Twelve Years a Blog: The Anniversary Special!

Hello again, fellow Bookworms!

We have to have some cake, it’s the blog’s anniversary today, hence the pile of books cake above! Twelve years ago today, I published my first book blog entry, wiffling on about whether I should get an e-reader device. Here we now are at 14th August 2022 and I have had a Sony E-Reader and three Kindles since then, lol!

Not only are they very handy for taking on my jollies, they’re also handy for reading in the car on the way home from a match, and for reading when you’re giving blood – if one arm is outstretched as the vampires collect a pint of my O positive, it is much easier to read a Kindle one-handed and tap to turn pages than it is to faff about with a physical book!

I still generally prefer physical books and there’s nothing better than a good browse in a book shop, but there are some times when the e-reader is the more logical and practical option.

As I go through the last twelve years, we will recall how I actually won the first of the Kindles thanks to a chance discovery of a book in a deli in Chorlton!

2010-11 The Early Years. First started blogging in August 2010, not long after I had become an auntie to my gorgeous little niece, Charlotte. The first book I actually mentioned on my blog was Howards End is On the Landing, by Susan Hill, and I think I have remarked at times that this book has been on our landing, lol!

Not at the moment, though, as we’ve had the house decorated and the book cases have not been returned to the landing yet. One of them needs painting to fit the colour scheme anyway.

I was working in Chorlton at the time my blog started and was there until the summer of 2012, so I had easy access to the Chorlton Bookshop and the Oxfam Bookshop on Wilbraham Road, plus a number of other charity shops – it was pretty good for bookworms even if it was a bit of a trek from where I live – used to take me around 50 minutes to an hour on the bus to get to work or back home again.

One lunchtime in 2011, I was at the Barbakan Deli and I found this free book lying around, How to Leave Twitter, by Grace Dent. It was actually this book which led to me getting the first of my Kindles eventually – needed a few emails to sort out, but around November 2011, I had the device in my hands! I did leave Twitter, but not until around 2015-16 when I felt it was becoming a bit toxic on there. Back in 2011, it was still fun.

2012 World Book Night. In the early months, I was considering a Charles Dickens novel as it was a special anniversary, but couldn’t make up my mind which to read, so it didn’t happen. I have read two of his books, though, those being A Christmas Carol and Great Expectations. The big book-related event for me in 2012 was World Book Night as I applied and was accepted to be a Book Giver! I therefore spent the evening of my 39th birthday at the Trafford Centre, giving out copies of The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak.

2012 was a difficult year personally, though, due to losing my maternal grandad in the April in the run-up to my birthday, and then my redundancy from the civil service in the June. My last blogs in 2012 were in the August and then I think I got distracted by the Olympics and United signing a certain Dutch centre-forward from Arsenal… Then there is a bit of a gap…

2013-14 The Missing Years. I was blogging, but mostly on my football blog, In Off My Chest, so the book blog got a bit neglected at the time. I did still find the time for some reading, though as I hit my Big 40 in 2013 and Robin van Persie helped United win their 20th league title.

I was still very much in the Waterstone’s Deansgate book club at that time, and it was in 2013 that an author came to one of our meetings! The lady was Hannah Kent, and the book was her début novel, Burial Rites, which was inspired by the time she had spent in Iceland on an exchange programme. We decided to read it for our book club choice, and it was one of those rare occasions when we all loved the book!

The other significant book of 2013 was one I discovered in the autumn when I was on my jollies in Mexico, and it was the excellent Attention All Shipping, by Charlie Connelly, a journey around the Shipping Forecast, which I found on a bookshelf at our hotel, and hadn’t finished it when we were flying home, so I brought it home with me to finish off and keep as a souvenir of an amazing holiday.

2015 The Bookworm’s Return. Yep, in the May and June of 2015, there was a return to book blogging, and this is where I mention my Token Annoying Book, lol! Just to prove to you that I don’t always get on with everything I read, this book that was a book club choice… let’s just say I wanted to slap Elizabeth Smart and tell her to stop acting like a sulky teenager! I really did not get why By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept got good reviews as I thought it was awful and whiny! It was like a pity party in writing!

The only good thing was that it was a short book, but I said at the time that you can save time by listening to “Love’s Unkind” by the late great Donna Summer and that would tell a pretty similar story in a 3 minute pop song! Better than wasting your time with Smart’s book and then thinking “there’s a couple of hours I’ll never get back”!

Mind you, it wasn’t all pity parties and wanting to slap authors in the summer of 2015, as there were some good books that I read and loved around that time, including Where’d You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple, and Girl With a Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier.

There was then another book slump later in 2015, but I ended that slump by enjoying Why the Dutch are Different, by Ben Coates, closely followed by The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein. It was the book about the Dutch that actually got me back reading again, and I have found that non-fiction helps get me out of slumps. I just have to find a subject matter that interests me enough.

2016-17 Duplicate Books Saga and Trips to Wembley. So, back on track with reading, but this was around the time that I noticed that I seemed to have acquired two copies of certain books, hence the Duplicate Books Saga, and it came to a point in 2017 when I had 19 pairs of books, lol! One set of them eventually went to charity shops after offering them on this blog at one stage, lol!

The other concept around this time was Handbag Books, in other words, books that I would take around with me in my handbag. This was particularly pertinent when deciding which books to take with me on the coach to Wembley and back to see United in the FA Cup Final in 2016 and the League Cup Final in 2017 as well as taking my Kindle on both occasions.

At the time of the FA Cup Final in May 2016, I was partway through A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara, which is a right chunky monkey of a book, so I got it for my Kindle as well so I could read it on the way to Wembley – there was no way I was taking that bulky paperback with me! I also need to mention that, when I finished A Little Life, I had an absolutely massive Book Hangover, and couldn’t read any fiction for the rest of 2016! How could anything follow what I had just read? So, it was factual stuff for the rest of that year.

One of the books I read when it was the League Cup Final in 2017 was The Pie at Night, by Stuart Maconie, which he signed for me later that year when I met him at Waterstone’s on Deansgate – he was there to promote Long Road from Jarrow, a signed copy of which I also own, but still need to get around to reading that one.

Adam Kay signing my copy of This is Going to Hurt. 2017 was pretty good on the book front, especially for meeting both Stuart Maconie and Adam Kay.

Other stuff in my life in 2016-17 included a couple of months at Marks & Spencer’s in 2016 and the arrival of my baby nephew, Reuben. In 2017, of course, I was on jury service and some of my blogs at the time reflect that with titles which were song titles on a legal theme… we had “All Rise” by Blue, “Love in the First Degree” by Bananarama, and “Good Morning Judge” by 10CC!

I also went to see the Pet Shop Boys twice during 2017, with a Billy Ocean gig in the middle of those occasions! At the second PSB gig, in the June, we were at the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool, Chris Lowe’s home town, and part way through the gig, this bloke spotted Sarah and I and led us to the front, so we got an unimpeded view of Neil and Chris for the rest of the concert!

Then, in the September of 2017, I was back in work! I started my current job at that time, so we are approaching my 5th work anniversary early next month!

I also got the magnetic noticeboard in 2017 – the one I use for the Ongoing Concerns. I had a work placement at The Range early in 2017 and I spotted it then, in the stationery section, and had to buy one.

2018-2019 Crafts and Another Book Slump. 2018 had been going reasonably OK. I was in work, made permanent, and went on holiday to Boa Vista on the Cape Verde Islands. Went to see Paul Young at the Preston Guild Hall with Sarah (although the less said about getting home from that gig the better, lol, as they’d shut off a lot of exits to the motorway and it took bloody ages!) Also went to Lapland in the run-in to Christmas and had great fun tobogganing in the snow!

I also discovered Pixelhobby at a craft show, and had a go at loom knitting as well, so it was towards the end of 2018 that I was so engrossed in crafts that I went into a book slump again. At the time, I wasn’t too worried, I thought things would pick up in 2019…

However, 12 days into the new year Dad died. I know he’d looked a bit off colour when we were in Lapland, but didn’t think it was anything that couldn’t be sorted out, so this was sudden and unexpected, and meant that the book slump continued for a while longer as I just didn’t feel like reading. I went back too soon to work and then ended up being off longer due to my bereavement.

So, it was April 2019, after we’d been to Disneyland Paris, when I returned to work and also felt like reading again. As per usual, it was non-fiction that got me out of the slump, this time the book was The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, by Mark Manson which helped me find my reading mojo.

The photo was taken in Mauritius when Mum and I were on our jollies that summer. Shortly after we returned home, Mum celebrated her 70th birthday and we were off down to London for afternoon tea at Claridge’s, travelling there and back by train, in the first-class section with talking loos, lol!

I had an Optical Emergency at the end of July, when an arm came off my specs late at night and I ended up going for an eye test at Boots in the Trafford Centre and this is when I went over to having two pairs of glasses – reading specs and distance specs. I wear my reading ones most of the time, though. Appropriately enough, I started reading Eye Chart, by William Germano, which is one of the Object Lessons books that I discovered in 2019.

Went to the Lake District in the September of 2019 around the time it would have been Dad’s birthday – I knew I would have found it too hard to be in work as I was going through the firsts without him and still having some bad days. Went home via Brockholes nature reserve and then Blackpool, and it was there that I bought Pier Review, by Jon Bounds and Danny Smith, where they go round England and Wales in a fortnight to visit all the piers around the coast! Blackpool has three piers, so it was apt.

We ended 2019 with Mum and I jetting off to Madeira for the new year and some winter sun.

2020-21 Madeira, Ireland and the Coronavirus Years. So, probably a good job we got some overseas travel in at the start of that year as we wouldn’t be doing that again until this present year! After having our heads messed with in a nice way by enjoying hot weather and Christmas decorations in Madeira, we went over to Ireland in the February to see family and visit where Dad’s ashes have been interred.

It was while we were over in Ireland that our Ellie spotted the now legendary Economics for Babies, by Jonathan Litton in the library in Dun Laoghaire!

When lockdown hit in the March, it knocked my mental health quite badly, not knowing when things would be open again really didn’t help, so I went into a bit of a book slump for a couple of months until mid-May when In the Pleasure Groove, by John Taylor, got me out of the slump, so non-fiction to the rescue yet again, this time the autobiography of Duran Duran’s bass player. May was also the time when announcements were made about reopening, so that helped as I felt there were things to look forward to again.

The rest of 2020 and then 2021 meant short breaks at home, here in the UK. When we were able to, between lockdowns, we did get out and about in our own country, with me rocking matching mask and top combos, lol! 2020 saw Mum and I visit St Anne’s on Sea (the Fylde Coast Book Spree of 2020 yielded 22 books), Chester and then Bowness on Windermere in the autumn.

2021 saw Mum and I able to go to Cheshire Oaks on my birthday and have al fresco McDonald’s! We’d started the year in lockdown, but things started opening up again by the end of March and the shops opened on 12th April and also outdoor dining. Indoor dining reopened in the May.

The above photo is of me reading my belated pressie from Ellie for my 2020 birthday – originally, she’d got me a ticket for a show which had initially been postponed due to the pandemic, but was cancelled altogether, so she ordered me a book box with a teabag and block of chocolate. The book was The Last Wilderness by Neil Ansell.

There was also the short break to Llandudno (the North Wales Book Buying Spree saw us return with 30 books in the boot of the car, lol), and in the August we went down to Watford and London for the Harry Potter trip, then Mum and I had a two centre short break – first up a trip to Bowness on Windermere, and from there up over the border into Scotland to stay in Gretna Green and also visit Wigtown, Scotland’s national Book Town.

That’s me with Shaun Bythell, who runs The Book Shop, and has also written a book or two, including The Diary of a Bookseller. He was lovely and signed my books for me, as well as posing for that photo, lol! Another of the books I bought in Wigtown was Devorgilla Days, by Kathleen Hart, which was one of my reads last year.

I also need to mention some of the weather and bread related books that were amongst my 70 books finished during 2021, including The Wrong Kind of Snow, by Antony Woodward and Robert Penn, Slow Rise, by Robert Penn, and The Epic of Gilgamesh, writer unknown. I also read eight of Charlie Connelly’s books, starting with Bring Me Sunshine about the history of weather forecasting in the UK.

2022 Getting Back to Normal… And so, we get to the current year with 39 books read so far this year which is pretty good when you consider that the usual distractions are back… Been to see Fascinating Aida with Mum in February, the Pet Shop Boys at the Manchester Arena in May with Sarah, and then Mum and I went to Gran Canaria in June – all events that should’ve been in 2020 originally, lol! I finished Seashaken Houses, by Tom Nancollas, while I was on my jollies.

Also been to the Lakes again in late July, an overnight stay in Bowness and a chance to stock up on fudge and Kendal Mint Cake, lol! We also enjoyed a complimentary room upgrade, so we had a hot tub!

So, that’s about it, we have covered a lot of ground – had to as there’s been twelve years to blog about! My niece and nephew love books too, particularly Charlotte who takes after me in a lot of ways. I’m about ready to publish this and go and get on with Mudlarking, by Lara Maiklem, but I hope you’ve enjoyed this anniversary special!

I will be back again before August is over, before things get busy, but until then, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Howards End is On the Landing – Susan Hill
• How to Leave Twitter – Grace Dent
• A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
• Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
• The Book Thief – Markus Zusak
• Burial Rites – Hannah Kent
• Attention All Shipping – Charlie Connelly
• By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept – Elizabeth Smart
• Where’d You Go, Bernadette? – Maria Semple
• Girl With a Pearl Earring – Tracy Chevalier
• Why the Dutch are Different – Ben Coates
• The Art of Racing in the Rain – Garth Stein
• A Little Life – Hanya Yanagihara
• The Pie at Night – Stuart Maconie
• Long Road from Jarrow – Stuart Maconie
• This is Going to Hurt – Adam Kay
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck – Mark Manson
• Eye Chart – William Germano
• Pier Review – Jon Bounds and Danny Smith
• Economics for Babies – Jonathan Litton
• In the Pleasure Groove – John Taylor
• The Last Wilderness – Neil Ansell
• The Diary of a Bookseller – Shaun Bythell
• Devorgilla Days – Kathleen Hart
• The Wrong Kind of Snow – Antony Woodward and Robert Penn
• Slow Rise – Robert Penn
• The Epic of Gilgamesh – Unknown
• Bring Me Sunshine – Charlie Connelly
• Seashaken Houses – Tom Nancollas
• Mudlarking – Lara Maiklem

Back in Time for a Tribute or Two…

Good evening, Bookworms!

* sings * Summer lovin’, had me a blast, summer lovin’ happened so fast…

This is not the anniversary blog, by the way, it’s the blog before the anniversary blog, lol! I was making note of stuff to mention and figured out it’d be madness (and I don’t mean the band fronted by Suggs, lol) to try to fit everything into one blog entry, so I decided I needed a blog before the anniversary special to fit some of the stuff in, including tributes to a few well-known people who have sadly passed away recently.

Also got some book updates from our Ellie about Charlotte and Reuben’s recent book purchases, so there’s news from the Junior Bookworms.

So, let’s have another picture and then we can get on with our blog. Oh, and I know we’ve not done this for a bit, so Chief Bookworm’s had to put a bit of WD40 on the cogs of the ol’ time machine ‘cause we’re gonna take a trip down memory lane this evening with a Golden Year!

First up, we start with the tributes to the recently departed and begin with Bernard Cribbins, who passed away at the end of July, aged 93 – he was in so many things it would take an eternity to list them, but those include being a regular reader of stories on Jackanory and narrating The Wombles and being the voice of Great Uncle Bulgaria.

He also recorded some comedy songs, particularly “Right Said Fred” (from which the 90s band took their name) and “Hole in the Ground” – a song I actually remember from when I was at primary school!

Next up, Japanese fashion designer, Issey Miyake, who passed away on 5th August, aged 84. Particularly known for perfumes, especially Le Feu d’Issey, but those of us who are fans of the Pet Shop Boys know him as the designer of the striped shades that Chris Lowe wore in the late 80s, particularly around the time of late 1986 when “Suburbia” was in the charts.

Chris Lowe wearing the Issey Miyake striped shades, 1986.

This now brings us on to Dame Olivia Newton-John and also to Raymond Briggs…

Dame Olivia passed away on 8th August, aged 73, after a long battle with cancer. For many of us, she will always be Sandy in “Grease”, hence the photo at the top of this blog with the tribute from her co-star, John Travolta.

I also particularly liked the tribute from Sir Rod Stewart, who said that her Spandex pants in “Grease” inspired his fashion sense for “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy”, lol!

Last, but by no means least, Raymond Briggs passed away on 9th August. Best known for his illustrated children’s books, including Father Christmas, Father Christmas Goes on Holiday, Fungus the Bogeyman, and another one which will crop up during our time travel and which was later turned into an animated film shown on Channel 4 during the festive season…

Ooh, I’ve just heard the time machine is ready, so grab refreshments and we shall go and visit a previous year from some time ago…

* the time machine whirrs into action and heads off into the past… *

Ooh, where are we? Lots of square red flags with white plus signs in the middle of them… Switzerland. Chief Bookworm is 5 years old and living on the fourth floor of a block of flats in Basel! We were there for the second half of this particular year as my dad was working over there – he worked for a Swiss chemical firm.

Although I had started school back home in England, I was too young in Switzerland as you had to be six, so I went to a Kindergarten (nursery) once a week, on a Thursday (Donnerstag) and the rest of the time went out and about with Mum and Ellie, shopping and sightseeing, etc. I also picked up a considerable amount of German as we were in a German-speaking part of Switzerland. Actually, we weren’t far from a place where Switzerland, West Germany and France all met up. It was known as Dreilanderecke – three country corner.

It’s centenary year for Manchester United, as they were formed 100 years prior to this Golden Year by railway workers from the Newton Heath depot of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. In our mystery year, the manager is Dave Sexton.

It is also a World Cup year and Argentina host and win the tournament. Sadly, back in those days, England were shite, to use that well-known technical term, lol, so the useless numpties didn’t even qualify. Scotland qualified, but, as the Big Yin would put it, they effed it up when they got there! Home before the postcards, as the saying goes!

The US President is Jimmy Carter and our Prime Minister is James Callaghan. Oh, and there are three Popes in this year! Pope Paul VI passed away, so Pope John Paul I was appointed in the August. However, he only lasted 33 days before going to meet his Maker, so the cardinals had to meet up yet again to decide on another new head honcho! John Paul II became Pope and he actually lasted until 2002!

The box office hit of this year is “Grease” starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. Although I was far too young to see the film when it came out, I have seen it plenty of times since. Plus, loads of songs were in the charts, and John and Olivia duetted on two massive UK number ones – “You’re the One That I Want” and “Summer Nights”.

Rod Stewart, whose tribute to Dame Olivia I mentioned earlier in the blog, was also number 1 in this year with “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy” and Kate Bush had her first number one in this year with her début single, “Wuthering Heights” telling the story of the Emily Brontë novel.

Salford artist L S Lowry was also celebrated in a chart-topper in this year when Brian and Michael reached number one with “Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs” and Boney M, who were utterly massive at the time, had that year’s Christmas number one with “Mary’s Boy Child”

Books that were published in our Golden Year include The Stand, by Stephen King and Eye of the Needle, by Ken Follett. For those of us who were younger readers at the time, there was The Enormous Crocodile, by Roald Dahl, and The Snowman, by Raymond Briggs, although it would be another four years before it was made into the animated film that’s on Channel Four every Christmas! We still only had three channels in our mystery year.

I think it’s time to return to 2022, so let’s step back into the time machine and head back to the present day. You will need to keep hydrated and might need some after-sun given the heatwave we are having…

* the time machine returns Chief Bookworm and her followers back to 12th August 2022 *

As usual, the answer to the Golden Year will come at the end of this blog, but still got a few things to mention…

I did mention that I had some book-related news regarding my niece and nephew, didn’t I? Obviously, they’re on school summer holidays at the moment, so getting out and about and doing fun stuff, including a trip to town with their dad on Tuesday. Naturally, they fetched up at Waterstone’s on Deansgate and reading matter was purchased!

Reuben’s choices were Hairy Maclary’s Bone, and Hairy Maclary and Zachary Quack, both by Lynley Dodd, while Charlotte opted for The Lizzie and Belle Mysteries: Drama and Danger, by J. T. Williams.

So, you’re now up to date on the Junior Bookworms and their books!

Some updates on the Ongoing Concerns for you now. Mudlarking is now over the halfway line, 55% read, and we have some progress on Packing for Mars, which is 34% read, The End of the Road is now 25% read and Northerners is now up to the 19% read stage.

I was at risk of disappearing down some rabbit holes with those books, though, lol! The End of the Road, by Jack Cooke, mentions that period in our history when bodies were being dug up and given to medical schools for anatomy classes so people were having to guard the graves of their loved ones.

This had also been mentioned in Stiff, by Mary Roach, and also in Britain By the Book, by Oliver Tearle – that one mentioned the time when writer Laurence Sterne almost ended up being dissected. Bodysnatchers had dug up the grave and given the body to a surgeon for an anatomy lecture. Thankfully, one of the students recognised the body lying on the operating table and he was saved from being opened up and was laid back to rest again.

Northerners, by Brian Groom, also gives us connections with another fairly recent read of mine, as Groom mentions the Norse king, Ivar the Boneless, who was mentioned by Charlie Connelly as his favourite Norse monarch in And Did Those Feet, which I read last year. Ivar was reputedly so floppy that he had to be carried around on a shield!

It may not have been that Ivar was actually boneless, but he may have had some kind of medical condition or disability giving him weak bones, perhaps something like osteoporosis, and thus he needed carrying round a lot as I can’t imagine wheelchairs had been invented back then!

Had some more fair trade chocolate lately, and these two were bought by Mum from Hilary’s stall at church for me to try. They are white chocolate with tea – one was with Earl Grey, and I have tried that one and enjoyed it, and the other is with Matcha, Japanese green tea. I will put it in the fridge, I think. Bit hot for chocolate at the moment, really.

I was about to wrap things up, but then remembered This Golden Fleece, by Esther Rutter, which I bought on Tuesday when I was at the Trafford Centre. It is a journey through Britain’s knitted history, and, amusingly, the review from the Irish Times on the front of the book describes it as “A yarn well told” – they must know I appreciate a good pun, lol!

I think that really is about all for now, I have checked off everything on my to-do list for this blog, and will be back in a couple of days for the 12th Anniversary Blog! The only thing that remains is for me to give you the answer to the Golden Year from tonight’s blog, and that year was 1978. Did you guess correctly?

Until Sunday’s anniversary special, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Father Christmas – Raymond Briggs
• Father Christmas Goes on Holiday – Raymond Briggs
• Fungus the Bogeyman – Raymond Briggs
• Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
• The Stand – Stephen King
• Eye of the Needle – Ken Follett
• The Enormous Crocodile – Roald Dahl
• The Snowman – Raymond Briggs
• Hairy Maclary’s Bone – Lynley Dodd
• Hairy Maclary and Zachary Quack – Lynley Dodd
• The Lizzie and Belle Mysteries: Drama and Danger – J. T. Williams
• Mudlarking – Lara Maiklem
• Packing for Mars – Mary Roach
• The End of the Road – Jack Cooke
• Northerners – Brian Groom
• Stiff – Mary Roach
• Britain By the Book – Oliver Tearle
• And Did Those Feet – Charlie Connelly
• This Golden Fleece – Esther Rutter

Book Benches, Rabbit Holes, Football’s Come Home and Other Assorted Nonsense…

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Got Now 70s on and the previous song was “Play That Funky Music” by Wild Cherry, so it reminded me of the above ecard, lol!

Welcome to yet another helping of semi-literary waffle, and before we go any further, I need to wish a Happy 39th Birthday to Robin van Persie, former centre-forward and one of the players most responsible for helping United win their 20th league title in 2013, particularly as he scored a hat-trick against Aston Villa the night before my Big 40!

Next Sunday, 14th August, will be the 12th anniversary of this very blog, which was started way back in the summer of 2010, just after I had become an auntie. Hasn’t time flown?! A dozen years of books, music, football, travel and other random waffle, lol! In the meantime, let’s see what waffle I’ve got for you tonight…

Before we get on to the book benches, one of which is featured above, I have news of a couple of finishes, two books from the Little People Big Dreams series by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara. Those books were the ones about Ayrton Senna and Elton John. My 38th and 39th books of the year, and first two for August. I was in Selfridges in the Trafford Centre, as I went shopping after work on Thursday, and I had a quick read.

Right then… the Salford Literacy Trail. As mentioned in previous blogs, there are 20 book benches dotted around parts of Salford, and I managed to see three of them last weekend. I have now added another four to my list, as there are two in Swinton and two in Eccles, and both those towns are not far from where I live.

My actual place of work is based in Swinton, although I’ve been working from home since the pandemic, but I have been into the office occasionally to take in confidential waste and pick up fresh stationery. The book bench above is outside Swinton Gateway, but the one below is outside the Civic Centre…

* sings * There’s a starman waiting in the sky, he’d like to come and meet us but he thinks he’d blow our minds…

Oops! Sorry, this is what happens when you’re blogging while listening to Now 70s and you start singing along to “Starman” by the late great David Bowie. Now we have “Vincent” by Don McLean about Vincent van Gogh. They’re playing songs that are from the summer of 1972 so are now 50 years old.

Anyway, I was on about the book benches, so having seen the two in Swinton, it was back on a bus and off to Eccles. Now 70s is now playing “American Trilogy” by Elvis as I type. First stop was Eccles Parish Church, and then Eccles Gateway…

So, that’s the one outside the church, with the gingerbread man, and below we have the one from outside Eccles Gateway, which is based on Macbeth.

The book bench based on the Scottish Play. There are a lot of superstitions attached to Macbeth, lol! Regular followers of this blog will know that this was one of my set books during my education, but for which qualification did I study this play? Answer at the end of the blog.

After my jaunt to Eccles, I returned home to Monton and took some books to Oats and Honey on Monton Road for their book exchange. However, they didn’t have any I fancied, and they had run out of cake, so I ended up having my refreshments further along the road at The Bread Club, which is on similar lines to Subway in that you choose your own sandwiches but a bit more upmarket, lol!

I did see something interesting on the noticeboard at Oats and Honey, though – an upcoming calligraphy class this coming Wednesday, 10th August, from 7pm to 9pm so I might give that a go as I’ve had a long-standing interest in calligraphy and some of you may recall that it was one of the classes I chose when I was at Start in Salford some years ago now.

* now playing * “Lean On Me” by Bill Withers.

Singing along to these hits from the year before I was born, it reminds me of another thing I intend to pop along to this coming week, on Thursday – Mancunian Singers. They meet at Monton Unitarian Church Hall, which is where I went to Slimming World a few years ago if I remember rightly. I’ve been after something musical to join since things restarted post-lockdowns.

I was in a steel band pre-Covid but that’s in Swinton and was convenient when I was based in the office. As I’ve been working from home since March 2020, while I wouldn’t rule out a short bus trip to Swinton or Eccles, I have been hoping for something on my doorstep and I might possibly have found it.

I did find one book in a local charity shop which interested me, so I acquired No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy, by Mark Hodkinson. I have offloaded a fair few to Oats and Honey, though, and might have a bit of room in the “office library” for the two books I bought on Thursday evening. Those are Leap In, by Alexandra Heminsley, and A Field Guide to Larking, by Lara Maiklem. That one ties in with one of my current Ongoing Concerns.

Just before I go on to some of the Ongoing Concerns, we need to go back to last weekend as the result was not in when I was doing the July Review blog, but football has come home! The Lionesses beat Germany’s ladies in the UEFA Women’s European Championship Final, winning 2-1 in extra time, so England have won a football tournament for the first time in my lifetime! That’s Team of the Year sorted this winter when the Beeb host the Sports Personality of the Year Awards!

Back to the OCs now, and you know that I’m currently enjoying Thrown, by Sara Cox, which is now 42% read. Anyway, in this novel, featuring four ladies who join a pottery class, one of the ladies is called Sheila and her husband, Martin, is into mudlarking and goes to London for a mudlarking weekend as part of the plot. This reminded me that I had bought Mudlarking, by Lara Maiklem, and so I started on that given that I had recently finished Arsène Lupin, and I am really enjoying it. A fascinating book – amazing what stuff you can find in rivers…

It also shows that you can end up down some right rabbit holes with books, and one book can lead you to something quite unexpected. I had bought Mudlarking not too long ago, but with no idea that I would end up reading it due to a novel featuring a character participating in this activity! Then, on Thursday, I found A Field Guide to Larking, so that is obviously a companion book to Mudlarking.

This is similar to the end of last year when I found and read those books about cheese, lol! You may recall that I read A Cheesemonger’s History of the British Isles, by Ned Palmer, and then ended up also reading A Cheesemonger’s Compendium of British & Irish Cheese, so A Field Guide to Larking is clearly one of my imminent reads, although that also includes beachcombing and fieldwalking as well as mudlarking. More on that when I get started on the book, but it is funny how you find these books… it’s a sign!

Anyway, that’s about all for now, I think, other than to give you the answer to the question I set earlier when I was writing about the book benches. I mentioned that I had studied Macbeth, by William Shakespeare, but asked which qualification it was for – the correct answer is GCSE English Literature.

The other works I studied for that qualification were Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, Animal Farm, by George Orwell, and some First World War poetry by the likes of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. I usually recommend The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry for that if you want to read any war poems from 1914-1918 as I don’t know which anthology Mrs Walsh used – I think we got photocopied and stapled collections of poems to study and write on.

So, I think that really is all we have time for now. I will get this finished off and published so you can have a good read and I aim to be back next weekend for the anniversary blog, lol, but until then, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Ayrton Senna – Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara
• Elton John – Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara
• Macbeth – William Shakespeare
• No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy – Mark Hodkinson
• Leap In – Alexandra Heminsley
• A Field Guide to Larking – Lara Maiklem
• Thrown – Sara Cox
• Mudlarking – Lara Maiklem
• Arsène Lupin, Gentleman Thief – Maurice Leblanc
• A Cheesemonger’s History of the British Isles – Ned Palmer
• A Cheesemonger’s Compendium of British & Irish Cheese – Ned Palmer
• Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
• Animal Farm – George Orwell
• The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry – Various

Pomanders and Other Former Festive Gifts…

Hello again, fellow Bookworms!

Chief Bookworm here with another blog, bookmark update, news of new purchases, and some waffle, inspired by Sarah Millican, about Christmas pressies from days gone by…

I’ve not got any reading updates since the last blog as I was focusing on some cross-stitch, so the only books I was really dealing with were those I mentioned at the start of that last blog, the ones with motifs for me to use in my stitching. I will be returning to the books very shortly, though, but the main news is that I have got one bookmark stitched and it just needs a tassel! I have also started on another bookmark and made some progress with that, so I will come on to that in a paragraph or so…

If I show you this photo first, you’ll see where I’m up to with the second bookmark – that’s the one with the big orange and yellow lyre on it. The one with the ship is actually now finished. Well, the stitching of the motifs and the backstitch are done, so it just needs some sort of tassel or ribbon to complete it properly.

At one point, I felt a bit stuck. I’d done two rows of pattern – the one with the green vine and purple plants, and the row of blue square things – and those were from Embroidery Motifs from Dutch Samplers, by Albarta Meulenbelt-Nieuwburg, as was the lyre on the other bookmark, but I still needed to fill that side of the bookmark.

After I had decided to do the stripey bit with my initials, and ended up doing it in two shades of green, I felt it looked a bit like a lawn, and got inspired to do the top row as a wall with a gate and a couple of little topiary trees in front of it, so that side of the bookmark looks like some mini posh gardens sampler, lol!

That is the finished item, minus a tassel of course. Quite chuffed how it has turned out. It will need to be used for bigger books, though, as it is one of my bigger and wider bookmarks.

As I mentioned at the start of the blog, I had chanced upon a random video on Farcebook the other day, and it was the comedienne, Sarah Millican, talking about Christmas presents, and all she did was mention pomanders and it set me off on one of my retro moments, lol, thinking about pomanders and other stuff many of us used to receive as Christmas pressies back when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s!

The photo at the top shows a selection of ceramic pomanders, and these are pretty much like some of the items I got for Christmas as a kid, often by people who are not sure what to get you but feel they should get you a pressie, lol! The sort of people who also used to give such gifts as soap on a rope and bath cubes! You have to remember that this was before the days of Lush, so there weren’t the bath bombs and shower gels we have now!

For those who don’t know what a pomander is, it’s a scented thing with a loop of ribbon. It was often scented with lavender. You put the ribbon around a hanger, with some clothes on and put it in your wardrobe. The pomander would make your clothes pong nicely and keep away the moths! A posh variation on lavender bags!

Of course, we didn’t just get pomanders, soap on a rope and bath cubes for Christmas in the 70s and 80s… there was other stuff in our Christmas stockings…

As well as it being the days before Lush, it was also the days before Lynx so there were no Lynx Africa sets of body spray and shower gel until the mid 90s, ha ha! When I was a kid, the fellas used to get stuff like Old Spice, Denim, Hai Karate and Brut – Brut was advertised on telly by Henry Cooper and Kevin Keegan, urging blokes to “splash it all over”!

For us lasses, there’d be Avon stuff, and Yardley, and round tubs of Bronley dusting powder, posh talc really, lol. Bronley honeysuckle dusting powder with a big puff included to dust the stuff all over your body after a bath or shower! It was still a bath in those days, for most of my childhood. I think I would have been in my teens by the time we had our bathroom done and thus added a shower unit and shower rail over the bathtub.

Also, as you can see in the photo, there were Cadbury’s chocolate dispenser money boxes! You put in a 2p coin and got a diddy Dairy Milk. You could buy refill packs of Dairy Milks but they weren’t easy to come by. However, another chocolatey item traditional at Christmas in the 70s and 80s came to the rescue… Terry’s Neapolitans! Boxes of these were pretty easy to come by and the chocs were exactly the same size as the little Dairy Milks, so once those had been eaten, you could restock your dispenser with Neapolitans!

Anwyay, I hope you enjoyed that little jog down memory lane with a look back at old Christmas presents! Amazing what you think about just because some comedian mentions pomanders, lol!

I really need to mention some books, though, so it’s a good job I bought a few last night, plus some from charity shops in Swinton earlier today. I had booked a day off due to phone calls I was expecting, but in between times, I did get out and a bit of reading matter was purchased from the Oxfam shop and The A Word on Swinton precinct.

We shall start with last night’s selection. We have Five Straight Lines, by Andrew Gant, which is about the history of music, so, obviously, that had to be acquired. We also had New Yorkers, by Craig Taylor, and Islands of Abandonment, by Cal Flyn, and that last one is the current Radio 4 Book of the Week. I have made a start on that one, it has a feel of some of the stuff I read towards the end of last year. It’s not yet at the 10% stage, though, so not an Ongoing Concern just yet. Pretty sure it will be soon enough, though!

From the charity shops, we have A Monk Swimming, by Malachy McCourt, brother of Frank who wrote Angela’s Ashes and further memoirs. We also have Icons of England, edited by Bill Bryson, and The Pirates In an Adventure with Scientists! by Gideon Defoe – I have read something by him before now – An Atlas of Extinct Countries, which was one of my finished books in 2020, albeit that was non-fiction, and this is a children’s fiction book.

Today is three years since I lost Dad, so we need to have this photo – it was taken at La Turka on Monton Road back in around 2015. The top I’m wearing was what I bought in Mexico in 2013 when I went there for my special birthday holiday as it was my Big 40 that year.

Mad to think I am now heading towards the very end of my forties – next year will bring about my Big 50! I’ve got things in the back of my mind for this blog next year as I reach my half century, but I have found that if I mention my plans, they often don’t happen, so it’s probably better if I just get on with them and then ask if you noticed anything, lol!

Early on in my blogging life, when I started this up in 2010, I recall mentioning an idea of “Around the World in 80 Books” and that never came about, so that’s why I am now reluctant to jinx future reading plans! Thing is, I just read what I feel like, and it’s all very random and ad hoc. I might plan to read one book, then something else crops up, I see and buy a few more books, and end up reading one of those instead, and the original book either doesn’t get read, or it does but not until years later!

Plus, as I have said before, my years of required reading are long behind me. I graduated from uni way back in 1994, which will be 28 years ago this summer, so there are no books that I have to read, it’s all entirely a matter of personal choice and what book I am in the mood for at any given moment!

So, that’s about it for now. Hopefully, I’ll have some progress to report on the reading front in my next blog and thus some of the Ongoing Concerns might be nearer to completion. Also, Wandering Palate reopens this weekend! Yay! Until the next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Embroidery Motifs from Dutch Samplers – Albarta Meulenbelt-Nieuwburg
• Five Straight Lines – Andrew Gant
• New Yorkers – Craig Taylor
• Islands of Abandonment – Cal Flyn
• A Monk Swimming – Malachy McCourt
• Angela’s Ashes – Frank McCourt
• Icons of England – Bill Bryson (editor)
• The Pirates In an Adventure with Scientists! – Gideon Defoe
• An Atlas of Extinct Countries – Gideon Defoe

Poet’s Birthday, Origins of the OCs and Rashford’s MBE…

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Back again with another blog and many happy returns for one of my favourite poets, Roger McGough, who is 84 today! I discovered his poetry back in the early to mid 80s when I was a kid and still at primary school, and pretty much bagsied my dad’s copy of Roger’s anthology, Watchwords, which I still love. Happy Birthday, Roger!

Anyway, the big news is that we are just half a book away from the Big 60! Yep! Another two books have been finished off since Robbo, and my current leading book amongst the Ongoing Concerns is just over halfway, so it won’t be too long until we reach the magic number and enter the swingin’ sixties – in book number terms, that is, rather than the decade before I was born, the one that gave the world mini skirts, the Beatles and a United side featuring Law, Best and Charlton!

Right, so, when I finished Robbo last week, that took us to 57 Heinz varieties, oops, sorry, nope, lol! It took us to 57 finished books for the year, but in the space of the last 24 hours, two more books have been finished off so Chief Bookworm has now read 59 books thus far in 2021…

As you can see, we have three of the books which have been amongst the Ongoing Concerns of late, two of which are now finished books, and even the one which isn’t finished is halfway to being finished, so I was accurate when I said we were half a book away from my 60th finish of the year!

Elsewhere, by Rosita Boland, a very enjoyable helping of travel writing, was finished off in the early hours. I actually bought that book early last year. If you can cast your mind back to before the whole coronavirus palaver, I went over to Ireland in February 2020 to visit family and stayed at the fantastic Royal Marine Hotel in Dun Laoghaire, and our Ellie spotted the legendary Economics for Babies in their local library – a book which sums up what this blog is all about – finding the unusual and random books that other blogs are unlikely to mention!

Anyway, when we were all on our way home from Ireland, and in the departure lounge at Dublin Airport, I nipped into W H Smith’s, to the surprise of absolutely nobody whatsoever, lol, and bought a book. This “news” is on a par with water being wet, the Pope being a Catholic and bears shitting in the woods, ha ha!

That book was Elsewhere, and it got a mention in my blog when I came back. Check out the February 2020 archives and a blog entitled “Buckets of Coffee, Books and Bruno!” as that is the entry I blogged after my return from Dublin.

So, having finished off Elsewhere earlier in the day, before my zeds and then a day’s work, I decided to polish off Kay’s Anatomy, by Adam Kay this evening, and thus have now read 59 books! I can definitely recommend Kay’s Anatomy – even if you’re an adult, as I am, it’s still a good read even if it is really meant for kids, particularly teens.

Therefore, that’s two more books off the Ongoing Concerns list, and before I get to the remaining OCs, perhaps we should look at how they really came about. Although I have only been blogging since 2010, the practice of having more than one book on the go at any one time really dates back to the early 1990s for me. It goes back 30 years to 1991 when I was at university.

I don’t recall having multiple books on the go as a child. I didn’t really need to. Even at school and college, there weren’t any conflicting demands. I only ever had one “reading book” at a time at primary school, to be read to my parents and to teachers, and even doing English literature at high school for my GCSEs, or some French literature at Eccles College for my Bastard A Levels, it was one book at a time, and I wasn’t taking any other subjects where I needed to read works of literature.

At uni, though, once I had changed to literature and history, I would have more than one literature module per week, so sometimes I would have to try to read one book for one module and another book for another, and the lectures and discussions about those books would take place in the same week! Three years of juggling my reading meant that, even after I graduated in 1994, I remained in the habit of reading multiple books! Hence the origins of my Ongoing Concerns!

I may have gone back to reading for leisure once I had worn my gown and mortar board, and taking more time over books so that I could remember them better than the books I’d had to skim for uni, and I had certainly stopped the over-analysis of books that is required when you’re doing a literature degree, lol, but having more than one book on the go at any time persisted.

So, years later, when the internet is very much up and running and I start blogging about books, and other random waffle, I still have several books on the go at any one time, and as this blog has developed over the last eleven years, the partially-read books that I am reading and mentioning at any time have become known as my Ongoing Concerns!

That brings us neatly back to the current Ongoing Concerns, so I need to let you know that The Little Red Chairs, by Edna O’Brien, is now 53% read, thus I am less than half a book away from the milestone of 60 books read this year! I will be reading more of that later as I focus on getting that finished so it can be the 60th book of 2021!

Having finished off those other two books earlier, though, that does at least mean I have maintained this year’s record of at least 3 books per month. So far, the most books in a month happened last month, in October, when I reached double figures and polished off ten books!

Along with The Little Red Chairs, I will also be concentrating on Is This the Real Life? by Mark Blake, the book about Queen, due to it being close to the 30th anniversary of Freddie’s passing. I also have Bohemian Rhapsody, by Lesley-Ann Jones, which is a biography of Freddie Mercury, so I plan to read that reasonably soon, although I had started the Mark Blake book, so will continue with that as my literary tribute to Freddie.

Finishing the Edna O’Brien novel will take me to 60 books for the year, finishing the Mark Blake book would give me at least 5 finishes for November. If I get that done, I’m just gonna put most of the OCs to bed, turn to some children’s books and some Christmas stuff to finish the year off, and then look at what I could start and what I could resume in January 2022!

Before I wrap this blog up for now, just time to mention that Marcus Rashford received his MBE from Prince William earlier today. He had been awarded it last year, but now that restrictions are mostly lifted over here, a lot of recipients have finally been given their gongs in person in recent weeks. Also getting her gong not long ago was Dame Mary Berry, who, like Rashy, was named on the honours list last year, but has only recently been able to receive her DBE.

Well, that’s probably about all for now, but I doubt it will be too long before I have cause to blog again with the news of the 60th book of the year being finished and any other news from the book world! Until then, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Watchwords – Roger McGough
• Robbo – Bryan Robson
• Elsewhere – Rosita Boland
• Economics for Babies – Jonathan Litton
• Kay’s Anatomy – Adam Kay
• The Little Red Chairs – Edna O’Brien
• Is This the Real Life? – Mark Blake
• Bohemian Rhapsody – Lesley-Ann Jones

Chief Bookworm’s Feeling of Fernweh

House peeping over a hedge!

Hello again, fellow Bookworms!

The out of office notice kicked in at 4:30 this afternoon and that’s me done for this month! I’m off work next week, so when I am back in, it will be November, lol!

A week to have nice lie-ins, get up at a leisurely pace and do stuff that doesn’t involve emails and phone calls. Days out, eating out, and also, very likely, the opportunity to get some reading done, and also acquire more reading matter!

I like what I do for a living, don’t get me wrong, but it’s always nice to have some time off from that.

I have some updates on one or two of the Ongoing Concerns, including a new one on the list, and some news about what my niece is currently reading. I know I’ve brought you some book news about Reuben of late, as it was his birthday earlier this month and I bought him Funnybones, by Janet & Allan Ahlberg, but I now have some book news from Charlotte.

I was reading some of my blogs from the start of this year earlier this evening, and it was amusing to see what the Ongoing Concerns were back then and how much, or rather how little, had been read at that point. In one blog, Bit of a Blur, by Alex James was only at the 26% read stage, so just over a quarter of it at that time, but that one is a finished book now! In fact, it was my 50th finish of the year!

I was very much in my weather and shipping forecast books stage at that point, and had read Bring Me Sunshine and re-read Attention All Shipping, both by Charlie Connelly. In fact, in one February blog, at the end of that month, The Channel was 78% read, so that was looking like a March finish, which it was.

However, March would bring about Slow Rise, by Robert Penn, as the Radio 4 Book of the Week, and that would signal the start of the bread-related books and would also lead to me reading The Epic of Gilgamesh, which I thoroughly enjoyed!

Not all books read by yours truly in 2021 have been linked to one another, but it is fair to say that the vast majority of them, if you did some sort of spidergraph could be linked to at least one other for some connecting reason!

I did mention that I had news about Charlotte’s books, so I will bring that to you now. As you know, my niece started high school in September, they’ve just broke up for the half-term holidays, and recently, for English, her class was asked to write down the books they’ve read this year.

Fortunately, Charlotte was wise enough to have started keeping a list at the start of this year, so it was easy for her to do! She has read 18 books so far in 2021, and it looks like The Ickabog, by J. K. Rowling, which I bought her for Christmas, will be her 19th finish. At school, she is reading Coraline, by Neil Gaiman.

I added another book to my Ongoing Concerns last night! I was looking in my see-through book boxes for a travel guide, which I found, and I also rediscovered Elsewhere, by Rosita Boland, which is about travel, and I am pretty sure I might have bought that one in Ireland when we went over in February of last year before the world started shutting down.

I have read 11% of this book so far, so it gets on the OC list, and she mentions the word “Fernweh” which is a German word which means a desire to travel, a desire to be elsewhere, and I think I am feeling that again myself, especially as things open up again. Mum and I have done some travel around the UK these last couple of years, but I am looking forward to going overseas again in the not too distant future!

In case of accident, I would hope I had some Brie and some of those loaf-shaped Hovis digestives! UK followers will probably know what I mean…

These things… those are what I meant! (See photo above)

Talking of followers, this blog now has 150 of you lovely people, so thank you very much for following all my book-related stuff and other random waffle!

Back to the Ongoing Concerns, and back to Charlie Connelly, lol, as Our Man in Hibernia is currently 80% read, and I’m probably going to read more of it after I have finished this blog, thus it shouldn’t be too long before that becomes my 54th finish for the year and 8th book for the month.

Diary of a Somebody, by Brian Bilston, is also now at a more advanced stage, as it is 59% read, so those two books should take me to the 55 book target and I will have to increase it to 60 when that happens!

Amazing to think that, when I decided to do the Goodreads Challenge at the start of this year, I only set the initial target at 10 books. I think I thought I would probably be too distracted as the year moved on and we came out of lockdown. As more things opened, would I still read or would I be preoccupied with other stuff?

I was going shopping again, going away again, at least in the UK, and also going to Old Trafford again, in the Stretford End, watching Cristiano Ronaldo scoring late winners for us in midweek European matches, which happened once again on Wednesday night as we fought back from trailing 0-2 at half-time to beat Atalanta 3-2! Viva Ronaldo!

However, I have still been reading books despite the distractions! I will certainly need to blog again next weekend as it’ll be monthly review time, lol, but there might be one more before then. Whenever it is that I next blog, though, this is about all for now, so until that next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Funnybones – Janet & Allan Ahlberg
• Bit of a Blur – Alex James
• Bring Me Sunshine – Charlie Connelly
• Attention All Shipping – Charlie Connelly
• The Channel – Charlie Connelly
• Slow Rise – Robert Penn
• The Epic of Gilgamesh – Unknown
• The Ickabog – J. K. Rowling
• Coraline – Neil Gaiman
• Elsewhere – Rosita Boland
• Our Man in Hibernia – Charlie Connelly
• Diary of a Somebody – Brian Bilston

Hot in the City

Hello again, fellow Bookworms!

* sings * “Hot in the city, hot in the city tonight…”

Billy Idol was not wrong, lol! It was absolutely boiling in Manchester this afternoon when I went into town! Needed a few things, wrapping paper mostly, and given the gorgeous weather I decided I would go to town rather than the Trafford Centre. To be fair, the branch of Card Factory in town is bigger anyway, so that was another reason to head there. I actually had to put some Factor 50 on before heading into town – you know it’s good weather when you have to put sun lotion on in this country, ha ha! That’s normally something I have to do when I’m abroad! To be fair, though, I did also have to put that on when I was in Wales last month.

Anyway, when I last blogged, which was Wednesday, I brought you the news that I had reached the 35 book milestone and had to increase my Goodreads Challenge target to 40 books. I had finished off both Last Train to Hilversum, by Charlie Connelly, and Helium, by Rudy Francisco, and started The Last Wilderness, by Neil Ansell.

I have also resumed One for the Books, by Joe Queenan, and am now 30% of the way through that one on my Kindle. One of the reasons I’m particularly enjoying this book about books is that Joe has even more Ongoing Concerns than I do, lol! It’s quite reassuring when you discover a bookworm with even more half-read books than yourself!

I had Book Mail this week, which you can see in the photo at the top of this blog. We have Cuneiform, by Irving Finkel and Jonathan Taylor, and we also have Myths from Mesopotamia. The writers for those would be unknown, but the translation is by Stephanie Dalley. It includes The Epic of Gilgamesh, but also other stories.

I am still awaiting the remaining item of my order, which is coming separately. That one will be Radio Waves: Poems Celebrating the Wireless. It’s by various poets, but edited by Sean Street. It’s something I ordered due to enjoying Last Train to Hilversum.

I did get a few items in town, but I will do the Blockbusters Gold Run bit next before we get on to that..,

So, I’m due to give you the answers from the second column of hexagons and the questions from the middle column. Here goes…

DA, the author of the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series was Douglas Adams, PAP the Jane Austen novel featuring the Bennet family and Mr Darcy is, of course, Pride and Prejudice, which I studied for my GCSEs years ago, and still have a bunch of characters from that novel on my Literary Slap List, lol! ROD was the Alex Marshall book about travels in search of national anthems, so that was Republic or Death! Finally, MOTD, the long-running footy highlights show on the Beeb is, of course, Match of the Day.

PSB – Chief Bookworm’s favourite duo since her teens, hits include Suburbia and It’s a Sin.

TFM – Film in which a bunch of redundant steel workers in Sheffield becomes a troupe of male strippers.

RVP – Dutch striker whose hat-trick won Manchester United their 20th league title in 2013.

PS – Name by which Beethoven’s Symphony No 6 in F Major is also known.

No book-related stuff in that column, but the remaining two columns do have at least one book-related clue in them. Answers to the middle column will be given next time I blog.

So, now to today’s acquisitions from town. We have Fabulosa! by Paul Baker, which is the story of Polari, the secret gay language, Ramble Book, by Adam Buxton, which he describes as musings on childhood, friendship, family and 80s pop culture, so a waffly book that mentions 80s stuff was always going to attract my attention, lol! The other book is The Comfort Book by Matt Haig.

I’ve read a few of his already, one novel, The Radleys, and his two previous books on a mental health theme, Reasons to Stay Alive, and Notes on a Nervous Planet. I also own How to Stop Time, and The Midnight Library, but I’ve not got around to reading those yet.

If I can stay awake in this ridiculous heat, lol, I shall catch up with The Wrong Kind of Snow and read a bit more of The Last Wilderness and One for the Books. Probably a bit more of The Comfort Book, too.

Got a short week coming up this week at work as I’m only “in” up to Wednesday. Couple of days of annual leave. Not that I won’t be busy, though, lol! Time will be spent with the Junior Bookworms at some point! My niece, the elder of the two, is about to finish primary school, as I think I said recently, and will also celebrate her birthday shortly.

That is probably about all for now, so until the next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Last Train to Hilversum – Charlie Connelly
• Helium – Rudy Francisco
• The Last Wilderness – Neil Ansell
• One for the Books – Joe Queenan
• Cuneiform – Irving Finkel & Jonathan Taylor
• Myths from Mesopotamia – Unknown (trans: Stephanie Dalley)
• The Epic of Gilgamesh – Unknown
• Radio Waves – Various (ed: Sean Street)
• The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series – Douglas Adams
• Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
• Republic or Death! – Alex Marshall
• Fabulosa! – Paul Baker
• Ramble Book – Adam Buxton
• The Comfort Book – Matt Haig
• The Radleys – Matt Haig
• Reasons to Stay Alive – Matt Haig
• Notes on a Nervous Planet – Matt Haig
• How to Stop Time – Matt Haig
• The Midnight Library – Matt Haig
• The Wrong Kind of Snow – Antony Woodward & Robert Penn

New Books for Old! The Reshuffle Continues…

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Just before I get going, the latest score in the current match on telly from the European Championships is Netherlands 2 Austria 0. And now for the book stuff, lol!

In the last blog, which has now garnered four likes, which are much appreciated, I had mentioned the rather considerable amount of reading matter which was brought home from Llandudno and Conwy last week. A new short break “personal best” of 30 books came home with me, ha ha! However, those 30 books had to join the countless others chez moi, and some reading matter is having to make way.

Regular followers of the blog will know that the clearout had been started prior to going to Wales, and there were some books bagged up from under Computer Corner. Well, one of those bags of books was taken down onto the road yesterday lunchtime and donated to the St Ann’s Hospice shop, and I didn’t return with any replacement books.

Still another bag of former Computer Corner books to go, but there are two bags on the landing again, as I thought I would sort out the bookshelves downstairs – the ones between the lounge and dining areas. The books in this unit are stored two deep so the front ones are hiding more books behind them. Thus I sorted out some of the books from that unit which could also go to charity shops as I have either read them or am unlikely to do so. This made room for me to store quite a lot of the books which were brought home from North Wales!

Coming to the end of this match, nice to see an Austrian guy helping a Dutch player who had gone down with cramp. We have now gone into Fergie Time at the end of the game. Four minutes added on. Still 2-0 to the Dutch, they are set to go through to the knockout rounds with this win as they’ll have 6 points from two games.

Final score: Netherlands 2 Austria 0.

Anyhow, talking of footy, I have started another ebook about the Beautiful Game and it’s another one by Charlie Connelly, albeit one about a tiny European principality with a rather less than enviable record… the book is Stamping Grounds, and it is about Liechtenstein and their quest to qualify for the 2002 World Cup, in which they failed heroically!

I am unsure of their record since the 2002 qualifying campaign and the publishing of Connelly’s book, but he did give the record prior to that campaign starting… before a ball had been kicked in the unsuccessful effort to go to Japan and South Korea, Liechtenstein had played 30 international qualifying games for various World Cups and European Championships. Of these 30 games, they lost 27 of them. They did however manage a couple of draws and one solitary victory at home to Azerbaijan in 1998 when they managed to win 2-1.

Blimey! Imagine being the Azerbaijani manager after that! Your team have just lost to a country that usually gets completely stuffed in continental competition and you’ve got to go back to Baku… wonder if he was advised not to make the return journey? Or, perhaps, on the team’s return, he was serenaded with the Azerbaijani equivalent of “You’re getting sacked in the morning”?!

Progress has only just started with Stamping Grounds, but The Wrong Kind of Snow, by Antony Woodward and Robert Penn, is making good progress. We are nearly halfway through the year and still keeping up with it, sometimes a few days at a time.

I hope all those books are waterproof, lol! I do have one waterproof book, though, The Beach Book, which is a book of short stories with a beach or seaside theme. It is in my suitcase as I take it away with me on short breaks and holidays, and last read some of it in October in the hot tub when Mum and I went to the Lake District. Thing is, I can never remember where I am up to from one holiday to the next! I need a waterproof bookmark, I think!

I need to resume The Black Flamingo, by Dean Atta, which I started before our holiday in Llandudno, but am considering a couple of the books I brought back from Wales, those being West End Girls, by Jenny Colgan, as it shares its name with a Pet Shop Boys song, lol, and The Iron Man, by Ted Hughes, as it is only short. Although he obviously did write prose, he is probably best known as a poet, and was the UK’s Poet Laureate from 1984 to 1998. He is also known for having been married briefly to fellow poet, Sylvia Plath.

I read a bit of Sylvia Plath’s work when I was at uni, her novel, The Bell Jar, and one of her poetry anthologies, Ariel. In modern parlance, one might say it was quite “emo”, lol!

In the photo at the top, where I have had a book reshuffle in the unit, there are still some books that were already there, but I have put quite a few of the acquisitions from Llandudno in there, largely on the bottom row.

I still intend to sort out the book chest in the garage, but the unit in the living room will do for now – it’s more accessible. I will have to go into the garage at some point and get a lot of stuff off the top of the chest so I can open it up! I haven’t had a shufty for a while, but I know there are plenty of books in there, so I should be able to have a good clear out for the charity shops and fill the void with books from the landing and in my room.

Just been into my backpack to get my Kindle out for a shufty and found Black Coffee Blues, by Henry Rollins, which is another of the books I bought in Wales. It’s a collection of his writings. I have now switched my Kindle on for a look… things I have downloaded recently…

Night Witches, by Fergus Mason, is about the Soviet Union’s all-female bomber pilot regiment during World War II. I have About Britain, by Tim Cole, a journey of 70 years and 1,345 miles, and the very amusingly-titled Fox Tossing, Octopus Wrestling and Other Forgotten Sports, by Edward Brooke-Hitching! I like to find some unusual and amusing books!

Not sure we will ever better Economics for Babies, by Jonathan Litton, though, on the unusual book front, lol! That was the book my sister found early last year when we were over in Ireland visiting family and went for a look in the library in Dun Laoghaire! I have reposted the photo above for your amusement!

Anyway, I think that’s probably about all for now, and you now know that a lot of the books brought home from Wales have been found a shelf. Got some family occasions coming up fairly soon, so unsure when I will be blogging again, but I should be back for the monthly review if not earlier. Until the next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Stamping Grounds – Charlie Connelly
• The Wrong Kind of Snow – Antony Woodward & Robert Penn
• The Beach Book – Various
• The Black Flamingo – Dean Atta
• West End Girls – Jenny Colgan
• The Iron Man – Ted Hughes
• The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
• Ariel – Sylvia Plath
• Black Coffee Blues – Henry Rollins
• Night Witches – Fergus Mason
• About Britain – Tim Cole
• Fox Tossing, Octopus Wrestling and Other Forgotten Sports – Edward Brooke-Hitching
• Economics for Babies – Jonathan Litton

The North Wales Book-Buying Spree of 2021

Hello there, fellow Bookworms!

I am back, and if you were wondering where I had been, the answer, for a good portion of last week, was Llandudno, North Wales! To say that a number of books were purchased on the North Wales coast would be an understatement, so I am NOT going to list them all at the end, that would take forever! However, I will put up a photo of the list I made so that you can have a look at the 30 books I acquired! I have created a list on List Challenges already, so you can check it out on there.

I will, of course, mention some of the books I bought, but I also need to mention a couple that I read while I was away, and one, from the list, that I have also finished. We are halfway through June now, well, we will be tomorrow, and I have got my 28th, 29th and 30th reads of the year under my belt!

The pattern so far this year thus maintains the 7, 3, 7, 3, 7, 3 thing at the moment, but we still have more of June to go, so you never know, lol! There could be more this month, possibly, if not distracted by the football (European Championships), cross-stitch, or anything else.

Passion Pure, by Charlie Connelly, was the first book to be finished off this month. It was on my Kindle, and is the fourth book I have read by this writer, along with Bring Me Sunshine, Attention All Shipping, and The Channel. As you can probably tell, I am very partial to his books!

I finished that one off while I was in Llandudno, as I did with Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, by Carlo Rovelli, which is a paperback. So, while I was in Wales, I was still getting some reading done.

And that, above, is The List! Yep, those are all the books I bought last week on my jollies! Now you can see why I am NOT typing that out all over again, lol! I may mention one or two of them and list them at the end of this blog, but if you think I am typing out a list of over 30 books, you have got to be joking!

The first book from that list which I WILL mention, though, is near to the end of the list, and it is Many Different Kinds of Love, by Michael Rosen, as that is my 30th book finish for this year so far! I bought it in Conwy when Mum and I went there for a visit on the tourist bus – it’s not far from Llandudno. The book is about the author’s experience of having had coronavirus big time last year, the most serious, life-threatening version of it, and about his survival, and recovery from it. I have now lent this book to Mum, although I think she is still reading Prince Philip’s Century 1921-2021, by Robert Jobson.

If you recall my blog from before I went away, and the mention of a book called Cross Stitch Samplers, by Jane Kendon, it may interest you to know that one of the books I bought in Wales is mentioned in the bibliography at the back of this book! That book is Embroidery Motifs from Dutch Samplers, by Albarta Meulenbelt-Nieuwburg. I don’t really see myself stitching any full-on samplers, but the motifs, certainly the smaller ones, will come in handy for stitching onto bookmarks.

Poland have just equalised against Slovakia, so it’s currently 1-1.

While a few of the books have come from actual bookshops, many of them have come from charity shops, and even one or two from the likes of Waterstone’s and W H Smith’s were on offer! West End Girls, by Jenny Colgan, was one such book – it was in the sale in W H Smith’s, and as it shares its name with the first number one single of my favourite synth duo, it just had to be bought, lol!

Well, it was only £3, it’s called West End Girls, and I have been a fan of the Pet Shop Boys since I was 14 years old…

Funnily enough, I have a PSB t-shirt on today!

The Haters, by Jesse Andrews, sounded good, and it is by the same guy who wrote Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, which I read and enjoyed a few years ago – one of the 45 books I read in 2017, to be exact, lol! Also, while we are on books by authors I have already read, Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid was one of my charity shop bargains in Llandudno, and I read The Reluctant Fundamentalist by the same guy some years ago – before I was keeping a regular record, though. I was on Facebook, so it was at least the summer of 2007, but I think it was more likely around 2008 or after that, as that’s when I started up the book group on FB.

Mitch Albom is also an author I had read before, and that one was Tuesdays With Morrie, which I read on Tuesdays back in the early months of 2017, around March, I think. Anyway, I bought The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto, which sounds good.

Slovakia are back in the lead now, 2-1, taking advantage of the fact that Poland have had a guy sent-off for a second bookable offence. I think this one is being given to the Slovak player, as opposed to their first goal which went down as an own goal by the Polish goalie! Oops!

Some of my books from my jollies, there. You may notice Basta by Marco van Basten – sadly, didn’t get to see him play live, his playing days were mostly before I started going to matches in the autumn of 1991. Also, he played for AC Milan at the time, and United didn’t get drawn against them in European fixtures for donkey’s years! I think it wasn’t until the noughties that I saw us play against the Rossoneri in continental competition.

I did get to see the legend that was Paolo Maldini play against us at Old Trafford, but never saw Marco van Basten or Frank Rijkaard play against my lads. Did see Ruud Gullit, though, because he came over to play for Chelsea for a few years! Used to have a big poster of Ruud Gullit and Eric Cantona having a post-match hug – that image was from when we beat Chelsea in the FA Cup semi-final in 1996 on the way to our second Double that season.

Mind you, we have had plenty of Dutch players of our own at Old Trafford over the years! From Arnold Muhren back in the 80s, when I was a kid, an FA Cup winner with United in 1983, to Donny van de Beek in our current squad, although he is injured and had to pull out of the Netherlands squad for this current tournament. Talking of the Oranje, that was an absolutely cracking match that they and Ukraine served up last night with the Dutch narrowly winning 3-2! Best game of the tournament so far, I think.

Well, I think that is about all for now, as I need to decide on what to read next, ha ha! The Goodreads Challenge target has been increased to 35 books now. Slovakia beat Poland 2-1, that was the final score from that game which I was mentioning in this blog. Earlier, the Czech Republic beat Scotland 2-0. Spain vs Sweden has just kicked off a few minutes ago, so I am going to watch the footy. Until next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Passion Pure – Charlie Connelly
• Bring Me Sunshine – Charlie Connelly
• Attention All Shipping – Charlie Connelly
• The Channel – Charlie Connelly
• Seven Brief Lessons on Physics – Carlo Rovelli
• Many Different Kinds of Love – Michael Rosen
• Prince Philip’s Century 1921-2021 – Robert Jobson
• Cross Stitch Samplers – Jane Kendon
• Embroidery Motifs from Dutch Samplers – Albarta Meulenbelt-Nieuwburg
• West End Girls – Jenny Colgan
• The Haters – Jesse Andrews
• Me and Earl and the Dying Girl – Jesse Andrews
• Exit West – Mohsin Hamid
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist – Mohsin Hamid
• Tuesdays With Morrie – Mitch Albom
• The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto – Mitch Albom
• Basta – Marco van Basten

Royaume Uni, Douze Points!

Good evening, fellow Bookworms!

Welcome to my blog on the night of the Eurovision Song Contest, hence the title of tonight’s blog! For those of you whose French is a tad rusty, it means United Kingdom twelve points, which, sadly, is not something we get to hear very often these days, lol! Currently, as I type, we’re on for the fifth entry, which is that of Russia.

Actually, that wasn’t too bad. I’ve heard worse!

The contest is being held in Rotterdam. The Dutch won in 2019, but obviously we couldn’t have a proper Eurovision this time last year, so they get to have this year’s contest in the Netherlands.

As this is a book blog and it’s Eurovision night, we have to mention Nul Points, by Tim Moore, which, as the title implies, is about the entries, over the years, under the previous voting system, which went home from the Eurovision Song Contest without a single vote to their name! Tim goes to meet up with them and find out what happened after their pointless ESC performances, whether their countries were embarassed or didn’t mind.

It’s a good read, as is French Revolutions by the same guy – in that one, he decides he’s going to cycle the route of the Tour de France, albeit at a considerably more leisurely pace! I would recommend both books. Before I go on to the current reading matter, one last recommendation pertinent to the continent, and that would be Neither Here Nor There, by Bill Bryson, which is about his travels around Europe. And that concludes the votes of the bookworm jury, lol!

We’ll get back to some continental nonsense later, no doubt, probably when the infamously biased voting is going on, ha ha!

Anyway, as I watch the UK entry and wonder what the giant trumpets are all about, lol, I can inform you all that we have significant progress on Loaf Story by Tim Hayward… we are two-thirds of the way through it now! 67% read, and so is a good bet to be finished off before the month is out. Tim’s bread-related focus is on the use of bread in food, and also under food (as in things on toast), and even food in bread!

Mind you, even though I have only read 12% of it, Recipe for Life, by Mary Berry, features a recipe for Bread and Butter Pudding, so the bread theme is still very much ongoing.

A newer read that I discovered on Facebook and downloaded for my Kindle was the above book, The Pun Also Rises, by John Pollack and I have read 25% of it already as I am all about puns and wordplay as a lot of you probably already know! Weirdly enough, though, even this book has mentioned The Epic of Gilgamesh! Yes, really! It was saying that puns and wordplay have been going back thousands of years and across languages, so they even existed in ancient Mesopotamia at the time the Epic was written in cuneiform on clay tablets.

Still need to get on with My Side by David Beckham, and while we are on the topic of Becks, he is one of three former United players who were inducted into the Premier League Hall of Fame this week just gone. It has just been started up and eight players were inducted. The three former Red Devils now in the Hall of Fame are Eric Cantona, Roy Keane and David Beckham.

(Sorry, just distracted by the German entry with a bloke playing a sparkly ukelele and a person dressed as a giant hand giving either a peace sign or V sign – you decide, lol!)

Eric Cantona’s autobiographies featured in my very first blog back on 14th August 2010, and I say it in the plural as I have both the original French version, Un Rêve Modeste et Fou, and the English version, My Story, and both are signed by King Eric from when I met him on a number of occasions back in the 90s!

(Finland’s entry is called Dark Side – one for Darth Vader, perhaps?!)

Wondering what my next big book “theme” is going to be. As many of you will know, we’ve had a lot of books about the weather (including the Shipping Forecast) and then quite a lot of books about bread, so I am wondering where the rabbit hole will lead next! To be fair, being distracted by the Eurovision Song Contest this evening is not going to give me any answers as to my next book theme.

Maybe there won’t be a theme? I might come out of the rabbit hole of meteorology and bread and the books might go back to being random. Talking of random, Ukraine’s entry… what on earth is this about?! I now realise I will be reading this blog some time in the future and will end up Googling the Ukrainian entry from the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest to make sense of what I am blogging about here, lol!

Google should be used to this, though – I am very random! Graham Norton has just said that France haven’t won Eurovision since 1977! Bloody ‘ell! You thought the UK hadn’t done well in recent times?! At least we’ve done better than that! 1997 was our last win thanks to “Love Shine A Light” by Katrina and the Waves. Prior to that, the UK’s next most recent win was 40 years ago in 1981 and was “Making Your Mind Up” by Bucks Fizz. Went to see them a couple of years later, my first gig, at the Manchester Apollo.

In those days, it was mostly Western Europe. The only “Iron Curtain” country who took part in Eurovision in those days was Yugoslavia. Things had to expand when the Eastern Bloc came to an end in the late 80s, early 90s, and more countries wanted to take part so they had to start having semi-finals!

I notice a lot of people on Farcebook complaining about the biased voting, but it has ALWAYS been that way and that’s all part of it! We all know that people are going to vote for their neighbours and Greece and Cyprus will always give each other the maximum 12 points – one of those things you can always rely on in life, ha ha! It is an annual festival of dodgy songs and biased voting and that’s the whole fun of it!

It’s the same for this blog… if you know there’s always going to be a lot of waffle and randomness in the mix along with the books, you adjust to it, and you can accept Eurovision if you see it as a bit of fun and accept that the voting has always been biased and the songs can be a bit dodgy!

I’ve been watching it since I was a little girl and the only thing that has really changed is that there are more countries these days so they need semi-finals, but the songs have often been silly – “Ding a Dong” and “Boom Bang a Bang Bang” for instance, and the voting has always been at least a little bit bent, ha ha, and I see it as just an annual tradition! Just don’t go expecting good songs or any fairness, and you’ll be fine!

When I was a kid, sometimes we’d be round at Grandma and Grandad’s watching Eurovision, and Dad would pretend to “translate” all the foreign songs, which, for some reason, would be about a nun with a bicycle stuck up her arse, lol! That was certainly the French entry according to Dad!

I have even watched Eurovision while overseas on my jollies on one occasion! It was in 2006. Mum and I were in Port El Kantaoui in Tunisia, but we found Eurovision on a Spanish channel in our hotel room. It was the year Lordi won for Finland with “Hard Rock Hallelujah”.

One of my favourite winners from recent times was Conchita Wurst, in 2014 for Austria with “Rise Like a Phoenix” – a song that would not be out of place as a James Bond film theme! Very reminiscent of your classic Bond songs like the ones Dame Shirley Bassey sung, “Diamonds Are Forever” and “Goldfinger”.

As Graham Norton has reminded us, they have done an amazing job to get Eurovision on this year, with an audience – it’s a test event for them, like some events have been for us here. This time last year, the venue was being used as a hospital, so congratulations to everyone in the Netherlands who have made the ESC possible this year!

This year’s contest is in Rotterdam. Not been there, but I would like to some day when things are well again. Been to Amsterdam, Eindhoven and Valkenburg, so I’ve had a few visits to the Netherlands, but Rotterdam is on the to-do list. It’s where United won the European Cup-Winners’ Cup in 1991, and where Robin van Persie is from, who helped us win our 20th league title in 2013 when I was 40. In fact, his hat-trick the night before my Big 40 meant we were champions!

We have had an interval, all the songs are done, but voting is still open at the moment, so I think I should bring this to an end before I sit back and enjoy the traditionally biased results coming in, lol! Thus, until next time, take care and Happy Reading!

Joanne x x x

Books mentioned in this blog entry…

• Nul Points – Tim Moore
• French Revolutions – Tim Moore
• Neither Here Nor There – Bill Bryson
• Loaf Story – Tim Hayward
• Recipe for Life – Mary Berry
• The Pun Also Rises – John Pollack
• The Epic of Gilgamesh – Unknown
• My Side – David Beckham
• Un Rêve Modeste et Fou – Eric Cantona
• My Story – Eric Cantona