poppyshake

Hope you enjoy it Noll

Now you're asking. I saw it in Waterstone's many moons ago .. before they had a refit (surely you remember that? .. I specifically remember moaning about the new carpet ) Anyway I know the blurb had some magic words in .. like library and 1960's etc. Actually now that I've read the synopsis again I can't imagine what I'm waiting for .. it sounds amazing. I think I always place it fairly low down the page .. possibly so I don't feel embarrassed about it. It seems much further down thanks to the interminable length of the 1001 and my TBR (which isn't 1001 strong yet .. but may well be if I don't get a grip ) :D I love that quote. I think I used it in my review for Dear Lupin. He was very funny .. and always wanted to make people laugh. Even when he should have been seriously p*ssed off with his offspring (as in Lupin) he can't help but look on the bright side. He's much funnier than me .. I am a mere novice. Perhaps if I had troublesome offspring? .. though I think that would have flattened my sense of humour rather than the reverse The thing I loved most about the books was the expoits of his wife Nidnod who always seemed to be being pulled from a hedge drunk (though this seems horrifying .. it was viewed as commonplace and she was always up to ride to hounds the next day.) She also showed a couple of housebuyers around the house wearing a moth eaten bathing suit (must have been aged about sixty) .. Batty as anything but gold-dust as far as memoirs are concerned. He's not being invited in until he learns to treat my books with respect. He keeps shoving them through the letterbox .. even when I'm sitting about a foot away from the letterbox. He bundles them up with the rest of the post and just sort of shoves Luckily no casualties as yet but if there is .. he will be a casualty I can tell you

Yes .. I need to do that too. They would look wonderful all together .. they wouldn't need colour coding even .. just gorgeous .. even if they're clashing. I know, I know. I never saw a more perfect cover and it annoyed me that I couldn't enjoy the book as much as I was wanting to. Now, to my mind, a writer should have a responsibility to make his/her book live up to a cover like that. It turned out the illustrator was the one with the talent though. I read it a long while back and I wonder .. having read some Ginny .. whether I would get on better with it now as it is written with her sort of flow I think. I may go back to it and see if I can't make the inside match the outside more. Even if it doesn't though .. the book is safe Well quite .. the slightest thing can tip them over. I will read it soon .. though now I have bumped into the same time of year again and so I need to get past it because if the book and the time of year collide again I'm not sure what might happen Oh no! .. don't worry at all For one thing it's good to be shaken out of a rut. I've been in it for too long and I could just carry on reading different versions of the same book for the rest of my life and so I need new challenges. I love being harrassed by books don't you? I'm sure I will be fine with it. Oh dear .. I didn't know you hadn't read it. I knew you were Daphne familiar so I guess I just ASS-U-ME'd I don't think I've given away anything key though You never know .. literarily speaking I could be all into corpses by next year

I should say not .. though the flies are asking for it I preferred yours but couldn't plagiarise .. that's a new rule for this year I think I was an influence as far as WH and BUtB are concerned .. I don't mean to sound conceited but she probably wouldn't have thought of them otherwise. Come to think of it though it probably had more to do with an item on breakfast TV. Nearly everything she reads has been recommended on TV. I remember now that it was touch and go for Hilary for a while as she had been disparaging about dear Princess Kate .. that is she was perceived to have been disparaging and there were her books sitting on Mum's shelves and for a while I thought that's where they would stay but then she got over it and picked them up. She thoroughly enjoyed them and so went on to read more as I said and this is where she sometimes falls down. She likes to stick with what she's enjoying or the subject matter anyway and then she comes a cropper and gives up reading again until tempted by something else on daytime TV I wonder actually if she will read the last part when Hilary has written it as she was so disappointed to find out what a sh*t he really was .. I doubt she could buy into it now No .. definitely not Imagine having two books to avoid? .. I might get confused and CBTD could sneak in via the back door so to speak. Sometimes I don't think they think of their readers at all .. very shabby of them. I get a bit annoyed at footnotes (unless they're very cleverly done) .. always jabbing away at you (especially endnotes) but when you have to make the notes yourself ... and then .. who gets all the money?

Brilliant stuff .. well done Lizzy but nerve wracking watching that last run Another good day for the curlers .. excellent

The team luge was great .. so exciting .. well done Germany! Also watched the men's short programme in the figure skating .. beautiful performance by Yuzuru Hanyu but it's so nerve wracking waiting for them to execute their triples and quadruples .. not to say exhausting as I always hold my breath Shame about Elise in the short track .. hope it spurs her on to better things in the 1000/1500m. Fingers crossed for Lizzy in tomorrow's skeleton final

Sending lots of love and hugs to you Samantha So glad to hear that your Dad's last days were peaceful.

.. and that makes him a hero in my eyes Sounds like a great read Janet .. I've got a new biog on him so I really should get around to reading it. Great reviews Glad you loved My Cousin Rachel .. I did too. I just peeped at your score for The Darling Buds of May as need to read it soon for the county challenge .. very happy to see that you loved it I'm expecting lots of food in it .. there's bound to be toast isn't there?

No ... for one thing you know me pretty well and for another .. I'm predictable Watched Vera Drake ... faultless! (except I needed cheering up and it didn't do that )

Thanks to Ian for recommending

Yay!! *does a happy, skippy, dance* Still on the island of Sark with Mr Pye ... it's all gone very odd Trying to listen to one of the Agatha Raisin books but finding it a little convoluted. Haven't started at the beginning (that is .. I started at the beginning of the book obviously .. I'm not that rash .. but have leapt in somewhere in the middle of the series) so don't really know the set-up though did listen to a short story last year without much trouble. Keep falling asleep and then having to go back which is annoying and probably accounts for the rather disjointed reading/listening experience. Still don't feel like I'm giving her a fair trial.

Yes .. us too and we were annoyed GB curling team had mixed fortunes too .. still plenty of matches left to play. I don't mind enthusiastic flag wavers etc .. but people showing off and generally behaving like tw*ts .. I can't bear. Though I would probably be behaving like a tw*t if I was in their shoes Like you said Sari .. it does depend on ones mood. On a Friday and at the weekend I'm definitely more benevolent .. by Monday though I'm usually snarling I'd probably propose crocheting for the 2018 Olympics .. extreme crocheting that is .. possibly blindfold .. whilst skiing

Awww bless you .. I always say 'clear off!!' (or words to that effect ) .. that is if they're trying to camera hog. I like the skiing, shooting thing too .. seems a bizarre combination but it works. I'd throw fishing in there too .. cut a hole in the ice and dangle a string down type thing ... that would probably slow it up a bit though and I can see that the viewer boredom factor might be high

Yes .. I saw that programme too Claire and enjoyed every minute of it again. I remember not being able to watch the actual performance .. far too nervous but have watched it a zillion times since and have seen them perform it live which was brilliant. When it came to them showing the whole routine again yesterday .. like you I felt nervous again but in a much better way as obviously knew the outcome. I turned it up loud and watched mesmerised all over again .. just gorgeous. The only thing that spoilt the programme was Jeffrey Archer .. what has he got to do with it? .. and I bet that family he called in on were fictional I said to Alan .. someone should ask him to produce them (I can't help distrusting Jeffrey but then .. he started it ) I know that routine back to front .. I could skate it (in my head obviously .. I can't even stand on ice ) .. love it. Strange that Chris is so superstitious .. but then a lot of sports people are.

I love the figure skating and especially the ice dancing .. probably ever since Torvill and Dean. That little Russian girl was brilliant and I loved the music. Loving the ski jumping and snowboarding and luge etc. Not so keen on the speed skating .. like it up to a point and then nod off a bit. There seems to be some really weird entertainment going on between hockey matches etc .. some of it sounded like karaoke Fascinated as can hear it but not always see it. The 'Ouch' factor is high Also .. we (Team GB) don't excel at winter sports (so well done Jenny Jones ) but it seems to matter less than the summer Olympics. It's enjoyable in and of itself and I guess our expectations aren't high so we're thrilled if anyone comes within a sniff of a medal. It's nice to have something on to get involved in Loving the coverage (in particular I like having Clare, Sue and Hazel back in my living room )

I definitely will Kylie It was calling to me anyway but I've heard such good things already and now you've said it's wonderful so it's a must

Finished The Goldfinch and started Mr Pye by Mervyn Peake .. very good so far and quite unsettling. Think I can remember seeing the drama in the dim and distant but have very little recollection of it as it was so long ago. In my head it is now mixed in with other dramas. Also read The Library of Unrequited Love yesterday which is only short but brilliant

The Library of Unrequited Love by Sophie Divry Amazon's Synopsis: One morning a librarian finds a reader who has been locked in overnight. She begins to talk to him, a one-way conversation full of sharp insight and quiet outrage. As she rails against snobbish senior colleagues, an ungrateful and ignorant public, the strictures of the Dewey Decimal System and the sinister expansionist conspiracies of the books themselves, two things shine through: her unrequited passion for a researcher named Martin, and an ardent and absolute love for the arts. A delightful divertissement for the discerning bookworm. Review: * Warning .. lots of off-topic waffling ahead .. more than usual I mean* Yesterday was a bad day .. a very bad day. Terrible weather .. absolutely atrocious. Wind whistling around the house and rain battering down everything. The sort of day where you want to stay in, get cosy, drink tea, eat a bun and settle down with a good book. Only .. no .. that wasn't possible. For one thing I am sworn off buns for the foreseeable future I have reached bun overload apparently ... possibly I had reached it some time ago but I hadn't kept my eye on it and it got away from me. For another thing Alan is currently decorating the spare room and yesterday morning he announced that he needed to take off the old radiator and replace it with a new one. Now .. this already sets all my alarm bells off .. I've been here before and it was terrible but I didn't take it to heart too much until he said the immortal words 'I need to drain down the system' What!? On one of the coldest, wettest, most miserablest days of the year you're going to turn the heating off .. open the front door and stick a hosepipe out of it and wait .. interminably .. until all the water in our radiators has drained away .. and then proceed with doing the exchange which will mean swearing and possibly welding which means more swearing and then when you turn the water back on to fill up the system, I'll have to stand with the new radiator making sure there are no leaks .. and there will be leaks .. not just from the new radiator .. but a lot of the others will have joined in and I'll have to be on guard to make sure that no harm comes to my best towels or my lovely Kilner marmalade jar which somehow will just happen to be the first things you could get your hands on when disaster struck!?! Yes .. you can tell I didn't take the news well. But, you have to rally. At one point there wasn't electricity so no light .. there was no heating and it was freezing. But, I thought, I'll go up to the attic room .. it's not too cold up there and there are throws. I can boil a saucepan on the gas hob and make a cuppa. I can imagine a bun and I can find me a good book because the one thing there is plenty of here is books. Not all of them will be good but surely .. some of them must be? It came into my head that the best thing I could do was find a book that could be read in one sitting. Now .. that means a short book because I'm not a very fast reader and sooner or later I'm going to have to go and do 'radiator duty' .. so ideally .. I need to pick me a book that will only take a couple of hours at most to read. It needs to be riveting too to stop all those 'woe is me' thoughts reaching epic proportions. I won't say I spent the next half an hour chucking books over my shoulder but it did prove to be a difficult task .. they were all too long or not immediately engaging. Luckily .. I eventually happened upon this book .. the one I'm supposed to be telling you about Now .. the first thing I did was take comfort in it's lovely cover and awfully appealing title. This is bound to be right up my alley isn't it? The blurb says that there 'isn't a dull page or even a dull sentence' .. man that's just the job. Slight doubts assailed me as I opened it up because I've been down that path before and then hated every word inside but then what's this? There's a little profile of Sophie inside and already I'm loving her .. she likes jam for one thing and has a phobia about open doors! Well .. it's not a phobia or anything but I'm not liking my door being open at this very moment in time and I like jam (though .. I do wish she hadn't bought it up because my mind jumped straight to doughnuts ) and she doesn't like buying a book without knowing what's in it .. well .. quite .. that is a hazard and I don't like it either .. that is I do like to have a good idea of what a book's about before committing. We are getting on famously. So .. at last .. onto the book. It's one big monologue .. 90 pages of the librarian talking to a nameless individual who has been locked in the library overnight. He is just her sounding board really and .. what I liked about it (no .. what I loved about it) was that this librarian is a tiny bit unhinged She's got a bee in her bonnet about various things .. the public, her colleagues, the increase of things like music and DVD's in the library, the fact that she's being held back (she's in the basement in the Geography section but longs to move to History) and she gets a little bit over-excited in the telling and says things like 'What do you mean there's no need to shout? .. I'm not shouting .. I'm just enthusiastic'. She also tells him of her love for Martin .. a library regular .. or the love she has for the back of his head and the nape of his neck anyway as well as giving him a pretty thorough account of the Dewey Decimal system. Sophie (and the librarian) being french .. it is a mainly french view and she does full justice to the merits of Gabriel Naudé who wrote a book about establishing a library in 1627 and various other french men who came after him (though not Napoleon who she can't stand .. he's one of the reasons she doesn't like new places .. he's always been there first ) and generally just confides in this complete stranger. 'By the way, I like you, because just now, when you were lying there fast asleep between the bookcases 930 and 940, although it's absolutely against the rules, I didn't have to listen to a lot of apologies from you. On the contrary, you started shouting at me. Very healthy. People apologize too much, everyone's afraid of giving offence and it leads to literature being written for babies. Low-brow rubbish. That's not the way to become an adult.' It's absolutely perfect to read in one sitting .. it requires it actually because breaking away from it would spoil the momentum. I'm very grateful to her for passing my time so entertainingly. Yes, there was swearing, yes there were leaks but by the time our neighbour and plumber Les came to look over it in the evening .. everything was hunky dory, the house was warm as toast again and I had read this brilliant book. 5/5

Yes .. it's good to look back and remember those days. I've got packets of letters stored away in memorabilia boxes .. it's always nice to get them out and go through them (though I hardly ever do ) Thanks Janet Well .. I've had some Janet letters so I can quite imagine how she feels when they plop onto the doormat such a lovely treat Yes isn't it? I had a penfriend who used to send me headless pics of herself That is .. she sent me pics of her dalmatians and always cut her head off the pics When I first answered her ad for penfriends she sent me a letter telling me that I had been successful .. congratulations! I was so glad I didn't get a reject letter as my self esteem wasn't sky high and apparently she did write telling people why they weren't suitable

Hope you enjoy it Marie I love reading letters .. I think they're probably my favourite form of literature. As long as the writer is moderately interesting I'm engrossed .. I love getting a glimpse into their world. You're right though .. it's so rare to get proper letters these days. I used to buy all the fancy writing paper too (and oh the delight of the matching envelopes ) but now generally only buy notelets etc. The people that used to send me long letters now only send notes because they've already told me their news in emails etc. I'm just as guilty of doing the same Funnily enough I heard The Carpenters singing 'Please Mr Postman' yesterday and that gave me a pang about days gone by and the pleasure and pain of waiting for a letter. Oh it's too late now .. we can never get it back again (especially not when the PO wants to charge us 50p for a second class stamp .. scandalous! ) but at least we experienced it. You can't have it! .. it's only tuesdae

I don't know Julie. I know the local doctors had a clampdown on literature in the waiting room (was it because of swine flu or bird flu or something? .. some anticipated epidemic anyway) and they haven't had any since. Everything is disinfected to within an inch of its life (and I think even greetings cards were frowned on in hospitals so no 'get well' cards or anything allowed.) They may have relaxed things .. I'm not sure. I would love to free myself of them but could never throw them out so bit of a dilemma. There used to be a 'book bank' locally which is just like a skip with a letterbox but there's only one for shoes and clothes there now. Would be nice to reduce the TBR by about twenty .. practically overnight

Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life by Nina Stibbe Amazon's Synopsis: In the 1980s Nina Stibbe wrote letters home to her sister in Leicester describing her trials and triumphs as a nanny to a London family. There's a cat nobody likes, a visiting dog called Ted Hughes (Ted for short) and suppertime visits from a local playwright. Not to mention the two boys, their favourite football teams, and rude words, a very broad-minded mother and assorted nice chairs. From the mystery of the unpaid milk bill and the avoidance of nuclear war to mealtime discussions on pie filler, the greats of English literature, swearing in German and sexually transmitted diseases, Love, Nina is a wonderful celebration of bad food, good company and the relative merits of Thomas Hardy and Enid Blyton. Review: This is a collection of letters sent by Nina to her sister Victoria. Nina has moved to London in order to be a nanny to two boys. She's never been a nanny before so it's all new to her. One synopsis makes a comparison between Nina and Mary Poppins .. there really isn't a comparison though .. apart from them both being London nannies. Nina isn't efficient, tidy, methodical or organised in the least .. it's probably fair to say that the two boys .. Sam and Will ... have more common sense than she does. Somehow .. despite her propensity for telling fibs (and coercing the boys to tell fibs on her behalf about things like pranging the car etc) and her slapdash approach to nearly everything (including making supper which is also new to her) the family take to her like a duck to water. I think she's excellent at learning exactly how to fit in which is just as well as this is no ordinary family. Mary-Kay Wilmer (the boy's mother and also the deputy editor of the London Review of Books) is a woman who doesn't like a lot of fuss and bother or small talk .. she's perfectly amiable she just doesn't suffer fools (though strangely she does suffer Nina and actually finds it almost impossible to replace her when she leaves to pursue further education .. the new nannies are efficient, polite and friendly .. which somehow won't do.) One of the true delights of these letters is the inclusion in them of the suppertime visits (practically every night or so it seemed) of the local playwright mentioned in the synopsis, who just happens to be Alan Bennett. I have a soft spot for him anyway and so to have him appear here and to find that he's every bit as Alan Bennetty in real life as he is on TV etc was just delightful. Both Mary-Kay and Alan are people of few words but practically all those words are gold dust. The boys too are a lovely mix of naive and precocious. I've read a lot of reviews asking what the point of these letters is .. why should we be interested in letters sent between unknown sisters? The answer is that .. just like they must have cheered Victoria up no end (and it seems to be Nina's mission in life to make her sister laugh because the letters are rarely gloomy) .. they can't help but bring a smile to your face. This leads me to say what I always say after having smiled my way through a book ... your enjoyment of it will very much depend on your sense of humour. Possibly, if you enjoy Alan's drollness in general, then it's a pretty safe bet that you'll like this. I didn't immediately engage with it .. it took me a while to quite catch on but once I did I was hooked and could have continued to listen to events at No. 55 Gloucester Crescent forever. Holborn library to return the L.P of the bloke reading Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (excerpts) in the old English. Librarian took L.P off me and looked impressed (did a little nod of approval). Librarian: Did you enjoy the recording? Me: Yes. I've made a cassette of it. Librarian: (suddenly angry) You've done what? Me: Made a cassette. Librarian: That's illegal. Me: Oh, sorry, I'll throw it away. Librarian: (looking at L.P) I'm afraid there's a fine on this - it was due back some time ago. The annoying thing is, she was about to ignore the lateness when I mentioned the cassette and that angered her (in a possessive way). And she pressed charges. It's not done my relationship with Chaucer any good at all. Nina eventually decides that she would like to do something more useful than just nannying and enrols to study English lit at Thames Polytechnic. This obviously is another source of enjoyment for anyone who loves books and authors though Nina's views on it all could never be called conventional. She never strays far from No. 55 .. boarding just across the way and finds herself at the supper table almost as often as ever. The letters don't really cover any momentous events .. as with most observational humour it's all about the little inconsequential things. Dear Vic, Misty talked me into going shopping with her (John Lewis). Then, in spite of saying she was 'extremely depressed', bought vitamins, fingernail buffing things and tons of cosmetics and make-up and special shoelaces to match her shoes. Her basket didn't seem like the shopping of someone on the brink of suicide, it looked like the basket of someone keen to live life to the full. Told this to Mary-Kay. Me: She bought tablets to make her eyes brighter, yet claims to have lost the will to live. MK: Virginia Woolf had just had her hair done. Me: When? MK: When she drowned herself. Me: God! MK: *shrugs* Me: So making an effort doesn't mean ... MK: Not necessarily. Me: Maybe it's all part of the run-up. MK: Maybe. Will: Enid Blyton had just opened a can of ginger beer. Sam: (suddenly interested) Enid's not dead is she? Anyway, Misty seems better now her shoelaces are the right colour and she's got tidy fingernails. But, I suppose, with what I know now, that could be a cry for help. Love, Nina Very funny, quite rude in places and enormously endearing. 5/5

So perhaps 'little and often' is the way forward .. just to keep the craving at bay I wouldn't want to have no TBR either Gaia. It's just a little too large for comfort at the moment .. some of it annoys me though because Alan bought several lots of books from the library when they were 10 for £1. Now .. I don't think he wants to read them .. I think he just thought 'bargain' and took armfuls up to the cashdesk but I don't particularly want to read them either. But then you can't really take them to the charity shops .. with their 'deleted' stamps all over the inside jacket and I don't really know what else to do with them. I thought that maybe .. when nothing else appeals .. I might read a chapter or two of each and see if any catch fire. I rather resent having them on my TBR but then .. he meant well and at the time I remember being excited by the appearance of all these books Thanks Marie I'm more than happy to send it to you if you'd like.

Just tell it like it is bobbs The book sounds like a total nightmare .. poor bobbs .. You need to be compensated now with an excellent read I'm not touching it with a barge-pole but I'm sorry you had to suffer in order to keep me from harm ... better luck next time

I agree totally .. not one of Gaskell's best. I remember it just depressed me .. making Phillis into an axe murderer, or at the very least menacer, would have improved it no end. She never made that leap from page to imagination .. she stayed .. very drearily .. on the page for me.