Poppyshake's Reading Year 2014

[julie]

Yep, give in and buy one  . It's sort-of like dieting . The more you are hungry for a hot fudge sundae and DON'T eat one, the more you WANT one. The longer you go without it, the more you want one . By the time you give in and eat one, you eat a king-sized one .

 

 

 

Just think, if you go too long without buying one little book, you'll need a wheelbarrow to carry them home once you give in to the urge .

[pontalba]

The old slippery slope Julie

 .. it's an impossible task .. I may as well give up and go buy a book tomorrow  

 

I like your thinking! 

 

Yep, give in and buy one  . It's sort-of like dieting . The more you are hungry for a hot fudge sundae and DON'T eat one, the more you WANT one. The longer you go without it, the more you want one . By the time you give in and eat one, you eat a king-sized one .

 

 

 

Just think, if you go too long without buying one little book, you'll need a wheelbarrow to carry them home once you give in to the urge .

 

/groan/  such a picture!      I'll need a wheelbarrow to carry me out! 

[Kidsmum]

 I've seen murmurings on here that Hollow City is good so my resolve is already weakened (it wasn't particularly robust if I'm honest ) plus it would look so nice sitting next to Miss Peregrine  

 

Sounds like a done deal 

[Athena]

The sad fact is that even if I have another reading year like last year .. which was pretty good and don't buy any further books ... I won't even have got halfway to demolishing my TBR Very discouraging .. it's an impossible task .. I may as well give up and go buy a book tomorrow  

x

That's an interesting way to think ! If you buy any new books I hope you enjoy them . I find it difficult to go for a long time without buying books, my resolve lasted 18 days and on the 19th day I bought books. My plan is to not buy much books nor spend too much money in February after I've been to the book fair (hopefully it should keep me from buying books for a while). I don't really have many tips though.. for me it helps to avoid the shops and to avoid sites like Amazon but sometimes you need to go to a nearby shop or you feel a strong urge to go and order books. I stopped worrying about my TBR long ago, it's so big it could take me quite some time to get through it all (I wouldn't want to have no TBR, that'd make me really anxious). That said I do am a quick reader so that works in my advantage (but still..). Good luck with your resolve !

Edited February 3, 2014 by Athena

[Marie H]

Good review poppyshake  . I've read a few blurbs on Mrs Bridges before, but the library only has the Mr Bridges. Time to put an book suggestion to the library for Mrs Bridges. Sometimes it does work, it's can be fun playing fantasy librarian. Success 3 times last year, I could be lucky again . 

[poppyshake]

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

Good review poppyshake  . I've read a few blurbs on Mrs Bridges before, but the library only has the Mr Bridges. Time to put an book suggestion to the library for Mrs Bridges. Sometimes it does work, it's can be fun playing fantasy librarian. Success 3 times last year, I could be lucky again . 

Thanks Marie I'm more than happy to send it to you if you'd like.

[julie]

Kay

Do you have any local hospitals or nursing homes that would take your unwanted books ? Our hospital takes them and sets them up in the waiting room for patients and /or families to read and take if they want. Maybe that'd clear out the extra books . Nothing wrong with removing some that you know you only got because they were a bargain and might not ever read. That'd clear off some shelf space anyhow .

[poppyshake]

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

[poppyshake]

Kay

Do you have any local hospitals or nursing homes that would take your unwanted books ? Our hospital takes them and sets them up in the waiting room for patients and /or families to read and take if they want. Maybe that'd clear out the extra books . Nothing wrong with removing some that you know you only got because they were a bargain and might not ever read. That'd clear off some shelf space anyhow .

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

[Marie H]

Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life by Nina Stibbe

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

I'm really looking forward to read this book now! I was a bit unsure before, but it feels I have just been down memory lane, suddenly in my teens in the  early 80s, and the letters are as if I have sent, or received those letters!

Very much À la recherche du temps perdu feeling about it; moments that will be never the same. The anticipation and delight of letters dropping through the letter box.  Spending ages in Athena shop deciding which paper and envelopes to choose, actually writing then posting letters.....*sigh, in a fuzzy, happy sort of way*

[Nollaig]

I see a chocolate sundae!! I want a chocolate sundae now

[poppyshake]

I'm really looking forward to read this book now! I was a bit unsure before, but it feels I have just been down memory lane, suddenly in my teens in the  early 80s, and the letters are as if I have sent, or received those letters!

Very much À la recherche du temps perdu feeling about it; moments that will be never the same. The anticipation and delight of letters dropping through the letter box.  Spending ages in Athena shop deciding which paper and envelopes to choose, actually writing then posting letters.....*sigh, in a fuzzy, happy sort of way*

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.

I see a chocolate sundae!! I want a chocolate sundae now

You can't have it! .. it's only tuesdae  

 

[Athena]

I loved writing and receiving letters when I was younger! Nowadays most of the communication happens via the internet and typing is much faster than writing, but it's nice to reminisce though .

Edited February 5, 2014 by Athena

[Janet]

I love the sound of Love, Nina - great review.

 

I love writing letters too. Sadly my US penpal suddenly stopped writing which is such a shame as I loved her letters. I used to write to my Dad's cousin. Well, I still do but she's unable to reply now, so it's one-sided correspondence these days but I still like sending them to her.

[Nollaig]

Same. When I was a child, I had a US penpal I received through the school, but she stopped writing. When I was a bit older, I wrote to my cousin, but that stopped eventually too. I do miss it though, always so lovely to get a hand written letter in the post.

[poppyshake]

I loved writing and receiving letters when I was younger! Nowadays most of the communication happens via the internet and typing is much faster than writing, but it's nice to reminisce though .

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 )

I love the sound of Love, Nina - great review.

Thanks Janet

I love writing letters too. Sadly my US penpal suddenly stopped writing which is such a shame as I loved her letters. I used to write to my Dad's cousin. Well, I still do but she's unable to reply now, so it's one-sided correspondence these days but I still like sending them to her.

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

Same. When I was a child, I had a US penpal I received through the school, but she stopped writing. When I was a bit older, I wrote to my cousin, but that stopped eventually too. I do miss it though, always so lovely to get a hand written letter in the post.

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  

[Nollaig]

Hahaha oh dear! How devestating that must have been for the unsuccessful applicants!

[poppyshake]

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

[Kylie]

I've just caught up on your reviews of the past couple of weeks. Wonderful as always! Glad to see you're reading lots of great books.

 

And you must must must get Hollow City asap! It's absolutely wonderful!

[poppyshake]

I've just caught up on your reviews of the past couple of weeks. Wonderful as always! Glad to see you're reading lots of great books.

 

And you must must must get Hollow City asap! It's absolutely wonderful!

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  

[frankie]

I seriously needed a cheer-me-up, and then I remembered I have loads of your new posts on your reading log to read through, and voila! Two birds and a few Finnish flies with one stone! That is, I cuddled them with the stone. I didn't feel like harming any animals today. Today? I mean ever.
 
I see you have posted a review of the Dear Lumpy book... Do you mean to insinuate that mine wasn't all that good? =D
 

She's not much of a reader .. though she is getting into it these days. She read both Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies last year and got so into them that she bought a biography on Thomas Cromwell but was then disappointed because she had quite liked the man Mantel had written about but hated the one in the biog

So your Mum's not much of a reader, but when she does read, she goes for gigantice books like WH and BUtB? Very modest =D Too bad she didn't like the bio, though. Has she found anything new to enjoy? Is historical fiction her cup of tea? I know very little of that genre and have read even less so I am no help there!
 

No!! Don't give him a legitimate reason to chuck stuff at me. I think I will like it once involved. Last time though ... with a different book of hers .. I had to make notes about the characters as I lost track of them very early on (and there were hundreds of them .. well a few anyway )

Okay, I'll tell him to put the book on the tray on which he brings you your morning toast... =D I wonder how many times he would have to do that before you started the book. Maybe it would become another Carter book for you. We don't want that to happen, do we.

Oh don't you just sigh at books that make you take notes... It's so bloody tedious. It interrupts the flow! Very inconsiderate on the part of the author...
 

I am liking it whatever ... would have to be pants for me to send it off to the charity shop. I seem to have a different rule for books about books/libraries/bookshops/toast etc then I do for books about anything else .. and a different rule for books with nice covers. I read one once called The Lost Dog ... beautiful cover but I didn't really get on with the story. Book is still on the shelf though .. pride of place actually .. owing to it's brilliant cover and beautiful spine

Well happily the book wasn't the pants, the shirt or the woolly hat =D I'm still very happy that you enjoyed it! I can't wait to see what unhingedness is going to take place.
 
Yes, one feels a certain fondness for books about books/libraries/bookshops/toast, doesn't one. And dogs (although for you it's about the cover, for me it's about the dogs, ha!). When I move to Lahti, I'm going to see if there's room for a second bookcase, and if so, I want to get all my books really organized, and then I'm definitely having a special section for books on books/libraries/booshops/. I can't wait!!

 

Is this not a beautiful cover?  I could never part with it 
 
What a co-incidence though .. it has a quote from A.S. Byatt on the front saying it's the best book she's ever read for a long time   Really? .. poor thing 

Oh the cover is absolutely gorgeous! The colors, the dog, and everything!

That's odd from A. S. Byatt... Maybe somebody'd done a

Rochester to her and made her go up in the attic like Bertha

, and she only got one book per year, and that one book was The Lost Dog Rochester was all sorts of horror, wasn't he. A book disabler! *spits in disgust*

 

Yes .. I think I got halfway .. perhaps a bit further but I know I'll have to start again as it's one of those books where getting involved in the story is everything  .. so much clever wordplay etc .. I think I'd be lost if I attempted to re-start it from the middle

As clever as you are, I think you'd be lost if you started the Phantom Tollbooth midway, yes. Coincidentally, I promised Kylie I would read the book in the next three month's because she's been reading so many of my recommended books lately, and if you are up for it, we could read it together But there's no pressure, of course! =) We mustn't toy with our mojos...
 

No .. it's not the history thing at all. It's the .. as one reviewer put it ... 'stomach churning scenes'  I am a little bit of a scaredy cat as don't really read crime or any books with graphic scenes (Agatha doesn't really do graphic) .. though usually I'm fine with it if it turns up in a story that's already grasped me so to speak .. so I imagine that will be the case here. My imagination is such that even Mrs Danvers creeping about talking about Rebecca's underclothes is enough to keep me awake for a week 

Oh dear! I didn't remember you aren't always too comfortable with that sort of thing, sorry! But I do wonder... Okay, it's been a few years since I read the book, but I don't remember there being anything all too gut wrenching. But maybe I'm wrong. I really ought to re-read the book, because I'm recommending it to everyone and harassing people with sent copies of the book and then I can't really say anything about it myself

 

Rebecca's underclothes? Is that the Rebecca-Rebecca? I've not read the book yet, I'm afraid. But I'm happy to know there are panties involved

I think you will never be able to read one of the frankie recommends -books The Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite. Well, that only means you are going to live forever, because you won't be able to finish the challenge

[frankie]

I was checking out your wishlist (I won't say why! ) and I noticed that Paper Boy by Christopher Fowler is on there, and I'm just wondering why that is? Sorry if I've asked you the same before, my memory's just awful these days.
 
(Another thing I noticed when on the first page of your reading log, was that your post for books bought/acquired is way, wayyyy down the page. Is that a calculated thing? Or is it there because this year you are trying to really not buy that many books, and conquer the Mount TBR instead?)
 

 
Oh dear, your review was infinitely better than mine I had no idea who this Roger person is and what the book was going to be about (well, apart from letters, duh), so I had to google Roger Mortimer. I found this:
 
"He's the sort of man who reminisces at 80: "There was a boy called Peel at Eton with me who went off his onion later and sawed the head off his ever-loving wife. He was very odd when the moon was full.""
 
I read that before starting on your review, and I was immediately intrigued And your wonderful review has convinced me I must add this to my wishlist (and Dear Lupin, of course). I have a feeling this is my kind of reading. You know, reading the quotes, I thought he's almost as funny as you! Well not really 'almost', that's too generous for him, but he makes a good effort!
 

As an aside, everytime I type "frankie" including this time, the bloody auto-check-something "fixes" it with a capital F.  then I backspace to put the small f in......and have a wiggly red line underneath it.  GGGGRRRRRRRR!  Bah Humbug!
Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.   

Sorry pontalba You can capitalize my f if it's easier for you, lol!
 

As well as my morning cuppa, the postman bought me some books (not that the postman bought me a cuppa  ... we aren't on that good terms) so whilst sipping away at my tea I was able to tear open my packages. It's never too early in the morning to start licking your books (BOOKS I said!)

You know... The poor man must've pulled a few muscles in all the years he's been hauling books to your door... I dare say you ought to invite him in for a cuppa some day yourself! Although it's best that Alan's at home at the same time... We don't want the postie to get any ideas... He might think you didn't mean books at all!

[Nollaig]

The Library Of Unrequited Love sounds awesome, I'm definitely gonna have to read that!

[frankie]

 

What an odd but oddly interesting book. I bet it was rather a peculiar feeling to realize it was all semi-autobiographical only after having read the book. Makes you think about it in a whole different way And a memoir for her children to read? Hopefully not at bed time, when they were still young kids...

 

I think the (non)spelling and lack of punctuation makes it rather interesting. Usually I'd be annoyed with that sort of thing, but I read the quote and it seemed fitting, somehow. I actually started hearing a young girl's voice, she was telling me the story in a serious tone.

 

 

You're welcome - I'm glad you found a book you loved.  Again, sorry for the cop-out with the voucher - I thought of something recently I could have bought - it might do for Christmas 2014!  Good Lord, I can't be thinking about Christmas already, can I...?!

 

Are you kidding? Of course you can, you're Jänet! We'd be worried if you didn't!

 

 

Beyond the Great Indoors by Ingvar Ambjørnsen

Again, I'm so happy you enjoyed the book! There's always a tiny little doubt when giving someone a book, but I did have a feeling you'd enjoy this one And yes, this is the kind of book one will lol at! And it's definitely re-reading material, in my opinion.

 

I kind of liked how Kjell Bjarne had his priorities straight, and didn't complicate his life with other things.

Women and food, that's the good stuff

 

 

And I love how Elling's mind works... The way he gets from A to B and ends up with C is fabulous. It all really makes sense when he explains it, although of course it's all rather unorthodox

 

On the Black Hill by Bruce Chatwin

 

I like the sound of this, too, even with all the grimness.... Maybe one needs to read it in the summer, when it's impossible to turn grim oneself, just by reading a grim book

 

I've also noticed that you've been enjoying all your books so far. What a marvelous start for 2014!

 

 

Review for Steve Toltz's A Fraction of the Whole

Great review! How incredibly witty does one have to be if one can write a whopping 700 pages long novel and it's pure joy and genious through and through. Envyable!

Edited February 6, 2014 by frankie

[frankie]

I had a weird dream last night that I kept posting warnings on here telling people not to read certain books because they were full of difficult words .. one book had a Welsh place name in it and that was enough

'Beware ... don't read this book ... it's set in Dwygyfylchi'

 

How very odd! Even in my dream I knew it was wrong and kept trying to delete the threads but couldn't.

So glad and relieved this morning to find that .. apparently .. I've only ever posted sensible things 

What a wickedly funny dream I only wish it had been one of those sleep walking (sleep typing) dreams and you'd actually posted those things on the forum

 

Mentally patting myself on the back too for enduring five Sunday's without finding myself at Waterstone's cash desk with an armful of impulse buys. It's been tough .. the weather alone makes you want to try and seek some sort of compensation but I'm focused on getting the TBR down. Having said that .. the new Ransom Riggs is very tempting .. that's going to start calling out to me very loudly from shop window displays I have no doubt.

Well done! I'm immensely proud of you Doesn't it feel very good? I mean yes it's bloody horrid not to buy books, and it's miserable, but in another way, it feels great when you have decided something and then you've actually stuck to it. To realize that you do possess the self-discipline.

 

 

The Library of Unrequited Love by Sophie Divry

*sigh* This sounds great, just what one wants. What a brilliant review! Sorry about your yesterday, it sounded like a right terror, but how wonderful that you managed to find just the right book to keep you company just the right period of time in the attic. I agree, it sounds like a book one needs to read in one sitting, to get the full impact.