Good evening, fellow Bookworms!
* singing * Whoa, we’re halfway there… wooah… livin’ on a prayer! Oops! Sorry for goin’ all Bon Jovi there, but I am halfway there with one of my Ongoing Concerns! Yes, folks, Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic, by Simon Armitage, is at the 50% read stage! Woo hoo! The poetry anthology by the current UK Poet Laureate is in the lead when it comes to the books I’ve got on the go at the moment, although some of the others could do with focusing on them.
I say UK Poet Laureate because it seems we’re not the only country to have this position for one of their poets, whereas I had previously thought we were. As I have said in previous blogs, I have met our previous Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, back when I was at uni in the early to mid 90s, she came in to meet our “Recent British Poetry” module class and read to us from The Other Country, including the brilliant “Poet For Our Times” about a headline writer for a tabloid newspaper! If you’re into poetry at all, that one is well worth checking out.
She also signed our copies of The Other Country when she came to uni to read to our group.
Anyway, enough poetry for now, back onto other books, and Slow Rise is heading towards the one-third-read stage, as that is currently at 30% on my Kindle. That’s the one for which I hold BBC Radio 4 responsible, lol!
I need to get on with Bit of a Blur, and Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache, really, but I think the bread-related book on my Kindle will be finished off before I get on with those.
Talking of finishing things off, Freddie just needs a tassel now, put the border on last night. I have also started on a stitchable book – it’s a journal kit with a perforated front on the book, got it from a British Heart Foundation charity shop a while back. It does have a couple of chart ideas, but I have decided to stitch my own design on it, which you will see some time soon. The hard bit, though, is fastening off at the end, when I thread the needle and thread through some existing stitches at the back. Because it’s a cardboard front, it’s actually quite stiff and it’s hard to get the needle through, unlike when I’m stitching on some form of fabric such as aida, evenweave or other such material.
Having recently read The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, I have handed it to Mum to have a read before we give it back to Ellie.
Have had some Book Mail in recent days, still having to get reading matter online at the moment. Book shops are due to re-open here, all being well, on 12th April. Supermarkets do have a small selection of reading matter for adults and kids, but I’m having to resort to t’internet, lol!
My purchases were We Ride Upon Sticks, by Quan Barry, and How to Buy a Planet, by D. A. Holdsworth, which is supposed to be science fiction comedy set a few years from now. There were a couple of other books acquired, too, but you will find out about those in due course as they are for other people in my life.
Just having a look at what I’ve got on my Kindle, besides Slow Rise. As I mentioned it the other day, I may as well let you know that I did decide to download Fall, by John Preston, which is the book about Robert Maxwell that Radio Four had been serialisng the week before Slow Rise.
I’ve still got A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder, by James de Mille on there, and it’s at 21% read, so I could always resume that one. No idea how I came to find out about that, not offhand anyway, but as I mentioned the book in my blogs last year, some of my blogs from last summer or autumn might remind me how I chanced upon that particular ebook! One of those weird little literary discoveries, lol!
Night Music, by Jojo Moyes is on there – think that was a recent Kindle deal for 99p or something, as was Going Green, by Nick Spalding, if my memory serves me well, lol!
Got some non-fiction too, rather obviously, and there’s a couple of science ones here about physics… Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, by Carlo Rovelli, and Storm in a Teacup: The Physics of Everyday Life, by Helen Czerski. I also have a few other Charlie Connelly ebooks I could read, and probably will, including Stamping Grounds and Last Train to Hilversum.
I quite like the popular science stuff, and really enjoyed Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, by Neil deGrasse Tyson when I read that one last year. That’s a physical book, though, not an ebook, and I also have a few other popular science titles, including both Bonk and Grunt by Mary Roach. I read Gulp and Stiff last year, and enjoyed those books.
I also have quite a few books in the Object Lessons series that I’ve yet to read, so I could always return to reading those. The possibilities are endless, especially given the amount of reading matter on my gigantic TBR list, ha ha!
Names for the Sea, by Sarah Moss, is another possibility – something I acquired from Waterstone’s before this most recent lockdown, if I’m not mistaken. It’s about a family’s move to Iceland in 2009 at the height of the financial crisis, and as it’s Iceland, there’s volcanoes, plenty of ‘em, in fact, and the infamous Ash Cloud of 2010, lol!
Actually, Mum and I went to Iceland in March 2010. I will categorically state, however, that the ash cloud was NOT our fault! We did not stand on any volcanoes over there! We stayed in Reykjavik and went to see a geyser, but didn’t go standing on the slopes of any of our lava-spurting chums, lol! I know people have their suspicions about our role in Mount Etna’s big eruption of 2001, as we did stand on her slopes a fortnight beforehand, but we take no responsibility whatsoever for the Icelandic ash cloud 9 years later!
Talking of Etna, she’s still erupting, by the way, in case you needed an update. Still spewing out lava and ash over north-east Sicily.
I think that’s probably it, though, now we’ve had an update on the volcano front, lol, and I will be back again soon with more random waffle about books, cross-stitch, volcanoes and other mad stuff! Until next time, take care and Happy Reading!
Joanne
Books mentioned in this blog entry…
- Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic – Simon Armitage
- The Other Country – Carol Ann Duffy
- Slow Rise – Robert Penn
- Bit of a Blur – Alex James
- Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache – Martin Aston
- The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse – Charlie Mackesy
- We Ride Upon Sticks – Quan Barry
- How to Buy a Planet – D. A. Holdsworth
- Fall – John Preston
- A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder – James de Mille
- Night Music – Jojo Moyes
- Going Green – Nick Spalding
- Seven Brief Lessons on Physics – Carlo Rovelli
- Storm in a Teacup – Helen Czerski
- Stamping Grounds – Charlie Connelly
- Last Train to Hilversum – Charlie Connelly
- Astrophysics for People in a Hurry – Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Bonk – Mary Roach
- Grunt – Mary Roach
- Gulp – Mary Roach
- Stiff – Mary Roach
- Names for the Sea – Sarah Moss
Joanne's Bookshelf 