One More Night…

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

In two weeks’ time, Chief Bookworm will be halfway to ninety! Yep, yours truly will turn 45 in a fortnight, I’m officially middle-aged, lol! Still a mad bookworm, and it’s book club on Wednesday, but we all know it’s hardly been read. Hoping for better luck with the next book and hoping it grabs me more than North and South. It just didn’t grab. Other books were more enticing. That’s the way it goes with some books. Not everything is going to float your boat, even if you read widely.

Oh, well! On with the show! Got up to the 34% stage of Six Little Miracles at lunchtime today, so we’re a third of the way through Janet Walton‘s autobiography of becoming mum to six baby girls in 1983! I am up to 26% of The Cellist of Sarajevo, so doing fine with that one, too! Twisting My Melon is at 25% and I hope to get more of that read on Sunday on my Kindle when I’m on my way home from Manchester United vs West Bromwich Albion at Old Trafford. Back to the footy shortly, but I shall round off the OC update by mentioning that we’re at 58% with Hawksmoor. I might have been up to that stage the other day, I can’t remember, but I know I am definitely over the halfway point with that one now.

In the top photo, you might see Ready Player One – that’s the audiobook, so it’s a set of 14 CDs. I will eventually put them onto my computer, and then possibly onto other devices, so I can have a listen. Maybe read along, as I do have the paperback, which I did start some time ago. I’m on for page 47, the start of chapter 4 when I’m ready to resume, although I might just let myself be read to. Thing is, I’m not sure what, if anything, to do when listening to an audiobook. Perhaps do some cross stitch? But part of me thinks I should just be listening to it. I am not that used to using them, although I do have a few. I have heard, as well as read, Look Who’s Back, by Timur Vermes, and that’s really good. I can definitely recommend that book! I read it two years ago, it’s on my List Challenges list of books I read in 2016.

Also in that photo, you’ll see a travel guide – I now know I’ll be at work into the summer, and thus I am able to enjoy some time off from it, lol! Well, I will be doing so in a couple of months. The other book, the chunky one, is The Complete Robot, by Isaac Asimov, which is a book of his robot stories. I remember when my dad used to get a monthly magazine called Complete Car, and I used to think it’d be a bit silly if it were called Incomplete Car, lol! Like as though it was missing something… wing mirrors, steering wheel, indicators.. actually, a lot of people seem to drive as though they’re missing their indicators, lol! Many’s the time I’ve been in the car with my mum and we’ve seen at least one dickhead who must think we’re Mystic Meg and Claire Voyant, as they clearly haven’t been arsed to tell us that they wish to turn left or right!

Enough ranting about drivers from the Stevie Wonder School of Motoring, lol, and back to other matters! Obviously, besides being chuffed about booking jollies, the weekend’s footy saw my lads come from behind to win the Manchester Derby 3-2! Apart from the fact that our second half goals came earlier in the game on Saturday than they did almost a quarter of a century ago, there are a lot of comparisons with our 3-2 comeback victory at Maine Road on 7th November 1993 when two goals from Eric Cantona and one from Roy Keane saw United overhaul a 2-0 half-time deficit to come back across town with all three points! This time it was another Frenchman, Paul Pogba, who bagged the brace, before Chris “Mike” Smalling scored what turned out to be our winner at the Etihad.

I was in the Trafford Centre while the derby was going on across town, and thought the lads were just throwing it away when they went two goals down in the first half, so I buggered off into Waterstone’s to look at books and take my mind off the footy, plus I needed a travel guide, of course, having a holiday to prepare for. When I came out of Waterstone’s and bothered to glance at my mobile, fearing the worst, we were into the second half and on level terms, 2-2 thanks to Monsieur Pogba. Merci beaucoup, Pog! I headed for the O2 shop to look at mobile phones in a much better mood, lol!

I’ve had my current one for nearly 4 years now, having got my Sony Xperia Z2 in July 2014, so I had been entitled to an upgrade for some time, and I went in to have a word with the staff and get their advice. I decided on the Sony Xperia XZ1, and the guy in the shop said to phone up customer services, which I did today after work, and they could get me some money off my new tariff, which they did, and I collected my phone after I’d been to the gym for a bit…

The only thing is that I feel like I’m in some technological fairy story… Goldilocks and the Three Sims! My sim card for my current phone won’t fit in my new one! I need an even smaller sim, which I am going to sort out at the phone shop tomorrow. So I tried some previous phones, but the sim bit in those is too big for the current sim! Eventually, I managed to get the damn thing back in my current phone, so we have an operational mobile, which I will be using as my main phone for one more night, as Phil Collins once sang, lol, hence the title of tonight’s blog.

Got a couple of charity shop acquisitions earlier, having popped in to the Headway shop on Swinton Precinct after work. The Giant Book of Science Fiction Stories, edited by Isaac Asimov, written by numerous different authors, and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, by Philip K. Dick. Alongside the books, you can see my new phone. Hopefully, it will be working and fully operational by this time tomorrow night!

The City & The City started on Friday, although, typically, I’ve not got around to watching it yet. Need to do so, really, before this Friday. At least I am ahead of the game for something coming up later this year – I read an article on Facebook the other day which said that the BBC have adapted The War of the Worlds, and it will be on telly in the autumn! Not like me to be ahead of things, lol, but for once I will be as I read the H. G. Wells novel earlier this year!

I think that’s about it for now, though, I’m pretty sure I’ve told you all the news there is to know, lol, so until next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell
• Six Little Miracles – Janet Walton
• The Cellist of Sarajevo – Steven Galloway
• Twisting My Melon – Shaun Ryder
• Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd
• Ready Player One – Ernest Cline
• Look Who’s Back – Timur Vermes
• The Complete Robot – Isaac Asimov
• The Giant Book of Science Fiction Stories – Various (Edited by Isaac Asimov)
• The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch – Philip K. Dick
• The City & The City – China Miéville
• The War of the Worlds – H. G. Wells

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Twisting My Melon, Man!

Hello again, fellow Bookworms!

April is here, 3 weeks to go until Chief Bookworm reaches the grand old age of 45, lol, and we already have a book finished this month, as I decided to plump for another book in the brilliant Horrible Histories series! Bit of a jump in time from The Slimy Stuarts, which I read last month, but I thought we’d get April under way with The Vile Victorians! So that is my 16th finish of the year, with more books to come. The Horrible Histories series is written by Terry Deary, by the way. I actually went to a Horrible Histories event some time ago now, at the Imperial War Museum North on Salford Quays – as I recall, it was the Frightful First World War event. Possibly around 10 years ago in 2008 to mark 90 years since the end of World War I, but don’t quote me on that. I do know there’s a photo album of mine on Facebook from that event, and I have a tin hat on in one of the photos!

Right then, enough about the Horrible Histories for now, although I’m pretty sure there’ll be more about that series in future blogs! Saturday saw me at Old Trafford for United v Swansea in the Premier League, which we won 2-0 thanks to goals from Romelu Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez, and as I had finished my previous match day ebook, The Man in the Middle, by Howard Webb, I needed to find something else suitable on my Kindle for the journey home, and I found it in Twisting My Melon, the autobiography of Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays fame! He’s from round this way, he’s a fellow Red, and I had already started this book a while ago, so I decided I would resume matters and this is now my main ebook, particularly for home matches, although I might read it even when I’m not off to watch the lads.

Weirdly enough, I was in town last week, having gone to get my bus and tram pass sorted, and having done that, and done a bit of retail therapy, I was eating at Wagamama and they played “Step On” by the Happy Mondays, which includes that bit “You talk so hip, man, you’re twistin’ my melon, man!” and was in the charts back in the summer of 1990 when I was 17 and at Eccles College, halfway through my two year A Level courses! Took me right back to all that Madchester rave on stuff in my late teens! Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, James, Inspiral Carpets… all that malarkey… and, of course, New Order teaming up with the England squad for “World In Motion”, one of that year’s number ones and one of the best footy records ever!

Actually, when England came 4th at that summer’s World Cup in Italy, that was the best they’ve ever done in my lifetime! It’s still the best they’ve ever done in my lifetime, and I can’t really expect them to do ‘owt  in this year’s World Cup because they’re a bit too shite these days (shite being a technical term, of course) and I suspect they’ll be home before the postcards, as the saying goes!

Right at the end of last month, although I hadn’t quite managed it in time for that final blog in March, I finished the red bookmark in the middle of the above photo. I then got the Space Invaders one stitched before we were into April. I just decided to look up patterns for space invaders on Pinterest, and then used my iPad to refer to the charts as I stitched a few and ended up making it look like a little game in progress! I stitched my initials and the year to look like a high score. My geek is showing, yes I know! Then again, I have read a few science fiction books already this year and plan to read a few more. I might even resume Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline, which is here by Computer Corner. I think it’s actually a film now – most books get made into films these days. I’ve not been to the cinema for donkey’s years, though! I can’t even remember which was the last film I went to the flicks to see!

It’s not that I don’t like films. I do, and sometimes I see a trailer on telly or Facebook for a film, and think “That sounds really good”, but then I never get around to going to see it! Even with TV dramatisations, it’s the same – I recorded The Miniaturist on my Sky+ box at Christmas and it’s still there, not yet watched! That’s the Jessie Burton novel, in case you were wondering. As I mentioned in the last blog, The City & The City, by China Miéville, is being broadcast as a TV series starting this coming week, I think, so I might record that. Whether I will get around to watching it is another matter, though, lol! About the only thing I’ve been watching lately is Masterchef!

That must have been going donkey’s years by now! Originally, it used to be presented by Lloyd Grossman, who had a seriously annoying voice! A good one for ripping the piss out of in comedy sketches, though! He also used to present Through The Keyhole. Not sure how long Masterchef has been going in its current format and with current presenters but a good few years now, I reckon, as I’ve been watching it now for around 4 years or so, I think. I like Greg Wallace and John Torode, the current presenters. You know you’ve been watching it a few years when you remember previous winners and finalists when they come back in for the current contestants to cook for!

Enough about cookery shows, or I’ll just make myself hungry!

 

Nothing quite like a good book on a rainy day!

Junior Bookworm then and now

You won’t be terribly surprised to learn that I bought my niece and nephew a couple of books each for Easter. They both love books, and Charlotte has been known to read to Reuben. She loves books so much she can barely wait until she gets out of the bookshop to start reading her latest purchases! Definitely taking after her auntie!

Charlotte just outside her natural habitat… This was a few days ago. Good Friday, I think. Charlotte needed an eye test, so Ellie took her and Reuben off to the Trafford Centre, and as well as the optician’s, there was a visit to Waterstone’s, and Charlotte was so keen to get started on her latest purchases that she sat down and started reading as soon as she’d got out of the shop!

Anyway, just over a week to go to book club, but as you already know, North and South has been put on hold. I may resume it some time in the future. On the other hand, I might not. We can, however, safely say that it is nowhere near finished, barely started in fact, and thus I’m just going to have to admit it’s not my thing come next Wednesday, and hope that our next choice of book is more appealing.

At least I DID make some progress with Hawksmoor! The Peter Ackroyd novel is now 58% read, so we are over halfway with that now. I might as well make some more progress with that before book club, as well as continuing Six Little Miracles, about the Walton Sextuplets. My sister has asked to borrow that one once I’ve read it. That one’s at 22% and Twisting My Melon is currently at 25% – not done too badly over Easter with the books and bookmarks! Been quite a productive long weekend!

That’s about it for now, then. I think we’ve had all the news on the book front. So, I shall now get this finished off and published, and you can have a good read of where I’ve got up to over Easter when I’ve not been scoffing chocolate or hot cross buns, lol! Until next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• The Slimy Stuarts – Terry Deary
• The Vile Victorians – Terry Deary
• The Frightful First World War – Terry Deary
• The Man In the Middle – Howard Webb
• Twisting My Melon – Shaun Ryder
• Ready Player One – Ernest Cline
• The Miniaturist – Jessie Burton
• The City & The City – China Miéville
• North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell
• Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd
• Six Little Miracles – Janet Walton

E-Readers, Dutch Books, and Eye Tests

Hello again, fellow Bookworms!

Last week of March coming up, and I got another book finished off on Friday night, my first e-book finish of the year. I had originally meant The Man In the Middle, by Howard Webb, to be my match day ebook for journeys home from Old Trafford, but I got so into it that I decided I couldn’t wait between home games and just got on with it! Does mean I’ll have to choose a new ebook for the home game against Swansea City on Easter Saturday, lol, but it’s another book on my Goodreads Challenge list – I am now up to 14/30 and if I can get another book finished off before March ends, I will be halfway to my target after just three months of this year! It would also maintain my consistent rate of 5 books a month so far in 2018.

I hadn’t read the book on the way home from the FA Cup 6th round victory over Brighton and Hove Albion because I was too bloody freezing after that game! It wasn’t just that it was snowing big time, but also that it was unbearably, bitterly cold, and the football was shite (a technical term that I need far too often under Mourinho, unfortunately!) so I was so cold and pissed off by half-time that I spent the second half in the concourse watching on the TV screen. We won 2-0 but, really, it was one of those games that we really should have won by a bigger scoreline, and would have done so under a more positive and attack-minded manager – someone who would do things the United way, as opposed to that boring, bus-parking pillock!

I really do hope he gets sacked as soon as possible, so that we don’t lose too many players – he’s pissing everyone off! Even players that he actually bought! Bad enough that he forced out the likes of Wayne Rooney and Bastian Schweinsteiger, who came to OT under other managers (Fergie and LvG respectively), but he’s even falling out with players that he actually signed, and he needs to go ASAP so that our remaining players might be persuaded to stay! I do NOT want a mass exodus of players! The style of play is awful, we’re far too many points behind 1st place and he doesn’t seem to care, and he’s driving players away. He has to go!

So, after the Brighton game, I just needed to thaw out, lol! Coffee was the order of the day when we got back in the car after that match! Hot coffee and plenty of it! Also, it didn’t take us too long to get home, which was another reason why I didn’t get my ebook read on the way home from that game. So I read it the next day instead, at home, and thought “why just reserve ebooks for when I’m coming home from a match?!”

So, I now need a new choice of ebook, and I also need some more non-fiction for my Ongoing Concerns. Talking of ebooks, I found my old Sony Reader device the other day, and have managed to get it recharged and working again! I am not even sure when I got that, or even when I put those books on it! It doesn’t have WiFi, unlike my Kindle, so I can’t download onto that one – I think I had to put them on via USB from my computer. I apologise for the poor picture quality, but I took that photo during Earth Hour yesterday evening and it’s a tad blurred, especially on my Kindle.

What gets me is the variety of books that are on it – and for some strange reason, there’s a couple of books on my Sony Reader which are in Dutch! How on earth did that happen?! I can’t even remember uploading some of those books, let alone the foreign ones, and my foreign languages I can read in (well, read at least a little bit in) are French, German and Spanish! Those are the ones I’ve studied to some level or another, as opposed to picking up little bits and bobs of a language for holidays! I studied French to A Level, and German and Spanish to GCSE, so as long as I have a dictionary handy, I can read a bit in those languages and understand the main gist of it. So I still don’t get why I have two books in Dutch on there! I can work out some Dutch words if they look like German words I know, but even so, I’ve not done a GCSE in the language (I’m not even sure if the language is offered at GCSE level at any high schools), and much as I’ve loved a fair few Dutch footballers who’ve played for United over the years, it still doesn’t explain why there are a couple of Dutch books on my Sony Reader! Even accounting for the fact that, at the time I acquired that particular device, United still had the legendary Edwin van der Sar in goal, it still doesn’t explain the Dutch books!

I got my Kindle in 2011, I won it, and those of you who’ve followed my blog for quite some time might recall the ongoing saga of my Kindle from the summer to about November when I actually received the device! If not, feel free to read the archived blogs from 2011. About August 2011 onwards, I think. Possibly as far back as the July of that year, but certainly August 2011, just before I went on my jollies to Turkey that year. Sometimes I think the battery goes down quite quickly, even though my Kindle is off, and when it is on I usually have it in aeroplane mode unless I am downloading a book and put WiFi on temporarily. Perhaps I need a new model of Kindle? I would have to look into the prices and the specifications of current models of Kindle, though. Transferring the books shouldn’t be too much of an issue, but it would be which device to get.

Looking at the photo from Earth Hour, The War of the Worlds is on both devices, lol! Mind you I read that in paperback earlier this year! Venus In Furs, by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, is on my Sony Reader. I actually read that some time ago, on that device! I mentioned that book on my blog donkey’s years ago, too! Been doing this blog since August 2010, so it was probably around that time. I think I was sticking it to the book snobs at the time, in one of my blogs, and saying that the advantage of an e-reading device if you’re out and about and reading on it, for instance on public transport, is that it is much harder for nosy and judgemental arseholes to know what you’re reading, thus it reduces the risk of snide comments and dirty looks! Essentially, if you want to read erotica on the bus, get an e-reader! Also, if you want to read YA but you don’t want sniffy tossers giving you weird looks for reading “kids’ books”, electronic reading devices are ideal!

Not that it’s anyone else’s concern, of course, but I think there are too many rude and nosy people in the world these days, and they really need to learn to mind their own business! Impertinent bastards! OK, that person on the bus might be reading The Fault in Our Stars when they don’t exactly look like a “young” adult, or they could be reading Fifty Shades of Grey, or The Da Vinci Code. So what?! We all have different tastes in books, we have our different reading abilities, and our favourite genres… No excuse for being a book snob in my mind! I think snobbishness is one of the main reasons which scares some people off reading, which is why I am so against it! I want everyone reading! I want everyone finding at least some books they can read and enjoy reading, so I don’t want snotty bastards getting all judgemental about other people’s choices of reading matter! I couldn’t give a flying shit if a grown adult is reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar on a bus or tram! It’s a damn good book anyway, so I can’t blame them!

I especially don’t blame them as I have got until 11th April to make any semblance of progress with North and South, but I’m not feeling it. There are just other things I’d rather read than classic literature! Even though I have read one or two classics when I’ve not had to, I guess it still does remind me of when I have had to read such stuff. Just because I have a degree, half of which was in literature, does not mean that I find “classics” any easier than other bookworms who didn’t take their education to that level! They can still be dry, dull and hard to get into, even for graduates!

Even when I was at school and studying Pride and Prejudice, it took me a while to warm to it! Things which were a big deal in Jane Austen‘s day just seemed like a big fuss over nothing important to me! I was reading this book in around 1987-88, thus around 30 years ago now, when I was 14 going on 15, and the idea that you should have to get married in age order just sounded totally pointless and unnecessary to me! As far as I was concerned, you don’t even have to get married at all if you don’t want to, and who bloody cares if your younger sisters tie the knot before you do even if you do get married?! 30 years on, I still feel that way. And as we’re now in 2018, a woman could just as easily fall in love with and marry another woman. I would not see that as a big deal, either. People can’t help who they fall in love with.

So, maybe my reluctance to go back to classics is partly because I really can’t be arsed with some of the backward and pointless ideas of those times!

Back to these times, then, and before we look at the Ongoing Concerns, such as they are, lol, I will now move on to the eye test I had on Thursday afternoon at work. As I have mentioned recently, I am coming up to my 45th birthday, so it shouldn’t really be too much of a surprise that it probably won’t be long before I will either need varifocals or two pairs of specs, one for distance and the other for reading. I have actually had a few chats with other friends who wear specs, and it might be better to have the two pairs, especially as the reading ones will be particularly strong, and it’s not just books I’m reading… I read books, I read stuff on computer screens both at home and at work, and I also read music, particularly when I’m at band on a Saturday morning, so as a musical bookworm and a computer-user, reading glasses might be the way to go when the time comes that I can’t get away with single prescription any more!

So, Ongoing Concerns, and the only one which is ongoing right now is The Word for World is Forest, by Ursula K. Le Guin, of which I have now read 41%. I think I am going to have to put The Chrysalids on hold, and North and South has been relegated from the OC list anyway, as I am not even up to 10% read and my disinclination to read it puts in doubt the likelihood that I’ll ever get up to that much of it read. I am therefore going to focus on the Le Guin novella, and get that finished before this month is out, and maybe find some other short books! Perhaps make a bit more progress on Hawksmoor, seeing as my book club book isn’t grabbing me. I’m not abandoning The Chrysalids, and might still retain it as a Handbag Book, but I don’t yet feel ready to resume it after the occasion where Joseph Strorm fuelled such an angry feeling in me! I might just put it to one side and try and resume it some time in the future. Not like I’ve not got other science fiction on the go, anyway, is it?

So, I’ve got science fiction, and historical fiction (I would class Hawksmoor as historical fiction as it jumps between 1711 and 1985, both of which are some time ago now, even the 1980s, lol!) but I need some non-fiction and another ebook for reading in the car after football matches when we’re stuck in the Old Trafford car park or in a post-match traffic jam in Trafford Park! I will try to sort something out by the next time I blog, which will probably be the monthly review next week, but until then, I think that’s about it for now, so take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• The Man In the Middle – Howard Webb
• The War of the Worlds – H. G. Wells
• Venus In Furs – Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
• The Fault In Our Stars – John Green
• Fifty Shades of Grey – E. L. James
• The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar – Eric Carle
• North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell
• Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
• The Word for World is Forest – Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Chrysalids – John Wyndham
• Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd

Outside of a Dog…

Year of the Dog. Photo courtesy of my friend Charity on Facebook. 🙂

Hello again, fellow Bookworms!

Kung Hei Fat Choi! Wishing all my followers happiness, prosperity and plenty of good books in the Year of the Dog, which has started today! As I had mentioned earlier this month, this is the Dog Blog to celebrate Chinese New Year, so I will be mentioning some books with prominent canines, and also a few others on a generally Chinese theme. There’ll also be some of the usual stuff, such as updates on the Ongoing Concerns, and mention of the Winter Olympics, where Team GB are now on the medal table in PyeongChang, I’m pleased to say!

Can’t say the Year of the Dog has got off to the best of starts for me, though, I seem to have another cold, a bit “ruff” you might say, and I’ve not seen one of my best online friends on FB yet today, so I hope she’s OK and whatever is causing her not to be online is resolved as soon as possible. I hope she’s not ill, and perhaps it’s a power cut or an internet problem.

So, then… On with the dog books, before you all go barking mad, lol…

By the way, the title of this blog, as you may have guessed, comes from quite possibly my all-time favourite quote, which is a classic from Groucho Marx…

Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend.

Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read!

K9 on Doctor Who (early 80s, at a guess)

So, there you have it! And let’s take a look at some books with notable four-legged friends of the canine variety, or even K9 if you’re a robot dog, like the one on Doctor Who years ago when I was a kid, lol! One of the obvious dog books is Marley & Me, by John Grogan, about a pooch who requires a fair bit of training. The Call of the Wild, by Jack London, however, sees a dog become a sledge dog up in the frozen north! The dog in White Fang, also by Jack London, is part wolf, but we won’t let that stand in the way of his canine credentials on this blog!

The editions of those Jack London books which I found on List Challenges are Puffin Classics, so that indicates they are children’s books, which brings me very neatly on to a dog-filled book for younger bookworms, one my niece recommended to me a few years ago, that being Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy, by Lynley Dodd! I loved this one, so thank you, Charlotte! Harry the Dirty Dog, by Gene Zion, also needs a mention while we’re on children’s books, and I’m sure I read that one when I was younger.

If we’re going to mention classic dog-filled books for younger readers, we have to mention The Hundred and One Dalmatians, by Dodie Smith. Probably best known as the Disney film, but it was a book originally! The Incredible Journey, by Sheila Burnford, sees two dogs, and also a cat, make their way across Canada to be reunited with the family who own them. I admit, I’ve not read those two, but I have most definitely read, and loved, this next one – in fact, it helped get me out of a reading slump back in late 2015…

The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein, is a wonderful book, in which the dog has a huge part to play! It is on the list of books I often recommend. Oh, and, if you recall a blog or two ago, when I was mentioning science-fiction purchases, and I said I was going to save one book to mention in the Dog Blog, well that book is Sirius, by Olaf Stapledon, about a canine with human capabilities.

I also can’t do a dog blog without mentions of There Is No Dog, by Meg Rosoff, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon, Don’t Let’s Go To the Dogs Tonight, by Alexandra Fuller, and Even the Dogs, by John McGregor. I think I’ve given you plenty of dog books and dog-titled books to be getting on with!

As far as Chinese-themed books go, there are plenty around, but after the long list of dog books, I’ll just settle for a few I know well enough to mention. One I enjoyed some years ago now is Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Dai Sijie. There’s The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, centred around Chinese families in the USA, which I half-read at uni years ago. I still have a copy, so I might yet read it properly, rather than having to skim it as I did in the early 90s during my degree course. I also have Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, by Lisa See, which I have yet to read. I actually have the audiobook on my computer for that one, so I could listen to it. There is also Sweet Mandarin, by Helen Tse, a true account of a family who move from China to Hong Kong, and then to the UK, and Helen was born here in Manchester. That one is about food and the restaurant business, so ties in nicely with going out for a meal to celebrate Chinese New Year!

So, after all the dogs, and the Chinese-themed reading material, how are the Ongoing Concerns getting on? Quite well, as it turns out! Russian Winters, by Andrei Kanchelskis, is at 72%, Mort, by Sir Terry Pratchett, is rapidly catching up and is now on 66% as I have been reading that one on my lunch at work and feel I will soon get it finished. Hawksmoor, by Peter Ackroyd, is on 39%, and my book club book, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, by Gail Honeyman, is on 30% already. Really enjoying it, and am amused by the references to Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë – I’ll not spoil things for you, but let’s say that if you are familiar with Jane Eyre, you’ll find some characters’ names familiar if you read Eleanor Oliphant! I read Jane Eyre twice – firstly in my third year at high school (which is now known as year 9), and then again at university, so I was laughing when I got to one particular bit of my book club book and thinking “I know where you got THOSE names from!”

I’m looking to finish Russian Winters and Mort fairly soon, before this month is out, preferably, and also to get on with Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. If I get my book club book read before 7th March, I might read a bit more of Hawksmoor, move it on another chapter. I am enjoying it, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not a quick book to read, and it’s not high up on my reading priorities, really.

Oh, and Not Dead Yet was given back to Sarah yesterday, as I went to Preston to meet up with her and go to the Guild Hall to see Paul Young, supported by China Crisis. Yes, very 80s, which is how we like it, lol! A great night, but a shame about the journey home – damn roadworks on the motorway closing off some of our regular exits, thus we ended up coming off near Prestwich, and thus having to go through Prestwich, into Salford, and eventually chez moi, but it took us about an hour to do so, double the time it usually takes if Sarah’s bringing me home from Preston! It also took her a while longer to get back home, too.

There seemed very little warning, too. Did not expect to be snarled up in traffic so late at night! Not like it was rush hour, or anything! It reminded us of one time when we went to see the Pet Shop Boys at the Apollo, here in Manchester, possibly 2002 or some time around then, and without any warning, the Mancunian Way was shut when the time came to be picked up after the gig! No warning at all that night, either!

Didn’t they do well?! The men’s skeleton medallists with their cuddly toys!

And, before I love you and leave you for now, on to the Winter Olympics, and although I’m not sure if he’s actually received his medal yet, Dom Parsons has put Great Britain on the medal table in PyeongChang by winning bronze in the men’s skeleton! That’s him on the right with the red had and blue coat, proudly holding his cuddly toy tiger with the other medal-winners. The gold-medallist is from South Korea, and that was his local track they were sliding down, so he definitely made home advantage count! I think the guy who got the silver was one of the Olympic Athletes from Russia, in other words a Russian who has been confirmed as drug-free, thus not a cheat, and allowed to take part.

I hope we can get a medal or two in the women’s skeleton. We’re halfway through that as I write. They’ve had 2 runs, and Lizzie Yarnold, the reigning champion from Sochi 2014, is in 3rd, with Laura Deas in 4th, and fractions of a second separating the top 4, so there is a chance for both to improve and both to end up on the podium if they perk up and slide well later!

So, that’s about it for now, as I head off to have another read and a rest, and watch some more action from the Winter Olympics when it starts up again in an hour or so for another day of mad stuff on snow and ice, lol!  I love the snowboard cross – as Christopher Dean described it on the Beeb the other day, it’s a bit like short-track speed skating but on snowboards! If you’ve never seen it, you’re missing a treat! 6 snowboarders go off together on this course, and they often crash into one another! Look it up on YouTube! One of the best events to be added to the Winter Olympics in recent times!

Talking of Christopher Dean, Valentine’s Day was the 34th anniversary of him and Jayne Torvill winning gold for us at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, one of my all-time favourite sporting moments! I still can’t hear Ravel’s Bolero, even the full 17 minute version, without thinking of those two in their purple costumes, on the ice in Sarajevo. That’s what got me into the Olympics! I was 10 going on 11 and I became an Olympic nut thanks to Torvill & Dean in February 1984!

Right, that’s definitely all for now, before I just waffle on about the Olympics, lol! Until next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Marley & Me – John Grogan
• The Call of the Wild – Jack London
• White Fang – Jack London
• Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy – Lynley Dodd
• Harry the Dirty Dog – Gene Zion
• The Hundred and One Dalmatians – Dodie Smith
• The Incredible Journey – Sheila Burnford
• The Art of Racing in the Rain – Garth Stein
• Sirius – Olaf Stapledon
• There Is No Dog – Meg Rosoff
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
• Don’t Let’s Go To the Dogs Tonight – Alexandra Fuller
• Even the Dogs – John McGregor
• Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress – Dai Sijie
• The Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan
• Snow Flower and the Secret Fan – Lisa See
• Sweet Mandarin – Helen Tse
• Russian Winters – Andrei Kanchelskis
• Mort – Sir Terry Pratchett
• Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd
• Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman
• Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
• Not Dead Yet – Phil Collins

Andrei Kanchelskis vs the Martians…

Manchester will be buzzin’ this summer! Look out for giant bees!

Hello again, fellow Bookworms!

Welcome back to the crazy world of my book blogs! I had considered “Andrei and the Martians” as the title, but that sounds like a band name, really, doesn’t it? Like Adam and the Ants, or Florence and the Machine! Prior to book club this evening, Andrei was ahead in the early hours due to getting a fair bit of Russian Winters read yesterday, but I think the Martians overtook him again when I had a read of The War of the Worlds at lunchtime while I was at work! Thing is, the Martians would actually have had a hard job catching Andrei if it was the younger version of him – back in his footballing days he was bloody fast! He was at United from 1991 to 1995 and tied opposition defenders in knots! After we beat Oldham Athletic in the FA Cup semi-final replay at Maine Road in April 1994, the Oldham back four must have had knotted blood!

It was just Stephanie and I at book club again. Some of us have to keep it going! We both enjoyed The Red House Mystery, by A. A. Milne and I had brought a pile of books to the table for whoever else turned up to have a look at. As it turned out, it was just Steph. I’d arrived early and wandered round Waterstone’s looking for anything which took my fancy and which might interest any others. Steph saw Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, by Gail Honeyman, and said she fancied reading that. I did too, I already had the hardback edition at home – got it half price in the January sales at W H Smith’s last month, lol, so we decided on that one and set the next date for 7th March, which is 4 weeks’ time.

As I said, I already had our new book club book, but the books either side of it were bought tonight at Waterstone’s and I also picked up a free bookmark with Moomins on it! Yay! Perhaps something else I should re-read, having re-read Mrs Pepperpot in the Magic Wood a few weeks ago, maybe Finn Family Moomintroll, by Tove Jansson, should be read again, lol! Another book I got when I was in the juniors at primary school, although possibly a bit older than when I read the Mrs Pepperpot book. The Moomins were being shown on Children’s ITV after school at the time, back in the 80s when I was a kid, and I loved it, so when Finn Family Moomintroll ended up as a choice in the book club brochure, I was able to read the stories the animated series was based on. I actually have five Moomin books, so four others besides the one I’ve just mentioned. I got them all when I was a kid, so I’ve had them since I was about 10 or so!

Anyway, getting back to the books I bought tonight, having been distracted by the Moomins, lol, I have had my eye on the Becky Chambers book for a while. I already have The Long Way To a Small Angry Planet, and I am under the impression that A Closed and Common Orbit is the sequel, although it could be a stand-alone. The other purchase tonight was The Lathe of Heaven, by Ursula K. Le Guin. I’ve used a lathe, a couple of years ago now, when I was doing wood turning at Start in Salford. Here we go, I’ll find photos for you…

This is a lathe, for those who don’t know – That round-looking chunk of wood would become a bowl eventually…

That bowl in dark brown wood was what was on the lathe in the previous photo! The barrel tub, trees and the snowman were also made on the lathe.

So, you get science fiction books and woodwork photos, lol! I did warn you that you might see some seriously weird and random stuff on this blog! Mind you, over 70 of you are following the blog these days, so there must be a market for waffly random blogs after all!

As for crafting, I might not have done anything with wood since early 2016, but I am still making cross-stitched bookmarks on occasions, and there are a couple on the go at the moment, including the Penguin one, which just needs finishing touches, really – a bit of backstitching and perhaps a tassle of some sort. I hope to have at least that one finished soon and then I will have a bookmark to show you for the first time in a while. I think the last one was possibly the Manchester bees bookmark, although I also stitched the League Cup Winning Years one, and a few other patterned ones with 2017 on them. There will be a patterned one with 2018 on it fairly soon. Bookmarks thus bring us neatly back to books again.

Prior to book club, I had been trying to get three books read as much as I could. As you may recall, I had finished The Red House Mystery with just over a week to spare before book club, so I was focusing on Russian Winters, by Andrei Kanchelskis, The War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells, and Hawksmoor, by Peter Ackroyd. The latter of those, Hawksmoor, has reached the 39% stage, so we are over a third of the way through it, but as I had suspected, the main battle has been between the other two books, and both of those are over halfway now, with Russian Winters at 53% and The War of the Worlds just ahead on 56% – I am pretty chuffed with that. Two books over the halfway mark. Hawksmoor might take a bit of a back seat now, as I start on Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, my new book club book, but I am still aiming to get Andrei and the Martians finished off this month! I think that is doable!

If you cast your minds back to last month’s blogs and the mention of books for Holocaust remembrance day in late January, I mentioned a book called The Librarian of Auschwitz, by Antonio Iturbe. I made some enquiries about this at Waterstone’s, but it was unavailable. However, I did manage to get it on my Kindle, so I do have it as an ebook, and therefore it is a possibility for a match day book on my way home from Old Trafford! I also looked on my Kindle for another book which I had tried to find last year, but couldn’t manage to find, that being The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things, by Carolyn Mackler, but for some odd reason, the only ebook version I could find was in German! Well, OK, I can read SOME German, but I am not about to go downloading an ebook in the language! I want the book in English, at least first of all!

Sometimes, you just have to go online, as I did when I bought Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie, by Jordan Sonnenblick! I prefer browsing in actual bookshops, but there are times when, like Bono, you still haven’t found what you’re looking for! I was also looking for Crazy Rich Asians, by Kevin Kwan, a week or so ago, as I had seen it on List Challenges lists and on book-related items on Facebook, and couldn’t find that one while browsing, so I may have to look online for that. Drives me nuts when a book is only available somewhere else! Or when you prefer another country’s cover to that of your own country’s edition of a certain book, but don’t start me on that – it was a big complaint of mine the other year, lol!

That actually takes the list of different books mentioned this year up to 100 already! We’re only in early February, and we are in three figures! On that note, I think we’d better call it a day and get this published, so I can have a read, lol! Until next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Russian Winters – Andrei Kanchelskis
• The War of the Worlds – H. G. Wells
• The Red House Mystery – A. A. Milne
• Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman
• Mrs Pepperpot in the Magic Wood – Alf Prøysen
• Finn Family Moomintroll – Tove Jansson
• The Long Way To a Small Angry Planet – Becky Chambers
• A Closed and Common Orbit – Becky Chambers
• The Lathe of Heaven – Ursula K. Le Guin
• Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd
• The Librarian of Auschwitz – Antonio Iturbe
• The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things – Carolyn Mackler
• Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie – Jordan Sonnenblick
• Crazy Rich Asians – Kevin Kwan

Science Fiction and Dutch Pensioners

Hello again, fellow Bookworms!

Here again, with another blog, and this time after a 2-0 win for my lads, at home to Huddersfield Town this afternoon, thanks to second half goals from Romelu Lukaku and our new boy, Alexis Sanchez. We had actually got a penalty, which is amazing enough as it is given what a dreadful, useless ref we had, but the goalie got down and got a hand to it. Thankfully, he didn’t save it, just blocked it, and the ball came back to Sanchez so he put away the rebound. Wonder if we’ve got any of that Chilean wine in? Hmmm…. That Casillero del Diablo stuff, if you’re wondering what I’m on about…

* Chief Bookworm then buggers off down the road to Tesco and ends up coming back with a bottle of said vino (white) and some snacks… *

* raises glass to Alexis Sanchez *

Here’s to many more goals! I could actually also get round to reading that book about the Chilean miners – you remember that? Around the end of 2010, as I recall. The book is called The 33, and it’s by Jonathan Franklin. Now my club actually has a Chilean player, it’s the perfect excuse to get that one off my TBR list at last. I may have to fast track it for when I’ve finished Russian Winters by Andrei Kanchelskis. That’s my current hardback.

However, the hardback I bought the other night may also be in line for an early read, as I read The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen 83 1/4 Years Old last year, and now Hendrik Groen is back with another diary, On The Bright Side, the New Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen! Hence the bit about Dutch pensioners in my blog title! I’ve had a thing for diaries, at least amusing ones anyway, for years, two of my most-read books are the first two Adrian Mole books by the late great Sue Townsend, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 and The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole. We might not have called them Young Adult books back then, but they were, and that’s the YA stuff I was reading when I was a teenager!

Mmmm… that wine’s nice! 🙂

Anyway, I hadn’t expected the Hendrik Groen book. I had gone into town after work yesterday because I needed my  bus and tram pass reloading for another month, and I had said I was going to look for books in Fopp, which I did, and I also got some from Waterstone’s too, before fetching up at Wagamama for food. I ended up with 4 books from the SF Masterworks series, all by different authors, and I am going to mention 3 of them, as one of them will tie in with my intended blog for Chinese New Year, so I will be coming back to that later this month.

Besides the earmarked book for the “dog blog”, my other purchases were The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Sirens of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr, and The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester. I do already have another book from that series at my disposal, on one of my towering piles of books, that being Flowers For Algernon, by Daniel Keyes. However, while we’re on the subject of science fiction, let’s move on to my current read in that genre, and the other two books which are currently my Ongoing Concerns…

Some bad news for Mr Kanchelskis – I’m afraid our Andrei has been overtaken by the Martians, lol! Russian Winters is at 25%, but The War of the Worlds reached 26% the other night and as I have now downloaded the H. G. Wells classic for free on my Kindle (top tip – you can get a load of old classics for nowt as e-books), I was able to read a bit more of it this evening on the way home from the match after our 2-0 win against Huddersfield! I am up to 29% at the moment – my Kindle actually gives progress in percentages. Usually, I work out how many pages I’ve read and divide it by the book’s total to work that out.

I couldn’t read an actual book in the back of the car on the way home at this time of year, it’d be too dark, hence my Kindle comes in handy. We don’t live far away, but it takes quite some time to get out of the Old Trafford car park and then a while longer to get through Trafford Park, so it is worth taking an e-reader to the match! I’m glad I took it to Wembley last year for the EFL Cup Final – on the way back, after our 3-2 victory over Southampton, the reading lights in the coach didn’t seem to be working, so I couldn’t continue with The Pie at Night, by Stuart Maconie, which I had been reading on my way down to the final, and ended up reading Premier League Years 92/93 by Andrew Hyslop on the way back to Old Trafford. Must say, though, that that was the quickest we’ve ever got back from Wembley after a win! The Pie at Night ended up being signed when I met Stuart at Waterstone’s later in the year, along with Long Road from Jarrow, which had just been published when he did his book event on Deansgate.

Hawksmoor, by Peter Ackroyd, is still 3rd, but is up to 23% read now, so not too far behind Andrei’s autobiography. I want to get all three advanced as much as possible bearing in mind that it’s book club this coming Wednesday, and I’ll then have another book to get stuck into!

These were on our seats in plastic bags at the match today – match programme, book and pin badge. Today was the nearest home match to the anniversary of the air crash, the actual anniversary is this coming Tuesday, 6th February, and I will be having a half day at work so that I can finish at lunchtime and go to Old Trafford in the afternoon for the commmemorations.  Not sure the book’s got an ISBN, though, so I’m going to have an issue putting it on Goodreads, possibly. Just because it’s a commemorative book should not mean that it can’t feature on the Goodreads Challenge, though, surely?! A book is a book! If I read it, I should be able to list it, both on Goodreads and List Challenges. We shall see… If not, and I read it, we’ll just have to regard it as an extra book.

In a way it’s a bit similar to that problem I had last year when I got a free book at my book club, but it was an advanced copy, an unedited proof edition of Skintown, by Ciaran McMenamin. I acquired that in either January or February last year, but the book was not published until early April, so I had to wait a few months to find a photo of the cover of the book for List Challenges. I still have yet to read it, though, so it won’t be an issue on Goodreads anyway, but it was an issue for List Challenges – at the time, I found a photo of the author and put that in place on my list, and then replaced it in April with a photo of the cover of the published version!

Anyway, that’s about it for the time being, as I intend to get this published and then enjoy the rest of my glass of wine while watching our 2-0 win on Match of the Day! Until next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• The 33 – Jonathan Franklin
• Russian Winters – Andrei Kanchelskis
• The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen 83 1/4 Years Old – Hendrik Groen
• On the Bright Side – Hendrik Groen
• The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 – Sue Townsend
• The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole – Sue Townsend
• The Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Sirens of Titan – Kurt Vonnegut Jr
• The Stars My Destination – Alfred Bester
• Flowers For Algernon – Daniel Keyes
• The War of the Worlds – H. G. Wells
• The Pie at Night – Stuart Maconie
• Premier League Years 92/93 – Andrew Hyslop
• Long Road from Jarrow – Stuart Maconie
• Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd
• The Flowers of Manchester – Manchester United (commemorative book)
• Skintown – Ciaran McMenamin

January Review – A Solid Start

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Welcome back to the most random blog on the internet, lol! Alright, there’s one more day of January left after today, but I wouldn’t be getting any more books finished than I already have done this month, plus I’ll probably be keeping an eye on the score as my lads are away to Spurs tomorrow evening and it’s Transfer Deadline Day so I’ll be amused by all the last-minute nonsense from other clubs, relaxing in the knowledge that we have Alexis Sanchez from Arsenal and I don’t expect owt else to happen for us until the summer now. If it does, it’ll be an extra bonus, but I’m not expecting my lads to be busy tomorrow in terms of buying new players – as long as the existing players are busy putting the ball in Tottenham’s net and keeping it out of ours, that will do me nicely!

Anyway, books… The year started with me coming down with more Lurgy having thought I’d got shut of it between Christmas and New Year, but I am now finally over it. I finished Hot Milk, by Deborah Levy, in time for the book club meeting, although there was only myself and Stephanie at Waterstone’s due to the amount of bugs going round!

Thus I got my first book of the year read, but it was about a fortnight before I’d be getting more read. However, they’ve come thick and fast in the past week! It started with finishing off the excellent autobiography, Not Dead Yet, by Phil Collins, who turns 67 today, by the way, so Happy Birthday, Phil! Following swiftly on the heels of the legendary Genesis drummer and frontman, I polished off The Time Machine, by H. G. Wells, less than 48 hours later!

I then had an overnight read, a re-read of a childhood book, when I polished off Mrs Pepperpot in the Magic Wood, by Alf Prøysen, which I found lying around in our living room behind our sofa, with a few other books which were a mix of mine and my mum’s from our younger days! I will now be lending Mrs Pepperpot to my sister in case she wants to read it, and perhaps Charlotte might also fancy reading it!

Then, in the wee small hours, I finished off my current book club book, The Red House Mystery, by A. A. Milne, which I quite enjoyed. I’ve read it with just over a week to spare, so I’m quite chuffed. Plus, that means that I’ve finished off 5 books already in the first month of 2018. We can’t take anything for granted, there can be quiet spells on the reading front sometimes, so I still don’t know how many books I’ll end up on by the end of December, but I can say it’s a pretty solid start. This is my 6th blog of the new year, too, hence I wrote 6 on the wipeboard knowing that I intended to blog and to use that photo for this blog! 5 books finished, 6 blogs published by the time you’re reading this, lol, and 1 player signed for Manchester United in the January transfer window!

Sadly, the Grim Reaper seems a bit too busy again this year, and has already claimed a few notable people this year, including science-fiction author, Ursula K. Le Guin, Cranberries lead singer, Dolores O’Riordan at only 46 (hardly much older than me – far too young), former footballer, Cyrille Regis, and the former referee, Paul Alcock, who passed away today at the relatively early age of 64 – probably best known for being pushed over by Paolo Di Canio when he had been sent off for Sheffield Wednesday at home to Arsenal in the 1998-99 season!

Accio Socks! I’m a Ravenclaw, in case you were wondering.

The Hogwarts house socks were from my mum! I just thought I’d mention them as they are book-related and I acquired them this month, so it seemed apt to put a photo in the January Review! I’ve had the Harry Potter FunkoPop for a while now, though. I also have a Charlie Bucket from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – they usually stand in front of my wipeboard.

Well, I originally thought I had two deadlines – my book club deadline, which is 7th February, and I also thought I had 15th February for giving Not Dead Yet back to my friend Sarah. However, as Paul Young’s wife sadly passed away last week, he postponed his February concerts, which will be rescheduled, so I will be hanging on to Phil’s autobiography for a while longer before I hand it back to Sarah. We may arrange to meet up for non-concert reasons, though. There’s always a chance we could meet and go shopping or something, so I will give her the book back at the earliest opportunity. It gives Sarah more chance, if she hasn’t already done so, to read Bruce Dickinson‘s autobiography, What Does This Button Do? She has said she will lend me that one, which I am looking forward to. The Iron Maiden frontman’s book sounds like another fascinating read. He is actually a qualified pilot as well as being a heavy metal legend!

So, 5 books read so far: 1 each for general fiction, autobiography, science-fiction, children’s fiction and crime fiction.

So, now onto the current Ongoing Concerns… All of them are at the early stages of being started, really. None of them near completion, so that’s why I knew I had my January total. Even if I resumed a half-read book and finished that off this year, I didn’t think I had any that were near enough to the end for me to have a quick read and add them to the finished list! I COULD resume Neither Here Nor There, by Bill Bryson, which I was exactly halfway through last year before things all went a bit Pete Tong on the OC front! That would give me a book at 50% to add to Russian Winters, by Andrei Kanchelskis, at 13% and Hawksmoor, by Peter Ackroyd, at 10%. I have made a start on The War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells, so that’s 5% read.

I gave some thought to Sirens, by Joseph Knox, which I mentioned in the previous blog entry – a work of crime fiction set in Manchester, which thus piques my interest enough to read a crime novel, which is not my usual genre. However, part of me thinks that I should just stick to Russian Winters, Hawksmoor, and The War of the Worlds and concentrate on those for the next week or so, while I have the chance. On 7th February, I’ll be at Waterstone’s for the next book club meeting, and will end up with a new book and a new target date, lol, so making progress on three existing fronts seems like the best idea no matter how much I might want to add or re-add books! If I can make significant progress with the reading matter from Messrs Kanchelskis, Ackroyd and Wells, at least one of those should be halfway or better by the time I add my next book club book to the mix!

Was considering if I should do some sort of reading challenge, I was looking at a few last night on the internet, but perhaps the best idea would be to work my way through one of my piles of books, for example the rainbow tower of books! That would give me a good 18-20 books, which would be doable, just working them in alongside book club reads and other books I fancy reading! I could also resume the Shardlake series, by C. J. Sansom, which I started last year when I read Dissolution. I am on for Dark Fire, the second book in the series, and there are 4 more after that – Sovereign, Revelation, Heartstone, and Lamentation. I may be a very random reader, as you no doubt know by now, but I am quite partial to a bit of historical fiction! I like history anyway – I would do – half of my degree was in history! (The other half was in literature, as you also probably know!)

Mentioning the Shardlake series has taken the Books Mentioned list, on List Challenges, up to 73 now, lol!

The other thing I need to do is to resume my cross stitch – especially as I tend to stitch bookmarks, and there is a partially-stitched one which I started last year and which is meant to go well with a classic orange and white Penguin book!

I think that’s about it for now, and books are not going to read themselves, lol, so I shall get this finished and published, and we shall see what February brings… Until the next blog, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Hot Milk – Deborah Levy
• Not Dead Yet – Phil Collins
• The Time Machine – H. G. Wells
• Mrs Pepperpot in the Magic Wood – Alf Prøysen
• The Red House Mystery – A. A. Milne
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
• What Does This Button Do? – Bruce Dickinson
• Neither Here Nor There – Bill Bryson
• Russian Winters – Andrei Kanchelskis
• Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd
• The War of the Worlds – H. G. Wells
• Sirens – Joseph Knox
• Dissolution – C. J. Sansom
• Dark Fire – C. J. Sansom
• Sovereign – C. J. Sansom
• Revelation – C. J. Sansom
• Heartstone – C. J. Sansom
• Lamentation – C. J. Sansom