OCs, Match Day Books, and Recent Charity Shop Bargains…

Elementary, my dear Bookworms! Periodic Tales finished at last!

Hello again, fellow Bookworms!

Book number 36 finished off for 2017, Periodic Tales finally came off the Ongoing Concerns list in the early hours! As I’ve said before, I HAVE enjoyed this book. The reason it has taken some time to read it is because it’s not one of those books you can read quickly. I’m not a scientist, my dad was the chemist in our family, not me, so to take in all the information Hugh Aldersey-Williams was providing in his book meant reading it slowly.

I’ve also got other books on the go, including The Angry Chef, which is a priority as it is the current book club read, and I’ve also been preoccupied with awaiting further developments regarding my forthcoming job. I was actually contacted yesterday, and received the medical forms and suchlike via email, so I have completed and returned those to HR. Hopefully, I WILL be getting a start date very soon!

Dental pain has been another issue. I am currently awaiting an x-ray and then an extraction, but still have to put up with this stupid tooth for the time being, and getting through painkillers. Some times it’s fine, other times it’s really giving me grief, and I just want it taken out of my mouth as soon as possible. It has also affected my reading. Not only in preventing me from focusing on a book if it is hurting, but also because it has sometimes caused disruption to my sleep, and then I am tired later and not really wanting to read.

The Special Juan – Mr Mata modelling a retro United shirt from 1982…

Seeing as I’ve featured a very important Mata wearing a retro United shirt, there’s another match coming up this weekend, as my lads are at home to Leicester City on Saturday evening. As with the West Ham match, I shall be taking a book with me for the car journeys to and from Old Trafford. Quite likely to be The Angry Chef again, although who knows? Having now finished Periodic Tales, I have added Manchester England, by Dave Haslam, to the OC List, one non-fiction book replacing another. I am on for page 54 of 311, so 17% of that book has already been read and it joins the list in the middle of the pile. I will be using my Manchester bees cross-stitched bookmark in that one, as I also mentioned in previous blogs earlier this year.

Going back to the Special Juan for a moment – that shirt is actually older than Mr Mata! The home shirt he is wearing dates back to 1982 when we first had sponsors on our shirts. Juan wasn’t born until April 1988! I had just turned 15 when he came into the world! As I have mentioned previously, he is one of the players in contention for having his name and number on the back of my next United shirt when I get around to buying it. I still think it’s going to be between Mata 8, Matić 31 and Mkhitaryan 22. A Spaniard, a Serb or an Armenian. Waiting until after the summer transfer window closes, and I start my job, anyway…

The OC List as it stands now…

Neither Here Nor There, by Bill Bryson, is now top of the list, but as it’s 50% read, I’ve got a way to go with all my current OCs. Going to have to have a good look at the current OCs and sort out some kind of reading strategy. The Angry Chef is the main priority as a book club book, but I need to get on with all of them, really.

Not that that has stopped me acquiring other books, been going a bit mad in the local charity shops of late, lol! We have so many round here, and thus there are plenty of bargain books to be found, including 13 Little Blue Envelopes, by Maureen Johnson, for a mere 49p, and Brilliant Orange, the neurotic genius of Dutch football, by David Winner, a book I’d had my eyes on for some time, which I got in a 3 for £1 deal at the Scope shop in Eccles. The Maureen Johnson book was in a shop in Salford Precinct, and is a YA novel which had caught my eye in recent times.

Do Not Pass Go, by Tim Moore, only set me back a quid. You may recall that I read Nul Points, by the same author, earlier this year, to tie in with the Eurovision Song Contest back in May, as it was a book about the acts which had failed to win a single vote at the ESC over the years. In Do Not Pass Go, Moore is in London, visiting all the locations on the Monopoly board, which sounds like a great idea for a book! I’m hoping it will be as good a read as it sounds!

As I have mentioned, on many occasions, I have a thing for books about books, so you won’t be surprised that one of my recent charity shop bargains was Dewey, by Vicki Myron, the true tale of how an abandoned kitten became adopted by the library of a small town in the USA.

Another recent purchase – yes, there have been a LOT of those, as I said, I’ve been going a bit mad in charity shops in recent times picking up any books which seemed like a good idea at the time, lol, and thus a copy of Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling ended up coming home with me in recent weeks! Not that it had a long journey home, it was from one of the charity shops on Monton Road, as I recall, so I probably popped in while I was on my way home. From the chemist’s, I expect, after picking up my painkillers for my stupid dental pain…

The Music Shop, by Rachel Joyce, and Goodbye To Berlin, by Christopher Isherwood, were picked up at the Oxfam shop in town last week, the former of those a hardback and set in a record shop in the 80s, thus it sounded like my cup of tea, and the latter is the book which formed the basis of the musical Cabaret, starring Liza Minelli. This next one isn’t technically a charity shop book, as it was from W H Smith, but they were having Blind Date With a Book in aid of three charities, and thus my acquisition of The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend, by Katarina Bivald,  has helped Cancer Research, Mind (the UK mental health charity) and, if I recall rightly, the Literacy Trust. Once again, folks, books about books…

Anyone who wants more photos of books and bits of waffle to tide you over between blog entries should get on Instagram if you haven’t already done so. I am on there, have been for five and a bit years now, since early 2012, posting as joannedj1973 and a lot of my posts, especially in recent times, are #bookstagram posts. Feel free to check out my posts – lots of piles of books, lol!

Just looking at my unpublished lists on List Challenges… There are quite a few of these lists, especially ones which are ongoing throughout the year and can’t really be published until New Year’s Eve at the earliest, or in the first day or so of 2018. For example, the list of books I have finished in 2017, and the list which goes along with this blog… the seriously massive list of every book which gets a mention on this blog during the course of the year! It doesn’t matter if I don’t even own a copy of it, let alone if I’ve read it or not… loads of books get mentioned and if they do, they go on a huge list on List Challenges. Joanne’s Bookshelf Blogs – Books Mentioned 2017. Come 31st December, or early in January 2018, I will publish this list so anyone can then see what I’ve mentioned during the course of 2017 and how many of those books they have read!

At the moment, the list stands at 464 books! So, yeah, it’s gonna be a long one, lol! At 40 books per page when a list is published, there will be at least 12 pages worth of books and that’s just at the current state of affairs as of 23rd August! It could well be even longer by the time we get around to Christmas and it’s nearly time to publish the damn thing!

There’s all sorts of stuff on that list… General fiction, young adult, children’s books, fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, and there’s all the non-fiction stuff I’ve mentioned… music, history, travel, football, other sports, autobiographies, languages, tea, coffee, and all sorts of other mad crap! It’s simply a review of all the books mentioned on here, so you’ll see four or five hundred covers representing the books I have mentioned in these blogs during 2017. If you can’t wait for this one to be published, there are some previous ones knocking around on List Challenges. Shorter lists featuring books I’ve mentioned in previous years’ blogs.

Well, I think that’s about it for now, so I shall get this published so you can read my utter waffle and wonder if the charity shops of Monton, Eccles, Salford and Manchester actually have any books left in them, lol! They do, by the way! I haven’t bought up ALL their supplies, however many charity shop bargains I appear to mention on here! Until the next time I blog, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Periodic Tales – Hugh Aldersey-Williams
• The Angry Chef – Anthony Warner
• Manchester, England – Dave Haslam
• Neither Here Nor There – Bill Bryson
• 13 Little Blue Envelopes – Maureen Johnson
• Brilliant Orange – David Winner
• Do Not Pass Go – Tim Moore
• Nul Points – Tim Moore
• Dewey – Vicki Myron
• Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? – Mindy Kaling
• The Music Shop – Rachel Joyce
• Goodbye To Berlin – Christopher Isherwood
• The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend – Katarina Bivald

Matchday Reading and Belgian Chocolate Seashells

A great start to the new season – 4-0 win and some reading done!

Hello again, fellow Bookworms!

Well, that was pretty emphatic yesterday! The 2017-18 Premier League season got off to an excellent start for my lads with a resounding 4-0 home victory over West Ham United, hammering the Hammers with two goals from Romelu Lukaku, one from Anthony Martial, and one from Paul Pogba. Man of the Match was our new Serbian, Nemanja Matić, thus giving me another name and number for consideration when I get around to getting my new shirt! I’m still going with a theme of midfielders beginning with M, though, lol! Mkhitaryan 22, Mata 8 or Matić 31. Decisions, decisions!

Serbian footballers called Nemanja are pretty damn good… 😀

One thing was pretty evident before the match, that the traffic in Trafford Park was going to be an arseache. There’s going to be at least three years of roadworks, much of it near the Hallowed Ground, as they prepare new tram lines for the Metrolink service. A new tram route, or at least a new branch of it, will eventually bring trams near Old Trafford, the Imperial War Museum North and the Trafford Centre, and they’re hoping that will be completed by 2020, but in the meantime that means a lot of arseache of the roadworks variety! Road cones everywhere, you get the picture!

Coupled with this, we have now been moved to a different car park at Old Trafford after years of N2. We’re now in W2, which basically means we park behind the Stretford End! However, this means going to the match, and going home, a completely different way to the way we’ve been doing our match-going routine for years now! So, I decided I’d take a book with me! No, not in case there was a penalty in the last minute, lol, although those of you who share my appreciation for the comedy legend that is Sir Billy Connolly will no doubt get that reference!

But, I wasn’t bringing Wuthering Heights with me, lol! Nor was I taking my book into the ground, I was simply going to read it on the way there, leave it in the car, and read some more on the way back. I took The Angry Chef, my book club book, and got a decent amount of that read while we slowly made our way to the match! Got there just about in time for kick-off! Anyway, great results all round, as United won 4-0 and I am now 20% of the way through my book club book!

Therefore, I think a matchday reading plan has been hatched! If the traffic is going to be this shite for the forseeable future, bringing a book with me to read and making further inroads with my Ongoing Concerns list is a good idea and I can get some good reading done in traffic jams, lol! Periodic Tales, if I haven’t finished it soon, might be a Trafford Park Traffic Tome in coming weeks, lol!

The Belgian seashells were acquired yesterday evening from Tesco on Monton Road! When we had RvP, I used to have stroopwafels when he scored goals, but I needed something Belgian rather than Dutch, now our main striker is Romelu Lukaku, so chocolate seashells it is! Actually, this Thursday, 17th August, it will be five years since Robin van Persie joined us from Arsenal! I miss Robin. Still, I did get to enjoy rather a lot of stroops while he was sticking the ball in the net for us, especially the night before my 40th birthday when he scored that hat-trick at home to Aston Villa which meant we’d won our 20th league title!

Still awaiting my start date for my new job. Was at one of the places at which I volunteer this morning, and Nicola informed me she’d provided a reference and emailed it back. I just hope the other referee has done likewise, so that I can have some news as soon as possible. Start date, and also, preferably, salary too. I will also need to see how I can fit my reading in around work. How long will I get for lunch? If an hour, I might possibly get to read at lunchtime. If not, it’ll probably be a case of reading on the buses, or simply in the evenings or at weekends.

It’s not really going to be a long bus journey to work, though. Swinton is not that far away. A little bit further than going into Eccles, but not the longest of journeys. That’s good in terms of the working day, it doesn’t add too much on to that, but the one thing which could be said for my civil service days, particularly when I worked in Chorlton for three years, is that I could get some good reading done on those journeys!

Back to the footy a moment, though, for those of you who didn’t get the Billy Connolly reference. It’s from one of his stand-up shows which we’ve had on video and DVD for years, and about football matches, how people learn terrace songs, how they know when to start one off (“when your assassin goes after their smartarse”), and when people say the stupidest things at matches… the scenario is that a penalty is awarded late in a match, but the daft numpty taking it has missed… Cue Billy talking about the eejit next to him at the match…

Eejit: Did ye see that?

Billy: No, I was reading Wuthering Heights! I just couldnae put it down! I always bring a good book with me in case there’s a penalty in the last minute!

And then he comes out with the molten-bronze droplet of soccer wisdom…

Eejit: If that’d gone in the net, it would’ve been a goal!

Billy: [sarcastically] You don’t say! I can see you’ve studied the game of football in some depth!

So, that bit is what I was on about earlier, hence the references to Wuthering Heights and last-minute penalties, lol! There weren’t any penalties in our 4-0 thumping of West Ham, though. There was a free kick, so Lukaku’s second goal came after we were awarded a set piece, but the other three goals were from open play. Pogba’s goal was in the last minute of normal time, but wasn’t a penalty.

Before I finish, a brief update on the OC front. The Angry Chef moves up to 4th as it is now on 20% after yesterday’s pre-match reading session! It overtakes A Quiet Kind of Thunder and Dead Ends. Dark Fire still needs to reach the 10% stage. Work to be done there, methinks, plus trying to finish off Periodic Tales.

I shall get this finished off and published, then you can all have a read of my match day reading arrangements, lol! Until next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
• The Angry Chef – Anthony Warner
• Periodic Tales – Hugh Aldersey-Williams
• A Quiet Kind of Thunder – Sara Barnard
• Dead Ends – Erin Lange
• Dark Fire – C. J. Sansom

Trophies, OCs, and Book Club Emergencies

Me and my mum at Old Trafford with the EFL Cup and Europa League trophy

Hello again, fellow Bookworms!

Yes, I’ve been to have my photo taken with the silverware we won last season! Had to be done! Obviously, the Community Shield has already gone back, Arsenal having won that last weekend, beating Chelsea on penalties in the traditional “curtain-raiser” to the new season. That has got under way now, with a very entertaining game to kick off the 2017-18 season, Arsenal beating Leicester City 4-3. United are at home to West Ham United on Sunday afternoon, so I shall be back at Old Trafford, in the Stretford End, and hoping for a home win and an actual proper challenge for the title this season for the first time since Fergie retired!

Still awaiting the start date for my job, hopefully I might hear something this coming week. I guess they are getting in touch with the references I provided.

Periodic Tales is now up to 82% having read a bit more of it earlier. We’re getting there, lol! It’s a very interesting book, and I am enjoying it, but it’s not one I feel I can read quickly. I have to take my time with it, and I sometimes need to look things up. Actually, what I was looking up was about sea squirts, as I had never heard of them before!

Dark Fire is up to 8%, but still not quite really enough to get it on the OC List officially as yet. However, I am unofficially adding it, and I have got 7 books on there at the moment. 2 fiction, 3 non-fiction, 2 young adult. The reason that I’ve got three non-fictions is because one of them is the book club book, and thus a “wild card” of sorts. As discussed in recent blogs, that book is The Angry Chef, by Anthony Warner, and I have got that one up to 10%. I have chosen Dead Ends, by Erin Lange, for my newest young adult addition to the OC List, a book I bought on Wednesday night, along with The Angry Chef, and My Turn, by Johan Cruyff.

Currently, the OC List looks like this…

1. Periodic Tales – Hugh Aldersey-Williams. 82%
2. Neither Here Nor There – Bill Bryson. 50%
3. The Beach Hut – Veronica Henry. 35%
4. A Quiet Kind of Thunder – Sara Barnard. 16%
5. Dead Ends – Erin Lange. 11%
6. The Angry Chef – Anthony Warner. 10%
7. Dark Fire – C. J. Sansom. 8%

Priorities are to get Periodic Tales off the list, it’s been an Ongoing Concern for quite some time, lol! Also, to continue with The Angry Chef, and to get going with Dark Fire.

Very disappointingly, there were only two of us at book club on Wednesday night, consequently it was a bit pants!

Sorry, but you really do need a few of you there for it to be a good book club! It’s not all that much fun when there’s only the two of you, and the other is one of the least-forthcoming members! OK, in one way it was handy, as Anne was quite happy to go along with my choice of The Angry Chef for our next meeting, and to agree on the date, which will be 6th September, but sometimes I get the feeling she thinks I’m in charge of the club and that I know more than I do! I don’t! I might be a long-serving member of that book club, I’ve been in it since October 2008, after all, so 9 years this coming autumn, but I’ve not been the one to send emails round or anything like that! I have had to do the communications after this meeting, but that’s because there were only the two of us!

Anyway, I messaged Waterstone’s Deansgate on Facebook after the meeting to let them know the situation, and they forwarded the message on to Emma, who has now sent out an email. I have forwarded the email to Anne, and also replied to Emma to ask her to add Anne’s email address to the contacts list, as she has only joined in recent times. Emma’s a manager now and pretty busy, so it’s unlikely she can attend much, if at all, but she’s still happy for us to meet up there and to recommend any book ideas to us for book club reads.

I’ve also been having a problem in that my email was returned with an error message. I think I may have written Anne’s email address down incorrectly. Trouble is, as I’ve said, she’s pretty quiet volume-wise, and she does also have a bit of an accent, so I actually find it a bit hard to hear what she’s saying. All the more problematic, then, that she seems to lean on me so much. I really wish she wouldn’t. Particularly as, while I was trying to type a private message to Waterstone’s Deansgate on my iPad, therefore trying to do my best in the circumstances, and she’s there wittering on, fussing, and basically doing my head in!

Apologies for the rant, and I don’t wish to sound harsh, but she really annoyed me! I dearly wanted her to shut the hell up! Firstly, so I could concentrate on what I was typing, and also because there was no point anyone talking to me while I was trying to concentrate, because I wouldn’t really hear a word of it properly! There’s only the two of us, and if those two had been me and one of the others, I think we could have handled things evenly and fairly between us, but no chance given who the only other person was besides yours truly! So, she’s leaning on me, expecting me to do bloody everything, when I’ve never even taken full charge of a book club meeting before, but while I am ACTUALLY TRYING TO DO JUST THAT, she is bloody wittering on pointlessly, fussing, and just basically pissing me right off!

If anyone has any tips on how I can get someone to stop leaning on me and leave me alone, without being horrible to them, that advice would be much appreciated! How do I shake someone off?! I don’t want to be horrible, as I said, but I need her to get the hint and thus leave me alone. I feel I’m the last person she should be coming to, for her own good she needs to ask someone else. Especially as I feel I don’t hear her properly. I’m not deaf by any means, but perhaps I do need my hearing tested? Anyway, the fact is that I find her very difficult to hear for whatever reason, but perhaps someone else in the book club hears her perfectly and would be a much better person for her to ask?!

For the common good of the pair of us, I need a bit of help! What can I do to convince her to go to someone else?! How do I let her down gently and let her know I’m not the right person for her inquiries?!

Right, enough about book club stress, and back to other book-related matters… Picked up a few charity shop bargains in Eccles earlier, including The Chrysalids, by John Wyndham, for a mere 10p from the Mustard Tree shop, which is where I used to volunteer a few years ago! Wyndham, of course, is perhaps best known for The Day of the Triffids, the BBC TV adaptation of which, when I was a kid, scared the crap out of me, lol! I did enjoy Chocky, though, when I was a bit older, and that was adapted for a series on Children’s ITV, and I read the book because of that series.

The other bargain purchases were Foundation, and Foundation & Empire, both by Isaac Asimov, both 70p each, and Possession, by A. S. Byatt, at a mere 20p. However, there is supposed to be Prelude to Foundation, which goes before the two Asimov books I acquired.

Actually, Prelude is a prequel, so I guess it might be possible to just read those two, then find a copy of Second Foundation, to complete the trilogy if I enjoy it enough to do so. Anyway, if I ever do get around to trying these books, they certainly would make good Handbag Books! For now, though, I shall get this finished and published so you can have a good read! Until the next blog, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Periodic Tales – Hugh Aldersey-Williams
• Dark Fire – C. J. Sansom
• The Angry Chef – Anthony Warner
• Dead Ends – Erin Lange
• My Turn – Johan Cruyff
• The Chrysalids – John Wyndham
• The Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham
• Chocky – John Wyndham
• Prelude To Foundation – Isaac Asimov
• Foundation – Isaac Asimov
• Foundation & Empire – Isaac Asimov
• Second Foundation – Isaac Asimov
• Possession – A. S. Byatt

 

Me and Earl and the Blogging Girl…

Hello again, fellow Bookworms!

Welcome to yet another blog, and news of yet another book off the OC List! Yep, I have now finished Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, by Jesse Andrews, and can recommend it, especially for anyone who likes humour in their reading matter! As I said a few blogs ago, when I was part-way through this book, I like Greg Gaines, the main character, because he is such a nerd! It’s the same reason I liked Colin Singleton in An Abundance of Katherines, by John Green. Loved that book! So funny! I know everyone blathers on about The Fault In Our Stars, and that is a good book, don’t get me wrong, but I seriously think An Abundance of Katherines is very underrated and ought to receive more attention!

Anyway, The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 1/4 Years Old, is back in my purple Kipling bag ready for Book Club. I hope the others enjoyed it. I certainly did! I shall see if I can find anything at Waterstone’s which I can suggest to the group, although I definitely already have one in mind – The Angry Chef, by Anthony Warner, which I mentioned in my previous blog. I am pretty sure we’ve not done any non-fiction for a while, so I thought I might put it to them, and it is fairly topical. I aim to get there early enough to have a good mooch around the shop and see one or two things which caught my eye. The thing about Hendrik Groen, though, was that I already had it in hardback at home, and I noticed that the paperback had come out and was included in the buy one get one half price offers that Waterstone’s frequently have on, so I picked up a paperback edition and another book, and suggested them at book club, and we ended up going with Hendrik Groen.

I probably could do with us reading a Young Adult book, though, as far as my Ongoing Concerns list is concerned, or I may well end  up having a seventh book on the list. I have just finished Me and Earl, so there is a space on the OC List for another Young Adult novel, but I’ve got 2 general fiction books and 2 non-fiction books on the OC list at the moment. Oh well, what the hell?! I’ll still go for The Angry Chef, I think. We have read young adult books in our book club, and even one or two which are possibly even pre-teen books, such as The Girl of Ink and Stars, by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, which we read last year. We’ve also read Tamar, by Mal Peet, and The Foreshadowing, by Marcus Sedgwick, in recent years, and those are also young adult books.

Before I go any further, I have some news for you all – not got my start date yet, but I shall be back in work soon! Had an interview on Monday morning for an Admin Officer post, and they phoned me back at lunchtime that day to offer me the job! Woo hoo! I’ve emailed them my references, so I guess the HR department has to sort that out, but I hope to have a start date soon. It will be full time, and it’s fixed term, for the time being, until mid-March 2018. I am sure I can still get some reading done out of hours, though, and get some blogging done, too. It’s in one of the departments of my local council, and involves data input, production of letters, and taking minutes at meetings, amongst other general office duties.

The other thing is, it’s Monday to Friday, 8:30am to 4:30pm, and thus my weekends are free for my brass band practice and for going to matches – the new Premier League season starts this weekend, and we’re at home to West Ham United on Sunday! Giving some thought as to shirts… I quite like the black away one this season, and it’s also a matter of deciding whose name and number to have on the back of it. Right now, I’m thinking it’ll be either Henrikh Mkhitaryan, or Juan Mata. Yeah, I’ve got a thing for attacking midfielders with surnames beginning with M, lol!

Names and squad numbers on the backs of shirts first started in the Premier League during its second season, 1993-94, and in the 90s, I had two home shirts with CANTONA and 7 on the back, both signed by the King! Then King Eric retired. After that, I didn’t have anyone’s name or number on the back for absolutely ages, until 2012-13, when Robin van Persie was leading us to our 20th league title! So, in recent years, I’ve had v. PERSIE 20, SCHWEINSTEIGER 31, and IBRAHIMOVIĆ 9, on the back of my shirts. I also have a Dutch home shirt with v. PERSIE 9 on the back of it. My next decision is probably going to be between MKHITARYAN 22 or MATA 8. An Armenian or a Spaniard will join the roll of honour alongside the existing Frenchman, Dutchman, German and Swede!

Charity shop bargains to report now, and I picked up the fourth Percy Jackson book the other day, Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labyrinth, by Rick Riordan, so I now have all four books in that series. I could possibly consider Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief for the YA vacancy on the OC List, but we’ll have to see. I shall have to have a good thunk, lol!Also picked up Unconventional, by Maggie Harcourt, so another YA book for the TBR list and possibly the OC List!

So, with Me and Earl finished, Periodic Tales returns to the top of the OC List. 72% read, I should perhaps get on with that. I’m enjoying it, but, because it’s non-fiction, and about chemistry, it’s not the fastest of reads for me. However, I’m not exactly that far from the end now. Neither Here Nor There is at the halfway stage exactly, and The Beach Hut is just over a third of the way in, at 35%. A Quiet Kind of Thunder is at 16%, but I have only recently started that, as I have with Dark Fire, but really need to get on with that to get it to the 10% and get it on the OC List officially. What I feel I should do is have some intense reading sessions with Periodic Tales (to get that even closer to completion), and both A Quiet Kind of Thunder and Dark Fire to get those further along the way. Then we can look at the Bill Bryson and Veronica Henry books, plus whichever other reading matter we’re adding to the list…

I want to get Periodic Tales OFF the OC List – it has been on for a long time, lol!

Anyway, we shall see what Book Club brings and what I end up reading! If nowt else, it’ll be material for another blog, lol! Until that next blog entry, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Me and Earl and the Dying Girl – Jesse Andrews
• An Abundance of Katherines – John Green
• The Fault In Our Stars – John Green
• The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 1/4 Years Old – Hendrik Groen
• The Angry Chef – Anthony Warner
• The Girl of Ink and Stars – Kiran Millwood Hargrave
• Tamar – Mal Peet
• The Foreshadowing – Marcus Sedgwick
• Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labyrinth – Rick Riordan
• Unconventional – Maggie Harcourt
• Periodic Tales – Hugh Aldersey-Williams
• Neither Here Nor There – Bill Bryson
• The Beach Hut – Veronica Henry
• A Quiet Kind of Thunder – Sara Barnard
• Dark Fire – C. J. Sansom

Beach Huts, Angry Chefs, and Bargain Books!

Coffee, cream cake, and bargain books…

Hello again, fellow Bookworms!

Welcome to another blog entry as August is  upon us which means I’ve been blogging for seven years now! As I think I mentioned recently, I started this blog in August 2010, shortly after I had become an auntie! The other anniversary which will be coming up very soon, this coming week in fact, will be my 10th anniversary of joining Facebook!

Not that I use it much now, but I joined Twitter in early 2009, and I think I joined Instagram some time in either 2011 or 2012. I was certainly still working in Chorlton when I first joined Instagram, so it was definitely before the summer of 2012. I post photos of various things on there, but a lot of them are book-related, I am a regular Bookstagrammer, so if any of you wish to follow me, you can do so. I’m joannedj1973 on Instagram.

Before we go any further, congratulations to Sir Mo Farah, 10k World Champion 2017!

* does celebratory Mobot *

He seemed to do it the hard way, though. Mind you, I’m more than used to seeing United do that, lol! We still need another player, a fourth signing, before the transfer window closes on 31st August, so perhaps it’s time to do some more Gnome vs Book challenges to encourage Mr Woodward to get his arse in gear once again?!

I finished the beach hut bookmark on 2nd August, but the above two photos are from when I was in the process of stitching it. I got ideas from a mixture of charts and motifs. Did consider putting something between the writing and the waves, perhaps a small shell or a crab, or something, but decided not to in the end. I was particularly pleased with the waves. I adapted them from part of a design I found. The row of waves on the chart was slightly longer than what I needed, but I could fit 3 on my design, and they make a nice border at the bottom!

The hut itself was improvised, adding the life ring and panels in the door, plus seagulls above the hut. I chose my own colour scheme, too. Usually, when I “hit the hut”, I am off for a pizza, lol, but I had actually been to a beach hut, hence the theme of the bookmark and my decision to resume Veronica Henry‘s novel.

This photo featuring the finished bookmark and the corresponding novel, The Beach Hut, in which I am now using the bookmark, was put on Instagram, and has been liked by the author herself, Veronica Henry even commenting to say she liked the bookmark! Yay! I have also had likes and responses on Instagram from Keris Stainton, author of One Italian Summer, which I read and enjoyed recently. Authors liking my Bookstagram posts! Woo-hoo! Our Ellie has put in a request for The Beach Hut when I’ve finished reading it, although she’s still reading I Am Zlatan Ibrahimović at the moment. My mum has recently finished reading Red, Gary Neville‘s autobiography, which she had been borrowing from me, and had read outdoors in our garden during some recent nice weather!

The Beach Hut has now been resumed, with a current slight increase to 35%. I have started A Quiet Kind of Thunder, by Sara Barnard, which is at 16%, and has thus been added to the Ongoing Concerns list. I have also started Dark Fire, the second book in the Shardlake series by C. J. Sansom, but as I’ve yet to reach the 10% stage on that one, it will have to wait a little longer to join the list. It will be our book club meeting this coming Wednesday, 9th August, so if I like what we end up reading, that could become a temporary 7th OC, but this list is not going to get out of hand like it used to do.

I also have to remember not to neglect existing OCs. I still need to make progress with Periodic Tales, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, and Neither Here Nor There! I feel there is a particular need to get on with Me and Earl. Perhaps a major YA session is called for, with me focussing on the Jesse Andrews novel, along with making more progress with A Quiet Kind of Thunder.

With Book Club looming, I managed not to buy anything from Waterstone’s earlier, but I certainly made notes for future purchases! 5 YA novels and one non-fiction book caught my eye, the factual book being The Angry Chef, by Anthony Warner, which is about how so much “information” about foods and diets on the internet is a load of male bovine excrement! Some of the things which online quacks claim are good for us are either harmful or, at best, not doing us anywhere near as much good as their supporters make out! There is a review on the front of the book from Jay Rayner, whose book, The Ten (Food) Commandments, I read towards the end of last year when I could only manage non-fiction books after my epic Book Hangover which I suffered once I’d finished A Little Life! I might see if the rest of the book club can be convinced to give The Angry Chef a go – I’m pretty sure it’s been a while since we did some non-fiction.

I still intend to get around to resuming Manchester, England, by Dave Haslam, though. It is definitely on the agenda once a non-fiction book comes off the OC List! That has not changed.

However, just because I didn’t buy anything at Waterstone’s does NOT mean I did not purchase any reading matter! On the contrary, I picked up these two bargains for 20p each from the bargain basket of the Salvation Army charity shop in Eccles! At only 20p, I thought I’d give The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair, by Joël Dicker, a chance to join my TBR list at the very least, lol! The other book, Cross My Heart & Hope To Spy, by Ally Carter, is the second in the Gallagher Girls series about the spy school, so I was particularly chuffed to pick that one up for only 20p! Epic Win!

Well, I am off to attend to my reading matter, so that’s about all for now! Until the next blog, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• The Beach Hut – Veronica Henry
• One Italian Summer – Keris Stainton
• I Am Zlatan Ibrahimović – Zlatan Ibrahimović
• Red – Gary Neville
• A Quiet Kind of Thunder – Sara Barnard
• Dark Fire – C. J. Sansom
• Periodic Tales – Hugh Aldersey-Williams
• Me and Earl and the Dying Girl – Jesse Andrews
• Neither Here Nor There – Bill Bryson
• The Angry Chef – Anthony Warner
• The Ten (Food) Commandments – Jay Rayner
• A Little Life – Hanya Yanagihara
• Manchester, England – Dave Haslam
• The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair – Joël Dicker
• Cross My Heart & Hope To Spy – Ally Carter

July Review

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Well, I forgot the tick on my wipeboard, but The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 1/4 Years Old has now been read, and I would love a sequel! Think of Adrian Mole, but imagine him as an elderly Dutch guy in an old folks’ home in Amsterdam with all his aches and pains, and various grumbles, plus a sense of adventure!

So, I have finished three entire books within the course of this past month, with Hendrik Groen’s completion following on from One Italian Summer and Dissolution which were both finished last week. During the course of 2017 so far, I have read, or at least finished off, 34 books, meaning I am 4 books over my Goodreads Challenge target of 30, which I met in May, and I feel July has been very productive on the book front!

I have read at least 50 pages of each of the six books I have read during the course of July, with Me and Earl and the Dying Girl needing more reading done on it. Only read 50 pages of that one, but with reading Dissolution, the first of the Shardlake series, that was 443 pages, so that was the most for any book I read this month. As I am listing these books here, they will not be listed at the end of the blog, although other books will be mentioned.

One Italian Summer – Keris Stainton. 241 pages. (Read whole book)

Dissolution – C. J. Sansom. 443 pages. (Read whole book)

The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 1/4 Years Old – Hendrik Groen. 376 pages. (Read whole book)

Periodic Tales – Hugh Aldersey-Williams. 88 pages read in July.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl – Jesse Andrews. 50 pages read in July.

Neither Here Nor There – Bill Bryson. 92 pages read in July.

Total number of pages read in July: 1,290

My current distraction from reading, but July has been a good month for books!

Wow! That’s a lot of pages! After June, which wasn’t all that productive, I feel July has been a great month on the book front! Probably because I felt I had to do something while waiting for United to sign players in the transfer window, lol! Therefore I got a lot of reading done between breaking news on Sky Sports News! We have signed Romelu Lukaku, of course, and now Nemanja Matic, but the fannying about from our chief exec, Ed Woodward (aka The Gnome), was getting a bit much at times, and doing my head in, so I had to escape into a few good books while I waited for him to get his arse in gear and get signings done and dusted!

(We did also sign Victor Lindelof, but that was in June, so I’m dealing more with July’s events in this blog!)

I think this is something like my 166th book blog, but I know some things for sure. I now have 61 followers, 60 on WordPress, plus 1 via email, so thanks very much to all of you who brave my waffle on a regular basis in the hope that I mention something to do with books! The vast majority of my blogs on here are about books, but there have been one or two occasions when only one or two books have been mentioned because something has happened for me to bring up a particular news event. I am pretty sure that’s not a common thing, though. I remember having a rant at the chavs responsible for the arson and looting in 2011, and I also posted my Manchester La La La blog entry in May this year after the bomb at the Arena. I still did get a couple of book references in each of those blogs, though, but I hope you understand these things had to be said and that you knew I would get back to matters of a literary nature!

(The blog covering the arson and looting rant was in September 2011, I think, and was called If They Steal Any Books, They Might Even Learn Something! It’s either August or September’s archive from 2011, anyway, should you wish to look up that blog and have a read of it.)

This month also saw the Book Benches appear around town, and they are on display up to 10th September. For those wishing to see them, they are indoors at their various locations, such as Central Library, the Arndale Centre, Manchester Cathedral and the National Football Museum. There are also many others to find! Not just in the city centre, but also dotted around various suburbs of Manchester!

My niece, the Junior Bookworm, celebrated her 7th birthday this month, so I stitched her a cross-stitched bookmark. It is currently keeping her place in one of her books.

So, let’s get on to the Ongoing Concerns as July comes to an end. Early this month, as you may recall, I decided it was time for the OC Overhaul, and booted a few books off the list. It was actually a matter of being fair to those books as they hadn’t been read for ages, and were being overlooked and overtaken. I had about 9 or 10 books on the list, but only 3 or 4 of those were being picked up and read, so I had a cull and decided I would have six books, two fiction, two non-fiction and two young adult.

The revised list of six books was Dissolution, One Italian Summer, Hendrik Groen, Periodic Tales, Me and Earl, and Neither Here Nor There. As you know now, the first three of those books have been read, so that leaves  us with three to be continued as we head into August…

Periodic Tales – Hugh Aldersey-Williams

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl – Jesse Andrews

Neither Here Nor There – Bill Bryson

The new OC List as we head into August…

Two of those are non-fiction, with Me and Earl being Young Adult, so we need two general fiction books and one young adult one to get the OC list back to the half dozen. One of the general fiction books I am adding is The Beach Hut, by Veronica Henry. As that one is already 34% read, it can go straight on the OC List. It is over 10% read. The other two books are Dark Fire, by C J Sansom, the second Shardlake novel, of which I will need to read 58 pages to get to 10%, and A Quiet Kind of Thunder, by Sara Barnard, 31 pages of which should see me reach 10% and I will thus be able to add it to my OC List. With those two, of course, it all depends on that first ten percent, and whether it grabs me enough to continue!

If, for any reason, I am not enjoying them, I will have to reconsider matters, but I feel confident that I will enjoy these books.

Before I finish, a couple of mentions for some books acquired recently. As I went to the Lake District last week, I picked up The Shepherd’s Life, by James Rebanks, which had been a bit of a word-of-mouth surprise best-seller a year or so ago if I recall rightly. It’s from a shepherd in the Lake District, so it’s local to that area. Yes, there were also magnets purchased, lol, and some necessary Kendal Mint Cake! Had to be done! Today, I was just out and about locally to me, though, and picked up a 20p bargain from one of the charity shops on Salford Precinct, the book in question being The Food of Love Cookery School, by Nicky Pellegrino. It’s set in Sicily, it’s about food, and it was a mere 20p, so I decided to risk it for a biscuit!

Well, that’s about it for this month on the book front, I think that’s all my news for July, so as we head into August, I shall finish this off and get it published, so until next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry (other than the original 6 OCs)

• The Beach Hut – Veronica Henry
• Dark Fire – C. J. Sansom (Shardlake #2)
• A Quiet Kind of Thunder – Sara Barnard
• The Shepherd’s Life – James Rebanks
• The Food of Love Cookery School – Nicky Pellegrino

Situations Vacant

Hello again, fellow Bookworms!

Welcome to yet another blog as you get to see the shortest OC List I think I have ever had, lol! We are down to just FOUR books on the Ongoing Concerns list at present, as the two books in the above photo have been finished this week and joined the ranks of the Goodreads Challenge for 2017! I have read, or at least finished off, 33 books this year, so that’s 33/30 as I met my challenge target in May.

I know we have the rest of today to go, still a few hours left as I type, and then another three days of July, but as we’re nearing the end of the month, I was doing some adding up earlier…

I have finished One Italian Summer, which I started and finished in July. That was 241 pages long.

I have just finished Dissolution earlier today, again a book I started and finished within this month, and that was 443 pages of reading matter…

I am just over halfway with The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 1/4 Years Old, and have thus read 190 pages of that so far, all of those pages in July.

Of my other three Ongoing Concerns, I have read at least 50 pages during this month to make some progress on each of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (50 pages), Periodic Tales (54 pages), and Neither Here Nor There (55 pages), bringing the number of pages I have read this month to 1,033 with still some more days to get a bit more done! Plus, as I have mentioned above, I have read two entire books as part of that, plus I have reached at least the halfway stage with another! After the rather lightweight performance on the book front in June, I feel that a lot of reading has been done in July.

I suppose I should thank Ed Woodward for that, useless lazy gnome that he is, because I decided to see how much of certain books I could get through while I waited for him to get his arse in gear in the transfer market! We did sign Romelu Lukaku, of course, although I still reckon that owes a lot more to the persuasive powers of Paul Pogba (how’s that for alliteration, folks?!) than it does to Woodward’s dealings in the transfer market! Agent Pogba – Mission Accomplished! By the way, Paul, if you have any more mates in the football world whom you could convince to join us at Old Trafford, that would be much appreciated, chuck!

Anyway, as I got a couple of books off the list, that means one thing… Time to place a “recruitment notice” for my books, a “want ad” as our friends in the States know them…

VACANCIES! Books Wanted!

Chief Bookworm is looking to add TWO books to her Ongoing Concerns list. Candidates must be either of the General Fiction or Young Adult genres of book, as Joanne has room for one of each on her list. The successful books will undergo a probationary period which involves Joanne reading the first 10% of the book to see if it’s her cup of tea, and then, if successful, they will be added to the Ongoing Concerns list for as long as it takes for Jo to read the rest of the book, after which they will join the other books already on the Goodreads Challenge for 2017!

Actually, I already know the general fiction title, as I am reading the Shardlake series by C. J. Sansom, of which Dissolution was the first book, so we simply move on to the second book in that series, Dark Fire. Thus, one position has now been filled, thank you. Other general fiction titles will have to wait until Hendrik Groen has been completed! As that is my book club book, the next meeting is on 9th August, and I am already halfway through it, the other general fiction books should not have too long to wait until a vacancy becomes available again.

So, I am just recruiting, now, for the Young Adult book which will join my Ongoing Concerns list, and like with any company taking people on, you have to draw up some sort of a shortlist from the applicants. I have rather a lot of YA books, as you all know, lol, some part-read, some unread, and I have just drawn up a shortlist of 6 for serious consideration… Five of these have already been mentioned during the course of this year’s blogs, but there is one relatively new title to add to the mix, that being Love & Gelato, by Jenna Evans Welch. I was attracted by the cover, plus the fact I’d just finished and loved One Italian Summer, so the idea of another YA book set in Italy appealed to me.

I am still thinking A Quiet Kind of Thunder might be my next one. I bought that at the same time as I bought One Italian Summer, and, as I mentioned previously, it features a deaf character as one of the protagonists and thus there is a lot of BSL throughout the book! A chance to brush up on some sign language!

The Upside of Unrequited is actually the only one of the six which has previously been on the OC List. As and when I decide to resume that one, it has already exceeded 10%, but the other five are unread. All The Bright Places and Dumplin’ have been around here for a while, on the notorious TBR List, waiting to be read, but When Dimple Met Rishi was a recent recommendation from a member of staff at Waterstone’s Deansgate, and I purchased that one the other day, along with Love & Gelato.

Anyway, I thought I would put things out to you, see if you had any recommendations, and which of the six books I have shown in the photo should be added to the OC List first. After all, I have 61 followers now, 60 of you lovely people on this blog, and one following by email apparently, so I want you to feel involved! As long as there’s no spam, I’m happy for people to comment on my blogs. It shows you’ve read it and you have some thoughts on the matters I have raised!

And sometimes I need some help when choosing books! Like right at the moment, lol! I am often spoilt for choice, I have so many books and I don’t always know which one to read next! So, if you want to assist me with my “recruitment process” for my next YA book to be added to the Ongoing Concerns, I would appreciate that very much! This is about all for now, but I shall be back again fairly soon. After all, I will have the July Review to do shortly! In the meantime, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• One Italian Summer – Keris Stainton
• Dissolution – C. J. Sansom
• The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 1/4 Years Old – Hendrik Groen
• Me and Earl and the Dying Girl – Jesse Andrews
• Periodic Tales – Hugh Aldersey-Williams
• Neither Here Nor There – Bill Bryson
• Dark Fire – C. J. Sansom
• Love & Gelato – Jenna Evans Welch
• A Quiet Kind of Thunder – Sara Barnard
• The Upside of Unrequited – Becky Albertalli
• All The Bright Places – Jennifer Niven
• Dumplin’ – Julie Murphy
• When Dimple Met Rishi – Sandhya Menon