and not one of her best .. it's not a patch on The Woman in Black for instance but there's plenty of atmosphere and it's nicely chilling. Once we'd started Alan badgered me to keep going .. it definitely kept us both interested and he was fairly complimentary about it which is unusual as he generally is always disappointed in some way and particularly with endings. It feels more like a story that's written as part of a larger collection of short stories though .. not perhaps sufficiently detailed to be a stand alone story but then .. these particular editions are exquisite .. and they look so beautiful together (in fact I am missing one I think .. must put that right ) and so it's a pleasure to look at and read from (some nice illustrations too.) Liked it!

Thanks Andrea It would be no trouble at all so if/when you do feel like reading it drop me a line

Thanks Julie Hope you have a great reading year too The thing about the TBR jar (though this is just the beginning .. these feelings might fade) is that it does make you want to get on with the book so you can have another pick Might make me get a wriggle on anyway .. here's hoping