bookmonkey

realistic

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm sick of summer. After our brief cold spell on sunday, we're back to high 20c temps. That's nuts. In April we should be only reaching 10C, if that. Mother Nature has got very mixed up, giving you northerners a longer winter, and us southerners a long, and very hot summer.

There is a huge book sale here each year, just remembered it's next month! Its all second hand, and the money raised goes to the Red Cross. There's thousands of books, and some other stuff like CDs, jigsaws etc.

sacrificial

Mother Nature suddenly remembered it's supposed to be winter here. We reached 10C today. On Friday we got to 27C!

Finished The streets by Anthony Quinn last night. Had to read something a bit lighter every now and then as it was a bit heavy going. Probably 3.5 out of 5. Reading The Bat by Jo Nesbo now.

That sounds interesting Brian. I'll have to add it to my list, and it's made me want to look for other books on this sort of topic.

I just saw this Janet. I have a 16 year old son and 14 year old daughter. Both used to love reading, now neither read. My son has always been a really good reader, at least three years ahead of his age throughout school. My daughter has mild dyslexia, but until last year this didn't stop her reading. She used to read all the time, then suddenly last year stopped. She's read the Twilight series and some of Harry Potter. I'm a librarian and have done research into how to get teens (especially boys) to read. None of it works with my two. I read to them both while they were still in the womb, and up until they were about 12. I hope they may one day decide they like books again. My dad has said he didn't read as a teen, and now reads all the time.

They are smaller, and I don't know about elsewhere, but the ones we have taste different. Nowhere near as nice. We've got a really busy month this month. Most weekends we have something on both days. At least the school holidays are at the end of the month, so we can relax a bit then.

Julie - I plan to look into my family history more one day, but at the moment I don't have time. Someone has traced back as far as Scotland. Somewhere along the line there's a Maori chief in there too, so it'd be interesting to find out. We have a really good genealogy section at our library with people to help too. I need to make a note of the true crime books you've read and see if our library has them.

I'm reading this at the moment. Sort of wondering what made me pick it up, but not going to give it up yet.

I just finished Heading out to wonderful by Robert Goolrick. A very well written book. Well worth reading.

I'm probably a bit late to this but I wanted to answer your genealogy question. My great something grandfather was a transported convict. (I can never remember how far back). He was transported to Australia for stealing a loaf of bread. Somehow he escaped from Australia and ended up on the West Coast of New Zealand. We don't know how he got to this country. According to Australian records he died escaping, so we can't find out. He was from a small island in I think the Orkneys in Scotland.

I learnt today that a word I knew was not what I thought. The word demotic I thought was related to demon. It's related to demo - i.e. democracy. It means of or pertaining to the common people.

I've never heard of it. I've heard of bookcrossing, our library sometimes has bookcrossing books people have left.

I picked up a Jo Nesbo at the library today. When I got home I remembered where I'd heard the name before.

Good luck Lucy.

It's raining. The first rain we've had since the beginning of December. It's still hot, though, so it's really muggy. And it's not enough to break the drought. On other, bigger news, my mum got married on Saturday. It's great to see her happy finally. She left her abusive partner of 30 years last year. She married an old boyfriend she met up with again a few months ago.

Finished Love Over Scotland on the weekend. Another enjoyable read from Alexander McCall Smith.

I'd love the snow at the moment. We've had maybe three days with temperatures under 28C since the beginning of December, most days over 30C. Usually in summer we get around 22C, maybe two or three days higher. By March we're in the teens. A nationwide drought is about to be declared. The city where I live is just about to run out of water. We've had 1 day when it rained since Jan, and that wasn't much. We need rain and some cooler temps.

I have The Good Father waiting to be read. What did you think of it?

That's good news Noll.

Books I'm reading (usually library books) are in my bedside cabinet. I have two bookshelves in my room, 1 1/2 in the lounge, and the mantlepiece with books. I also have two boxes in the shed that I don't have room for.

I'll have to check that out pontalba. Words fascinate me.

I saw that on the news. It made me cry too.