Good evening, fellow Bookworms!
Welcome to part two of the review of the year, and I can’t believe how near to Christmas we are now. Next Sunday is Christmas Eve! The following Sunday will be New Year’s Eve, but I will do my last blog of the year before then. Anyway, I have done the pressie wrapping today, and it was Mince Pie Sunday for Mum – she has made 78 mince pies.
So sit back, relax after your festive preparations and enjoy a look back at the second helping of annual review. This time we’re looking at May to August and the books I read in those months, plus stuff that happened during that part of the year.
As with last week’s blog, I will not be listing the books at the end of the blog as there are too many to mention, so I will just highlight titles and authors as I go along. Let’s get in the time machine and head back to May when the bunting was up for the Coronation…
Right then, May started off with yours truly on unclebiotics due to an infection, so I couldn’t have any booze while celebrating the Coronation on 6th May as Charles and Camilla were crowned at Westminster Abbey and we got an extra bank holiday on 8th May.
Four books were finished in May, first to be polished off was Not Cool, by Jules Brown, which was about him travelling through Europe during a heatwave, lol! Next up was a book that was published the year I was born, that book being Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. I had it in my mind to do this, read at least one book this year that was turning 50 as I was, and I have done it.
I became an Admin of A Cup of Tea Solves Everything on Farcebook in May so I was finally able to do what I’d wanted to do for years – boot all the spammers out of that group and make it purely about tea again! It had been plagued with spammers for years, posting any old crap and it was annoying the hell out of those of us who wanted it to be for its proper purpose, but it is definitely tea only now! I put the kettle on and had a brew to celebrate!
Not For Me, Clive, by Clive Tyldesley, was finished in this month, as was Ticket to Ride, my second Tom Chesshyre book of the year and the first of his about trains, but not the last, lol!
Liverpool hosted the Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of Ukraine, and it was won by Sweden whose singer Loreen won the contest for her second time, thus putting her up there with Mr Eurovision, Johnny Logan, who won twice for Ireland back in the 80s. Pulp had a post-box topper made of them, and the band later met their yarn-based lookalikes, but there was sad news from the world of music as we lost the legendary Tina Turner, who passed away at the age of 83.
A tennis-themed postbox topper in June to mark the start of Wimbledon, and post-box toppers were very much making headlines in this month as there was even a programme, “Yarnbombers” on the BBC about groups of avid knitters and crocheters who make postbox toppers and other yarn-based decorations in their local areas. It followed in particular a group of yarnbombers in Wales who were making their creations for the Coronation in May.
Early June saw me in town but my iron level was a bit too low to give a pint of O positive to the Vampires on that occasion. I did, however, read Marcus Rashford, by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara, while I was pootling around W H Smith’s so that was the first of five books I read in June. Lakeland, by Hunter Davies, was my next finish and the first of several books about the Lake District that I have read this year.
Following on from reading my first Jules Brown ebook the previous month, I read Don’t Eat the Puffin on my Kindle during June. I then read Ticket To the World, by Martin Kemp, and the fifth book for this month was This is Not Your Stone, by Brett J. Cole, which I read via Facebook, so I am classing it as an ebook.
I was also very happy to discover, in June, that catarrh pastilles were back in Boots again! Yay! Regular followers will no doubt know that I have my ENT issues, and was not a happy bunny for a while when I couldn’t get hold of any catarrh pastilles, either Boots or Potter’s Pastilles. I did get some Olbas ones which put me on, but then the Potter’s ones were available again online and then, to my delight, the own brand ones were back on the shelves in Boots! Yay!
We got a new doorbell in June as the old one, which had sounded a bit drunk at times when the battery ran down, conked out completely. I enjoyed Glastonbury on the telly, particularly the Arctic Monkeys, Guns ‘n’ Roses and Sir Elton John, but we lost former footballer, Gordon McQueen in this month, aged 70.
Days Like These, by Brian Bilston, my ongoing reading for the year, reached the halfway stage towards the end of June, 50% read.
Right, July now, and hold on to your hats, we’ve got a lot of reading matter to get through as I read ten books that month! I was also participating in the Monton Festival as a member of the Mancunian Singers, my first gig as a member of the choir! My niece, Charlotte, was also performing at the festival, as part of the Anthem Music School set.
While I’m on the subject of singing, before I get on to the books, I’d just like to put it out there that the Mancunian Singers are looking for new members of all singing voices, soprano, alto, tenor or bass, and we will be resuming for the new year on Thursday 4th January 2024. We meet in the church hall of Monton Unitarian Church, on Monton Green, from 8:15pm to 10pm on Thursday evenings so if you live in or near Monton and fancy a good sing on a Thursday night, please feel free to come along in January!
Right, enough advertising, time to get on with the books and first up for July was Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw, by Will Ferguson, which I finished on 1st July – appropriately enough as it meant I had finished a book about Canada on Canada Day! Sea Fever, by Meg and Chris Clothier, was next up, then Prince Philip’s Century, by Robert Jobson was polished off after I found it in the book chest.
After that came The Perfect Golden Circle, by Benjamin Myers, one of my rare fiction reads, but a good ‘un – it is set in the summer of 1989 and is about the crop circles that were making headlines that summer in the year Chief Bookworm was sitting her GCSEs and leaving high school, and never needing to use the formula A = pi r squared ever again, ha ha! I have no idea why my brain still retains that information as I’ve not needed it since I last had to do any maths! In 2024, that will be 35 years ago!
Another photo from the Monton Festival, this was my niece singing with Anthem Music School. They were performing before our choir.
Back to the books, and next up was Slow Trains Around Spain, by Tom Chesshyre, the first of two train-related books by this writer that I read in July. Then it was a spot of poetry, Gold From the Stone, by Lemn Sissay, then the joint autobiography of Pepsi & Shirlie, It’s All in Black and White.
Hands of Time, by Rebecca Struthers, was next, and I really enjoyed this one, which was one of those books I have bought and enjoyed because it had previously been a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and I’d listened to an abridged reading of it before “Sailing By” and the Shipping Forecast. She is a watch maker and repairer and her book is a fascinating history of timekeeping and of watches in particular.
My other train-related book by Tom Chesshyre was next to be finished, and that was Slow Trains to Venice, before I reached double figures for July with Bizarre England, by David Long.
Postbox topper to mark the 75th anniversary of the National Health Service. July also brought with it some free wine – yay! One bottle was from choir and the other was from La Turka, and it was the church summer fair at the end of July and Mum and I did well on our stall. I would particularly like to thank Siobhan who bought an absolute LOAD of crime thrillers!
Performance poet, Dr John Cooper Clarke was given the Freedom of the City of Salford in July, but it was a month in which we lost news reporter, George Alagiah, and two from the world of football on the same day, former player and manager, Trevor Francis, and former player Chris Bart-Williams, aged only 49. He had played under Trevor Francis in the 90s when they were together at Sheffield Wednesday.
And so to August, in which five books were finished off, I was on more unclebiotics early in the month, so I had to stick to mocktails when Mum and I went on our short break to the Lake District, the now-annual visit to Bowness on Windermere during which I stocked up on fudge and Kendal Mint Cake to the surprise of absolutely no-one, lol! We even went to Kendal for the day and visited the gift shop at the Romney’s factory where the mint cake is made!
Safety in Numbers, an anthology of poetry by Roger McGough, was the first book finished in August, followed by Treasure Islands, by Alec Crawford – this should not be confused with the classic novel, as this book is non-fiction and is about diving for valuable bits from shipwrecks off the coasts of islands, and does not involve any pirates, parrots or treasure chests, lol!
Kendal History Tour, by Billy F. K. Howorth, was next up, a result of our recent trip to the Lakes and the home of the mint cake, lol! After that, I read Itchy Feet & Bucket Lists, by Emma Scattergood, who was on a world tour with her husband during 2019-2020. They are Aussies, and they had managed most of their tour before the pandemic, and after they had been here in the UK, they were sailing back home to Oz by way of a cruise and they did manage to get back home before Australia locked down due to coronavirus but the cruise itinerary had to change a little as parts of the Far East had already shut down so they couldn’t stop off there on their way back down under.
Fifth book finish for August was Wham! George & Me, by Andrew Ridgeley, a really good read and it brought to an end a chain of autobiographies linking Spandau Ballet, Pepsi & Shirlie and Wham!
Mum and I went to Chester towards the end of August for another short break. Thankfully, I wasn’t on any unclebiotics this time so I could have a drink, lol! We had afternoon tea at the Chester Grosvenor Hotel and the above photo is only half of the epic fish butty that was part of my deluxe gentleman’s afternoon tea! This particular sandwich was a crispy fish fillet in a bloomer with mushy peas and tartare sauce. It was HUGE!
The trip to Chester also meant that my travel journal was full! I have prepped my orange Oops a Daisy “Into the Wild” journal to be my next travel journal for future jollies and short breaks. I also decided, in August, to start up a choir journal to keep a record of what songs we have sung at rehearsals.
August is of course this blog’s anniversary month, 14th August marked my 13th year of typing and publishing this waffle, ha ha, but over the years, as my blog has become a teenager, albeit without the zits, it has managed to attract a loyal following, so thank you to all 173 of you for reading this vaguely book-related nonsense around four times a month on average!
Oh and, before we leave August and return to the present day, there’s the matter of two of my former colleagues from my civil service days, Colin and Steve, winning the jackpot on Pointless! Apologies that the photo is a tad blurred, but I had to pause my Sky+ box and take a photo on my iPad. These two guys were amongst my workmates during my ten years of working in town at Albert Bridge House. Not only did they win the jackpot, they won a bonus for getting three pointless answers in the final!
Days Like These reached the 67% read stage right at the end of August.
Right, so that now brings us neatly back to 17th December and so we only have September to December to go, so what will happen is that I will fit in September to November before Christmas, and then do December in a blog after the 25th so that if there are any books as pressies, I can mention those and I can bring you up to date on this month.
So, the next part of the review will include three months of events and books, and there might even be a quiz! I came up with something a month or so ago, a quiz about music and events from 1973, so I might include that so you can see how much you know about half a century ago when Chief Bookworm was born, lol! It is traditional to have a quiz at Christmas, after all! So, until the next blog, take care and Happy Reading!
Joanne x x x
No book list as it would be way too long, lol!
Joanne's Bookshelf 