Hayley

I hope it was equally as good then!

Sounds like a great book to end the year on! (Unless you’re going to try to squeeze one more in!?)

You know I’ve actually tried to read it (decided it’s two books on there, not one, haven’t worked out which books still though!) You never know, maybe one day Merry Christmas everyone! It’s a weird one but I hope you’ll all spoil yourselves today in the best way you can think of. You deserve it

The position I’ve put it in makes it really hard to get a good angle for a photo! As you can see I’ve already been experimenting with where I want my books on there

I’ve just caught up on this thread and it is excellent Muggle not I think that’s the biggest poinsettia I’ve ever seen, it’s beautiful! (And I love your tree!) I’m planning a very Christmassy day for the rest of today. I’m going to try to finish all my wrapping, listen to Christmas music, have a nice bath and drink hot chocolate. I had a really lovely early Christmas present yesterday. My boyfriend tricked me into thinking it was something we were keeping for his dad for Christmas, but he texted me yesterday to say he really needed a picture of the ‘cabinet for his dad’ so could I take the wrapping paper off it and send him a picture. Well, it was not a cabinet, it was a writing desk that had been partly painted with books and partly covered in real book pages under a kind of resin (there’s a word for it I can’t think of now... decoupage maybe? That might be the wrong thing...). I got my phone to ask him what was going on and he’d just sent ‘Merry Christmas’ . I’ve always wanted a proper writing desk!

Aww

I’m glad you posted early, I’m looking forward to starting a new year of reading. This one hasn’t been great! I agree that New Year’s Day might not be great for a lot of people. I suppose we could just extend it to include Monday, the 4th? I’d be fine with moving it forward a week too though, what does everyone else think?

Hello, you seem to have posted this topic multiple times. If you’re having trouble loading a page you don’t need to click submit again, it will usually have already worked . In answer to your question, I don’t personally think there is a correlation between readers and makeup users.

Sorry, the image at the bottom of that post actually was broken, that was my fault! You can see most images on the forum though can't you? Firefox's warning that the site isn't secure (you'd get that on Chrome too) is because we don't have an active ssl certificate. The site is perfectly safe to view and use but we don't have a high enough level of security that you could safely make a payment, for example. But since I hope nobody is sharing their card details over the forum anyway I didn't think the certificate was worth the extra expense (renewing one of those certificates would be more than the whole yearly cost of the forum software!). I don't think that would stop you from viewing images though. It doesn't sound like the images are being blocked by firefox but I can't think what else it would be that wouldn't effect everyone. Hmm... I'll look into it and get back to you!

You are definitely allowed to get away with this one! I'd say it's more of a 'not applicable' than a fail. Fingers crossed for lots of library visits in 2021 This is one positive of not being able to go out much this year!

The wheel has been spun (I might find a way to show you all the wheel one of these days, it's a lot of fun, it even has sound effects ) ... And the winner of the Autumn Giveaway is.... Athena! Congratulations Athena!

This sounds like perfection I’ve got a busy few days unfortunately but I’m going to try to at least finish The Other World, It Whispers for the read-a-thon! I hope everyone is still enjoying their reading!

Hi Smoritz, I'm afraid I had to remove the link from your post as we don't allow new members to include links. We also don't allow posts that are purely promotional but if you'd like to discuss your thoughts with other readers here on the forum you are of course very welcome, it sounds like an interesting subject!

I know that winter is well on the way, but I'm sneaking the autumn giveaway in here, right at the end of the season... I thought this giveaway seemed particularly appropriate for this year: Dear Reader: The Comfort and Joy of Books by Cathy Rentzenbrink. I'm sure some of you will have heard of this book. It came out in September and has had brilliant reviews. It's been described as a love letter to reading and I think all of us have truly appreciated 'the comfort and joy of books' this year. It is also a really beautiful hardback. Please excuse my picture-taking skills, it's really hard to get a good picture of something that's shiny! bookclubforum.co.uk is creating a book community | Patreon

Thanks everyone . Things are still mad but I do feel more on top of things now I've had a bit more time to sort things out. I managed to book my sister in for a type of anxiety therapy that helped her before, for example. Luckily they can do it online via Zoom. I will actually get round to reviewing books on here again soon! I started reading two books this week, one is a book of short stories (The Other World, It Whispers) and the other one is part of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series. I was originally planning to just finish the short stories first but they didn't hold my attention as much as I hoped they would. So far they've been more like snippets of stories than entire short stories, if that makes sense. I started to feel a bit like I was reading teaser chapters of a longer book. I always know I'm going to enjoy Jasper Fforde's weird book world though.

That is really strange. You can see other images on the forum though can't you? If not maybe go to the 'Site Identity' button and check that the site is being allowed to show images. I guess that could have changed after the firefox update?

National Book Tokens posted some clues on twitter. I'll put them in spoiler quotes just in case someone doesn't want any clues but they're still hard! The cafe: The flowers: The 'zombie' The dog The bees Even after the extra clues I have absolutely no idea what the cafe, zombie or bees are representing!

Isn’t it!? Which one did you get? I feel like I’m never going to get the cafe one. And I’m totally confused about the zombie! Plus all I think when I look at the cereal clue is ‘cereal killer’ (which is not, sadly, the answer!)

You’re all so lovely, thank you. I really didn’t do much apart from email and phone people I can see these ones Gaia, are they still missing for you? If anybody gets a chance could you also click Athena’s links and let me know if the images appear for you?

Ooooh I really want to try Piranesi! Mainly because I loved Susanne Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. I hope I'll be one of the people that loves the book!

Thanks Gaia, I'm really glad it's back too Do all the images on that thread show up as text for you, or just that one? I can see all of them apart from the one in your screenshot.

While we were offline, National Book Tokens posted their yearly 'Hidden Books Game'! I had a quick go and I think this year is the hardest one yet. https://caboodle.nationalbooktokens.com/hiddenbooks/ I've only got 3 so far!

Aww, thank you both, that really cheered me up this morning

Hello again everyone! I’m so glad we’re back and I’m so sorry we were offline for so long. A lot has happened since the last time I spoke to you on here but nothing has really changed. Not yet. To cut a long story short, I received an email asking me to move our domain, which I did, and that’s when we went offline. But the team who were going to be moving us over were not the same people I was originally speaking to, and they weren’t actually quite ready to move us. We were essentially on a waiting list. I asked if I should just move us back to the old server for a while and was told no, just hold on, it’s with the right team now... Days passed and I was getting more and more concerned. I sent a few emails and eventually had a reply apologising for the situation. Someone who was transferring us no longer works for the company, and that had caused problems. They weren’t able to transfer us in the way they were going to. So they tried a different way, but that didn’t work. There was something else they could try but I haven’t heard back from them about that since Friday, so today I decided to move us back to the old server. Once the situation at Invision is sorted out we will move. I still absolutely think that’s the best option for the future of the forum, where we have no loading problems and specialist tech support. But it’s just taking too long right now. I’ve asked them to let me know when a normal move will be possible and I’ll keep you updated with everything here.

Oooh that sounds nice! I love roasted parsnips. I'm having cod with my lockdown discovery (because they were substituted for normal hash browns on my food order) - cauliflower hash browns.