I’ve got all of my books out of boxes and various houses – all in one place and out on shelves.
I have John to thank, his DIY skills are fantastic – he had the cheek to say that I had no more need of him now the shelves are up!! I’m not letting go of this one, he’s stuck with me!
Anyway, a rundown of the shelves -
Agatha Christie and other series
Mixture of fiction and non-fiction
Travel and Environmentalism
Cookery and Gardening
Archaeology and History
Non-fiction (lots of it!)
As many of you will know, I’m not a big fan of the ‘googlebox’ and don’t often make an effort to watch (I’ve even lost track of Heroes, which I was actually really enjoying), I much prefer the radio.
So it’s interesting that the excellent programme I watched last night is a sort of ‘full circle’ for me.
I first heard bits of ‘Stuart: a life backwards’, a true story by Alexander Masters as a book of the week on Radio Four; I didn’t hear the whole thing so decided to read the book. It was sad, funny, fascinating and well written; I enjoyed it very much.
Last night on BBC2 (terrible scheduling as it was up against Michael Palin on BBC1 – why did they do that?), the story was shown as a dramatisation.
The actors who played Alexander and Stuart were brilliant, I already knew the story but this didn’t detract from the programme, and in a way made me want to watch more.
The difficult life of Stuart Shorter is an important one, a story that needs to be heard – there are people like him all around us – how many of us notice them? He may have been a thief, a drug addict, an alcoholic, violent and difficult; but he was also a person; a scared, hurt, confused and abused person – I like to think that Alexander Masters’ story means that we can learn from the mistakes that were made in Stuart’s life (by him and those around him).
More information can be found at the author’s website.
If you want to read the book, and you should, I recommend getting it from here where it is only £3.75 and you get to help grow trees with The Woodland Trust.
Harry arrives
Originally uploaded by Ms. Moll.
Colin went off this morning to get some bits from the department, I had to stay at home – although I wasn’t desperate for my Harry Potter book we had decided that it wasn’t fair on the postman to make him carry the damn thing back to the depot if I wasn’t at home to take delivery (there was no way it was going to go through the letterbox).
So when it arrived I was here – he (the postman) seemed very please when I opened the door, he said that he’d already ‘caught’ one of my neighbours sneaking out before taking delivery!
So, I’ve started reading, but I have been doing other things (such as delivering Mum’s fridge and freezer to Brodsworth where they are going to belong to the dig – I’ve bought newish fridge freezer off the people who are selling me the house).
I spoke to Gee – her copy had arrived as well, and she’d already read the last chapter!! She tells me that she does that with all book so that she know which creatures will be there at the end and therefore which are worth concentrating on – she also said that she’d like to do that in life! Imagine when you meet someone knowing straight away if they are worth spending time getting to know!
Anyway, I’m sure that there are many many people across the world who have already read it, but I’m sure it will take me at least a few days yet.
Tonight at midnight the last installment of Harry Potter (by J K Rowling for those of you who have been living in a complete vacuum for the last few years!) comes out.
According to The Guardian one in 43 British homes have pre-ordered the book, and the Royal Mail will deliver around 600,000 copies tomorrow morning (hopefully one to me!). Dad has even got me to order a copy for him!
People (adults and children) will be queuing outside bookshops across the world tonight, and most in the UK will be opening at midnight for a party!
On the Amazon website there is a ‘Muggle counter’, which says that it counts the number of pre-orders across the Amazon companies, as I write this it stands at – 2,235,330 – that totals about £20,095,617!!!! (given they are selling it for £8.99 in the UK).
They also have a leader board of towns across the UK charting pre-orders!
| 1. | Wallingford, England |
 Last Week’s Rank: 1 |
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| 2. | Ashbourne, England |
| Last Week’s Rank: 2 |
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| 3. | Huntingdon, England |
| Last Week’s Rank: 3 |
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| 4. | Marlborough, England |
 Last Week’s Rank: 5 |
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| 5. | Carnforth, England |
 Last Week’s Rank: 4 |
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| 6. | Okehampton, England |
| Last Week’s Rank: 6 |
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| 7. | Faringdon, England |
| Last Week’s Rank: 8 |
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| 8. | Kingsbridge, England |
| Last Week’s Rank: 7 |
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| 9. | Malmesbury, England |
| Last Week’s Rank: 9 |
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| 10. | Cheadle, England |
| Last Week’s Rank: 12 |
I’d love to know why Wallingford is number one??
…it’s Agatha Christie week! the 80th anniversary of the publication of her first blockbuster – The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
I didn’t know this until about 10 minutes ago when I visited the official Agatha Christie website, but amazingly yesterday I found my collection of 80+ Agatha Christie paperbacks.
I love the illustrations on the covers of some of the old versions, mainly the ones published by Fontana; and it goes without saying that the stories are fantastic.
I haven’t read one for a few years, but I think I might have to – I seem to remember really enjoying The Man in the Brown Suit.
I had to post a link to the wonderful work of Edward Gorey; an American illustrator (now sadly died) who’s dark humour I think is fantastic -
Take a look at the Gashlycrumb Tinies one of his best and funniest works.
Read more about him at Edward Gorey House
I first discovered his illustration in a book I had as a child called ‘The shrinking of Treehorn’, later (a few years ago) I rediscovered his work and now own many of his books and a very large poster of one of his pieces. What I’d really like is some of the books which he illustrated the front covers for, but most are very long out of print or were only available in the States.
In fact it amazes me that Gorey is not very well known in the UK.
I love my books, they are so important to me and bring me great pleasure. I found the following a few years ago (although it originates from the library of the Monastery of San Pedro, Barcelona) and I love it.
“For him that stealeth a book from this library, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with Palsy and all his Members blasted. Let him languish in Pain crying aloud for Mercy and let there be no surcease in his agony till he sink in Dissolution. Let bookwormes gnaw his Entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not, and when at last he goeth to his final Punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him for ever and aye”
Perhaps this should be posted on the doors of many university libraries across the land?!
