My goal this year is to read 100 books, but also regularly write small reviews of them. Here’s the first instalment, with Alan Garner, Seanan McGuire and Matt Wesolowski.
Category: Books
Margate Activity Books
I’ve made a children’s activity book about various locations in Margate, with open-ended drawing and writing activities that encourage observation, exploration and creativity, with very clear layouts and instructions. Suitable for age 7+.
Fanzine Ynfytyn 2002-2020 collection
March Reading I
In the Bonesetter’s Waiting Room, The Making of Home and Woman on the Edge of Time. Indian medicine, social history, the brutality of psychiatric hospitals and ecofeminist utopias.
Goat Comic #1 pre-orders
January and February Reading
My reading for January and February
2020 Goodreads Reading Challenge
Night and Fog Are My Days
Superbook of Things to Make (1974)
Another charity shop book- this time from the 70s. It’s a slightly strange mix of technicolour things made from recycling bin objects or fabric scraps, and then a section about making candles.
Puffin Annual One (1974)
This edition has a behind the scenes of Captain Pugwash, extracts from Tove Jansson, Jill Patton-Walsh, an article about CS Lewis, and interviews with various different authors.
Dr Oetker Book of Cakes for Special Occasions (1998)
Another book from a charity shop in Austria. I love how incredibly cack-handed some of the cakes are. Most themed cake books are impossibly professional, these ones actually look like the result you’d realistically get.
Das Große Bastelbuch für Kinder (1996)
I got this craft book for kids from a charity shop in Austria earlier this year. Austria doesn’t have the same volume of charity shops as the UK, but when you do find one they’re usually really good, especially in small towns, where vintage isn’t really a big thing.
Jane Asher’s Fancy Dress (1983)
This charity shop fancy dress book is certainly… something. Lots of 80s actors modelling the costumes.
Times Out of Mind
The Fictional Books of Jorge Luis Borges
Tim and the Hidden People
Tim and the Hidden People is a series of children’s school reading books from the late 70s/early 80s that a lot of schools had. They have a strange, bleak folk-horror atmosphere, and the illustrations in the first three collections are a little uncanny valley. Tim is always walking along lonely canal paths with strict instructions to not look over his shoulder and tie the silver string around a particular tree or else.
The Shame Pile
My living room has a very handy built-in bookshelf (although the amount of different compartments meant it took a long time when I moved in to paint over the old nicotine-stained paint). The majority of my books live on the bigger bookshelves in my bedroom, but the living room houses the Shame Pile.
Ichi-go ichi-e
This was my April 2014 piece for Storyboard , a writing site with monthly prompts run by a friend. I couldn’t think of a story idea, so I wrote a kind of essay instead.The theme that month was “Ichi-go ichi-e”: a never again moment. I couldn’t think of a story, so I decided to talk a little about ways other writers have handled the theme. I suppose you could call this a casual essay. I’m afraid it won’t be closely argued or meticulously footnoted, and it is quite loosely put together, but maybe it will give people some good recommendations of things to read
Ivan Bilibin
I thought while stuck at home I’d do regular posts showing things I like which other people may not have heard of. Ivan Bilibin was a Russian artist most famous for his lavishly illustrated books of fairy tales taking inspiration from Japanese wood prints, Russian icon painting and Ye Olde Slavonic script.
Diana Wynne Jones zine- digital edition
A few years back I made a zine with articles about writer Diana Wynne Jones (probably best known for writing Howl’s Moving Castle), and an interview I conducted with her before she sadly died. The paper edition is still available here, but for the foreseeable future I can only send physical copies to the UK. So I’ve made a digital edition for people to read.
2019 in Books
Every year I take part in the Good Reads challenge. My target this year was 52 books. I completed it with one for luck- 53 books this year. As I read each book I took a photo for instagram and gave a brief opinion- I’ve copied and pasted them all here. I’ve separated them into categories, but left them in the order read within the categories.
Caecilius est in Horto
If you study Latin in the UK, there’s a very good chance you will use the Cambridge Latin books from the 1970s. Although they’re forty years old, they’re still in print (and also on the Apple Store), and have a special place in people’s hearts.
Magic Stories From Around the World (1986)
Here is another scan of a vintage book I have had since I was a child. This is a collection of myths and legends from around the world. It was originally Czech and translated to English, and has a large selection of central European stories less known in the UK, along with stories from places like the high Arctic and Polynesia. There are also lovely illustrations by three prominent Czech illustrators.
The Ghost Stories of M.R. James
Around this time of year on the Solstice there are two things I like to do as a personal tradition- go for a walk to Botany Bay around sunset and read the ghost stories of M.R. James. Includes full text of Whistle My Lad, and links to read the stories and watch the 1970s films for free.
Alternative London 1969/70
I found this book in a charity shop. It’s a practical guide to alternative living in London from 1969/70 covering a wide range of topics from rent laws, to sexuality, drugs and communes to join. This is the first edition, there were yearly updates throughout the 70s.
70s Soft Toy Book
Here are some scans from a 1970s craft book I got from my grandparents’ house.
Cadbury’s Novelty Cookbook
I got this late 70s/early 80s book from a charity shop a while ago. A lot of families in the UK had it when I was a kid I think. I got it out because I promised to make my friend a really ludicrous birthday cake from inside. The recipes are fine, various flavoured sponge cakes with buttercream icing (albeit with gratuitous Cadbury’s product placement in every recipe). It’s the choice of cake themes in the book that’s a bit odd …
Diana Wynne Jones conference notes
A couple of weeks ago I went to an academic conference in Bristol focused on the works of Diana Wynne Jones. She is probably best known for writing the book that the Studio Ghibli film Howl’s Moving Castle was based on, but she has around thirty other books aimed at a variety of ages. Even the ones aimed at children have a surprising amount of psychological and literary depth, and a willingness to explore very dark issues not usually found in books for that age group, giving her work a huge appeal to adults and academics.
Midsommar
Last night, I saw Midsommar, a film I’ve had my eye on for a while. It’s received very mixed reviews in the press, but I loved it. I felt it was pretty much what you’d get if you got Alexander Jodorowsky to direct the Wicker Man
Behemoth Lives!
Margate is currently hosting a variety of art events related to T.S.Eliot (who wrote the Wasteland here almost a century ago), including a weekend dedicated to cats over Easter. I created this print based on Bulgakov’s the Master and Margarita, and a giant painted banner version of it to hang up at the show. It was a bit last minute, but I got it all done on time. The show is on at the Viking Gallery off Northdown Rd over the long Easter weekend and until the 7th of April.
Knock Three Times
Knock Three Times is not a well-known book, which is a pity.
Sea Serpent Bookplates
I’ve made these printable bookplates, in both A4 and US Letter sizes. Four per page. They are for personal use only- you may not sell copies you have printed, host these files on another site, or use the artwork for any other commercial purpose.
The downloads are free, but if you like and use them, a pay-what-you-want tip is very much appreciated.
The District Without Qualities?
So I’m back in the UK. For good now. Most of this week has been taken up with house-hunting, arranging vans etc. More on that soon. I don’t like to count my chickens before they’re hatched.
However, I was tidying up the folders on my computer this week, and found these miscellaneous photos of Vienna from February.
Diana Wynne Jones zine
I have a zine of articles about children’s writer Diana Wynne Jones (of Howl’s Moving Castle et al) I wrote this zine in 2011, also managing to interview her before she sadly died (you can also read the interview online here). The original edition was 1/6 of an A3 sheet, made on a Risograph machine. This was great when I still had access to an A3 Riso machine, but after I didn’t it was very expensive and difficult to reprint, so it went out of print. Recently I did a new edition, with all-new illustrations, in a much more convenient standard A6 size
Miyazaki’s Reading List
When I was in Japan I went to the Studio Ghibli Museum just outside of Tokyo. Sadly pictures were not allowed inside, but I wrote about it in my zine of the trip. I highly recommend the museum, it’s magical. The bookshop was also stocked with Miyazaki’s own favourite books, as well as books related to the studio’s films. I didn’t buy anything, as they were all in Japanese, and it would take me forever to read anything, but I noted down a lot of less well-known books I saw in the shop to compile a reading list (helpfully the copyright tends to list the author’s names in roman text rather than try to make it fit katakana). Unfortunately I wasn’t able to write down the Japanese author’s names in most cases as reading unknown names written in kanji is very tricky. However Miyazaki made a list of classic children’s books (including a lot of the usual suspects like The Secret Garden) elsewhere which also includes some Japanese recommendations.
Polly’s reading list
Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones, based on the folk tale Tam Lin and Eliot’s Four Quartets, is one of my all-time favourite books. The gifts of classic books that the protagonist Polly receives from Tom, the other main character, are an important part of the plot, but not listed anywhere in the novel. I made this reading list of the books for the zine of essays about Diana Wynne Jones that I made.
This Means Nothing To Me
I have been in Austria for a week and a half now for teaching work. I meant to update last week, but some brutal 7.30 am start times, heavy snow, a lot of planning to do outside the classroom, and a diet of pure stodge in a small town with few dining options (and even fewer options for vegetarians) tired me out. It feels strange to be in small-town Austria, where not much tends to happen, while political turmoil with dire consequences for many vulnerable people goes on around the world.
Defeating the To Read pile
I’ve spent most of this afternoon sorting out my books, and making a pile of the unread ones. It turns out I have 84 unread books. Over the next six weeks it looks like I’m going to have a lot of time on my hands, unless a new job or a large chunk of money magically presents itself, so I’ll try to get through a good chunk of these.
Here is a list of the books, arranged alphabetically by author:
Charity shop finds
I haven’t found as many good charity shop items lately as over the summer, but there’s been the odd few things. I got this vase for £2, which I’ve planted an aloe vera in, for my own plant version of Sideshow Bob.
Godless heathenry
The next issue of Being Editors will be about C.S.Lewis and Phillip Pullman. As a sneak preview, and to give contributors an idea of what my own religious (or more to the point, non-religious) background is, here is the article I wrote which leads in to another about why That Hideous Strength is a guilty pleasure- if you’d like to contribute, find out more here
That Hideous Strength has always been a weird guilty pleasure. I’m not a Christian, never have been, and didn’t grow up in a religious environment. People enjoy the Narnia books because they’re good children’s books and written with charm and wit, and they don’t Jesus you too hard (except for the last one). That Hideous Strength is nothing like that, the plot is weirdly cobbled together, and it’s full of railing against every single one of C.S.Lewis’ personal bugbears as a sexist old Christian university don of the 1950s, and he doesn’t bother to hide it. The relentless sexism, homophobia and evangelising makes me want to throw the book against the wall as the godless hell-bound pinko lefty I am, but it’s just so gleefully bizarre that I actually quite enjoy it and have re-read it countless times.
Book reviews: the birds and the bees and T.H. White
As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve arranged the book reviews in groups loosely on the same theme. Here’s the first set. More to come.
H is for Hawk Helen Macdonald
The Bees Laline Paull
The Sword in the Stone (The Once and Future King, #1) T.H White
The Witch in the Wood (The Once and Future King, #2) T.H White
The Ill-Made Knight (The Once and Future King, #3) T.H White
The Candle in the Wind (The Once and Future King, #4) T.H White
The Book of Merlyn (The Once and Future King, #5) T.H White
Danmark & Sverige
Tomorrow I’m going on holiday to Copenhagen for 5 days, somewhere I’ve never been before. I’ve visited Iceland, Finland and Estonia before, the outliers in the Nordic group of countries, and all in the winter, but I’ve never visited the core three Scandinavian countries in their famous long-dayed summers (although I’ve been in the Highlands of Scotland in the summer before, which is very similar). Copenhagen is within a short train ride of Malmö in Sweden (in fact Scania used to be in Denmark at one time), so I’ll kill two birds with one stone and visit Sweden too. As well as Copenhagen, I’m going to try to visit Roskilde, the Louisiana Art Museum and Elsinore, which are all nearby. (I’m not going to Legoland because it’s at the other end of the country, and I’ve been to the UK one loads for work anyway).
Penguin Little Black Classics
I bought some of these tiny 80th anniversary Penguin books the other day. Each book is around 50 pages long, and has short stories, poems or extracts from writers from around the world. The perfect size to keep in a bag for spare moment reading. There are 80 different ones to choose from, and each one costs a bargain 80p. In picking the books, I went for authors I had never heard of, or writers like Cavafy I’d heard of but never checked out. Hopefully I’ll discover something I really like. The full list of titles can be seen here.
Not gate-crashing a funeral
I actually attended this funeral/memorial for children’s writer Diana Wynne Jones over 2 years ago. I had meant to write about it for a long time, but I didn’t want to write anything without having the programme of speakers from the event to hand, and it stubbornly disappeared until recently when I had a big clear out of papers (and faded with some print rubbed off after 2 years), so here it is.
A baker’s dozen of books
1) Operation Mincemeat- Ben Macintyre
2) The Pyramid- Ismail Kadare
3) The Mirror Maker- Primo Levi
4) The Third Miss Symons- F.M. Mayor
5) The Making of the British Landscape- Francis Pryor
6) The Years of Rice and Salt- Kim Stanley Robinson
7) The Moving Toyshop- Edmund Crispin
8) Travels with a Typewriter- Michael Frayn
9) Mail Order Mysteries: Real Stuff from Old Comic Book Ads- Kirk Demarais
10) How to Build a Girl- Caitlin Moran
11) Fannie’s Last Supper- Chris Kimball
12) The Gallery of Regrettable Food- James Lileks
13) A Winter Book- Tove Jansson
Professor Knatschke
My university library had a massive stack of printing industry annuals from the 1890s through to the 20s. I always enjoyed looking through them because the illustrations and articles they chose to showcase new printing technologies were often really odd, and were good to photocopy for collages and zines. Next to them on the shelf was a strange little book called Professor Knatschke. It’s a comedy book written and illustrated in 1912 by Alsatian satirist Jean-Jacques Waltz, aka Hansi, about a clueless German professor and his daughter’s trip to Paris, mocking both the French and the Germans (but mostly the Germans) in a more innocent pre-WW1 pre-Nazi era. I always really liked the illustrations (and Elsa K’s obsession with making gifts embroidered with “inspiring” mottoes) , and now it’s available free online as a copyright-free ebook.
Books, books and more books
At one point I was writing brief reviews on here with my thoughts about various books I’d been reading. I’ve got out of the habit of doing that, and meant to get back in to it. I’ve been keeping track of my reading on Goodreads for years, but a listing and a star rating doesn’t feel like enough. I thought it would be too much to do the whole of this year’s reading, so here’s the last few months of books.
Bacchae prints for sale
I still have a couple of these 22×25 cm / 8.5×9.5″ risograph prints based on the Bacchae by Euripedes left.
The text says “ἔμαρψα τόνδ᾽ ἄνευ βρόχων λέοντος ἀγροτέρου νέον ἶνιν ὡς ὁρᾶν πάρα.” which means “I caught this young lion by myself, without a trap”. Pentheus’ mother, having run off into the woods with Dionysus to be a maenad, kills her son in a frenzy because she thinks he’s a lion, and then parades his head around the stage boasting about the lion she’s killed. That old plot cliché.
The Phantom Tollbooth
I recently watched this documentary about the Phantom Tollbooth, one of my favourite books when I was younger. (I still have the same battered, dog-eared paperback copy). Milo, the main character, is a boy who is always bored and doesn’t see the point in anything.
Fire & Hemlock risograph prints
Someone requested one of these risograph prints based on Fire & Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones (one of my all time favourite books) recently, but I thought I had run out. When I was re-organising some things thought recently it turned out I had 10 left after all. £10 + postage from the shop.
Literary Eating and Drinking in Prague
We didn’t have a long time in Prague, so we didn’t get to sample that many places, but the ones we did go to all seemed to be based on books. Fun, and a little strange. (And the beer in the Czech Republic is both very cheap and very good).
Golden Hands Book of Crafts
While I was at my grandparent’s place, I scanned some books. Here’s the Golden Hands Book of Crafts from the 70s. I have some of the magazine of the same name, which I scanned before. You can see that here. Most of the tutorials in the book weren’t very exciting, but there were some nice 70s stock pictures.
There’s More to Life Than Books You Know Pt I
So, long time, no see. I’ve been working very long hours at the day job, and I have also been without a computer. That should hopefully be sorted by next week though. Today I’m visiting my family, so I can add text-based things here, but no photos. There’s quite a backlog of photos running. I managed to break my phone, do something very painful to my shoulder and have my laptop spontaneously die in the space of 3 days. I’m a disaster zone for hire. If you want anything spoilt or broken in the near future, let me know, my rates are reasonable
Diana Wynne Jones Interview
A couple of years ago I interviewed the children’s writer Diana Wynne Jones, my favourite writer growing up. I was compiling a zine of articles about her work. Unfortunately I didn’t finish the zine before she died of cancer, because I’m a terrible procrastinator, and she never got to see it. When I get a chance, I have another entry to add about attending her funeral.
February books and films
Not a great deal to report here, I haven’t read that much or seen many films because I’ve been busy doing unfun things. Less of that, please.
Books:
1) Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong- James W Loewen
Songs based on books- a playlist.
Here’s a short playlist I made of songs based on (good, enjoyable) books, with some short descriptions for people who haven’t read the books in question.
70s interior design book
Here are some scans from a 1970s interior design book- House by Terrence Conran. Some of the stuff in it is really really 70s looking, and some is very clean and timeless-looking. The pictures I’ve scanned are a mix of the two categories. I just scanned the pictures that appealed to me, as it’s a massive book. Some of them are a little grainy due to the printing technique. I scanned another 70s interior book I have here.
Books I read in January
One of my new year’s resolutions was to read an average of 2 books a week, and see an average of 1 new film a week. I’ve managed the books this month, but I haven’t seen any new films. I caught up on about 20 hours of Scandinavian detective shows and watched a lot of tv documentaries though, so it’s not like I didn’t see anything. I just have to see one more film each of the rest of the months this year.
Books of 2012
I started using Goodreads this year to keep track of my reading. Here’s my list of books. It looks like a lot, but over a year it’s only just over 1 a week, which isn’t that good going, seeing as I’m a fast reader (more visual than auditory).
Death and the Penguin
I set myself a project recently of doing mock book covers. First up is Death and the Penguin, by Andrey Kurkov. I did both English and Russian versions of the cover. I’m not sure how successful it is, though. The map I used in the collage is of Kiev.
Golden Hands Monthly
got this stack of 70s craft magazines in a junk shop in Devizes a few years ago. That place was amazing, a multi-floored cavern of junk. It’s gone now, I think. Here’s some photos.There’s the usual ultra-cheesy raffia work projects and crocheted plant holders and so on, but the clothes patterns are actually mostly pretty nice, which is why I bought the magazines. What I’ve scanned is a mix of nice things and weird stuff though. I also couldn’t scan double page spreads very easily, because the binding on the magazines is dodgy, and I didn’t want to pull them about too much in case they broke. These issues are from 1972 and 1973. I have another issue from 1976, but it’s printed on much cheaper paper (the paper quality wasn’t sterling to begin with) and the contents are pretty dull.
Visual Diary
As part of my MA, we were required to keep a creative diary keeping track of the professional practice lectures, research, reading, exhibition visits and general inspiration. I finally got around to scanning some of the one from my second year. In the first year I used blog posts for the same purpose, but I felt the need later on for a physical record.
Costumes for Plays and Playing
When I was a kid I used to borrow this book again and again from the local library. The first thing I ever sewed myself was from it. A friend of mine at junior school’s older sister was in a school play of Toad of Toad Hall, and we went to watch. When you’re 7, 13 year olds seem incredibly impressive. What impressed me even more were the weasel costumes. I wanted one for myself. Armed with an offcut of brown fabric and a toy sewing machine I’d got at a bootfair, I made a hood with ears like the ones in the book. It was wonky, and I was a bit ashamed of it though, and wished I knew how to sew straight (looking back, I’m not sure the toy sewing machine was actually capable of a straight seam). My opinion of my sewing projects has improved slightly since.
70s craft books ahoy
I like buying 70s craft books from charity shops. I’m not sure what it is about them, but maybe it’s the colours and the quite often bizarre project suggestions. Here’s 2 of them scanned in.
Puffin book scans
Here’s some Puffin books I scanned so I could stick the pictures in my art college diary.
Nature All Around
These are some pictures I scanned from a 1970s kids book at my dad’s house called Nature All Around. My uncle used to work for a non-fiction publisher and we always seemed to have strange free books from his work around the place. It has drawings and photographs of things children can spot around the average british garden/field/beach and information about the lives of the various creatures.
Exploring the World of Robots
I’ve had this book since forever. It was part of a set of educational books that were a hand me down from my cousin. The others in the set were pretty standard, on topics like animal migration or cars, but this one is a bit odd. The others in the set have long gone to the charity shop or another relative, but I’ll always keep this book.
Being Editors #1- Diana Wynne Jones
So I’ve got the first issue of my children’s literature zine done. The first issue is devoted to Diana Wynne Jones. There was a lot more I wanted to say on the topic, but it just kept growing and growing, so I cut it short at 60 pages, and I’ll probably do another DWJ zine in the winter. (The next issue of this zine is about Oliver Postgate). Thank you to the contributors.
All the cheesecloth & macrame you can eat
I got this 70stastic book for £1 from a charity shop, mainly because of the pictures. The textual parts are worthy and Blue Peter-ish, with lots of making things out of tea chests and copydex (why doesn’t tea tend to come in chests these days?), guides to home tie-dying, and sentences like “and kitchen foil gives a touch of glamour”.
As though of hemlock I had drunk
3 colour risograph print based on “Fire & Hemlock” by Diana Wynne Jones (one of my all-time favourite books)
Like the librarian said … everyone respects the dead
Yesterday I got the dvd of Kids for £2, and I watched it with Vicky & Tukru. V had somehow never seen it, and the last time T had seen it was about 10 years ago when her down-with-the-kids history teacher had played it at school (yeah, Finland …). When I was about 15 or so it was my all-time favourite film along with Heavenly Creatures. I don’t know what that says about me. If I’d seen the film now as a 26 year old, it wouldn’t amaze me (maybe creep me out instead). I think what made the impact on me at the time was that in the age before cheap DVDs and easy downloading, it was the first really raw film I’d seen, and I was obviously longing for rawness at the time. Glossy Hollywood high school films had absolutely no relevance to my life
Not as sad as Dostoyevsky, not as clever as Mark Twain
10. Alias Grace- Margaret Atwood
11. Notes from Underground- Fyodor Dostoyevsky
12. Seeing Things- Oliver Postgate
13. Letters from a Lost Uncle- Mervyn Peake
14. Queuing for Beginners- Joe Moran
Livre, buch, kitab
8. The Atom Station- Halldór Laxness trans. Magnus Magnusson
9. Sweets: the History of Temptation- Tim Richardson
There’s More To Life Than Books You Know
6. Lost Worlds: What Have We Lost and Where Did it Go?- Michael Bywater
7. Exercises in Style- Raymond Queneau trans. Barbara
More books
4. 99 Ways to Tell a Story- Matt Madden
5. Fragile Things- Neil Gaiman
An exciting life lived in the world of books
I got this idea from Lee. Keep a running list of the books you read in one year, with a brief (or in depth depending on your whims) comment on each. I’m hardly a literary critic, so don’t go expecting devastating incisiveness.
You couldn’t peel me away from a book when I was younger. I still read plenty, but I do squeeze a few other things into my life here and there.
I reregisted with the local library, now I’m back in Kent til whenever. When I asked how many books you were allowed to take out, they told me “30, and please make full use of it, we need the borrowings”. So I did, although I could only physically carry 16 home, because too many of the books I wanted were hardbacks. I have a lot of time on my hands at the moment, and not much money, and I’m feeling a little anti-social/misanthropic of late, so the library is my friend.
You couldn’t peel me away from a book when I was younger. I still read plenty, but I do squeeze a few other things into my life here and there.
I reregisted with the local library, now I’m back in Kent til whenever. When I asked how many books you were allowed to take out, they told me “30, and please make full use of it, we need the borrowings”. So I did, although I could only physically carry 16 home, because too many of the books I wanted were hardbacks. I have a lot of time on my hands at the moment, and not much money, and I’m feeling a little anti-social/misanthropic of late, so the library is my friend.
Toy Theatres
Here are some pictures I scanned from a library book about toy theatres.
Fiction chromatically
Tidying up books. After moving house multiple times and getting rid of a lot, I’ve got a weird selection left. Also photostitch likes the break the laws of physics.
Books
Since becoming unemployed I’ve applied for a lot of jobs, wrangled with the job centre, read quite a lot of library books, done some drawings (more of that later), tried and failed to do a sour dough bread starter and started freaking out about applying for a masters.
Here’s some of the books I’ve been reading or re-reading. Brief descriptions only, because I’m not particularly in the mood for writing.
Book Nook
I’ve got a book nook on the landing up to my room. I organised all the books by colour. The penguins classics etc are on the other bookshelf because they have boring black/silver spines. A pity, because my favourites are mostly amongst those. I got the poncho/blanket thing at the last Sue Ryder sale I went to. I think it’s pretty much what you’d get if you asked someone’s nan to knit you an Irish superhero outfit.
Lady into fox
I’m off work with a stomach bug today, I’ve been under the weather all this week. This morning I read Lady into Fox by David Garnett. He’s one of the Bloomsbury set who isn’t really famous (apart from the indignity of having a less popular Andrew Lloyd Webber musical based on one of his books). The book was brilliant, about a bourgeois 1880s country couple and their life after the wife suddenly turns into a fox.
Right now I’m doing lots of laundry, writing about Roman emperors, and working out what bland food I can have for lunch.
Book Cover Archive
This website is ace. It’s just loads of scanned book covers, but really beautifully designed ones.