Month: December 2007

Chances are, if you read this blog frequently, that you understand the acronym ‘tbr’. It probably brings tears to your eyes a little… that’s right, I’m sure most of us have to-be-read piles, whether in reality or mentally. On the dovegreybooks Yahoo Group recently we were discussing the number of unread books we had on our shelves – I happened to mention that I had about 300 unread books (unread by me, that is – most of ’em have been read by someone). This was met with aghast amusement by another member, who couldn’t stomach the idea of resisting books for so long, while a little bit later I was trumped by someone who estimated they had 4000 unread books in their home – ! Wow.

Here is my defence, if defence is necessary. During university I rarely had time to read books for pleasure (though I did derive a lot of pleasure from the books I had to read – subtle difference), but my buying rate didn’t slow down… Secondly, when I’m in a charity shop and the books are 50p each, anything I *might* one day want to read, or loan to someone, or refer to, ends up being in my hot little hands. And the money goes to charity. It’s like a generous donation, only I get something in return. (Denial is, they say, the first sign – am I right?) Also (I have no end of excuses) I try to read borrowed books as quickly as possible, thus leaving my own spoils to fester.

How about you? A backlog which would suffice for years, should someone dig a moat around your house, or just enough to keep you going until the kettle’s boiled?

This is a long-winded way of saying that a whole new heap of books has entered my house… the nicest cover being the one displayed above, A House of Air by Penelope Fitzgerald. Lynne would be proud. Having heard so much about it, I couldn’t resist donating some money to Oxfam, and receiving this book as a total coincidence.

The Harvest by Christopher Hart – not heard of it, but my friend Clare says it’s one of her favourite books, and she loves A Lifetime Burning and Tom’s Midnight Garden – how could I wrong with £1?

The other four were birthday presents, thanks guys!
-Love In A Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford, from Barbara-in-Ludlow – have read The Pursuit of Love but none of the rest, so thanks Barbara, and get well soon!

-Shakespeare by Bill Bryson, kindly given by The Carbon Copy, who knows me very well. My literati offering was a Mr. Funny T-Shirt. Only in our minds are Shakespeare and Roger Hargreaves akin.

-When We Were Very Young by AA Milne – of course I have a copy of this, but my lovely friend Mel bought me a 1925 edition, published less than a year after the first edition.

-Unbeaten Tracks in Japan by Isabella L. Bird – know little about this, but my dear English-student-friend Phoebe sent it, all the way from Japan, in fact. An autobiographical account of an Englishwoman touring Japan in 1878 – sounds wonderful, and may move nearer the very top of the tbr pile. And right now I have to leap out of bed with some vigour, to avoid the besieging books…

Happy Advent, one and all – although 10, Regent Street remains sadly undecorated, it has warmed my heart to see electric snowflakes appear over the lampposts of Oxford, candles materialise in people’s windows, and holly, wreathes, tinsel, miniature soldiers playing miniatures parcels as though they were drums – the whole Christmas bumpf. As a Christian, Christ is always going to be the most important and exciting part of Christmas, but I love the tack and the good cheer which goes alongside. Yesterday I experienced one of my favourite Christmas pasttime – watching a domestic cat around a Christmas tree for the first time. I remember Bundle’s reaction every year, (Bundle being our cat, who was with us from 1993-2006) bewilderment as the humans brought a tree inside, gradual recollection that we did sometimes do that, sniffing around the tree, playing with a few low-lying decorations, then generally accepting the incident as one of the many irrational things humans will do, like not feed cats when they’re hungry, and get cross when you sit in the lovely bed they’ve prepared for a cat just because it’s called “clean laundry”. What a long sentence that was!

So, how have I been spending my Advent? This evening I have baked, washed up, and mopped the floor. Why, you ask? I’m not auditioning for Househusband of the Year (nor, indeed, am I a husband) but rather preparing for the visitation of Our Vicar and Our Vicar’s Wife tomorrow. Our Vicar hasn’t seen my house yet, so I thought I’d give the illusion that we live in cleanliness and hygiene. Well, we manage the hygiene bit, anyway. I’m only one pair of hands and there are three other males in this house… Before you award me Son of the Century, never mind Year, I must confess -I accidentally double booked the parents’ visit with my library Christmas dinner, and thus shall only be seeing them for 2.5 hours. Bad son. These were placatory measures, which hopefully will be noticed by at least one of my parents…

The next chunk of Advent will be spent in Reader Services – as I mentioned, I’ve finished in the Science section – so it’s a case of impressing new colleagues as well as parents. Better get some sleep then. Oh, and I hope you like my advent calendar – it’s on a little card, bought by Our Vicar’s Wife. The advent calendar used to be something Granny always provided for us, and it’s still nice to have one, even if the pictures behind each door get increasingly tenuous. Even the specifically Christian ones tend to lose inspiration after star, donkey, angel and plump for items like holly, pigeon, wheelbarrow which seemed to have been missed out of my New Testament…

Another week of being rather lax with blog posting – as I scroll down the section in the column which categorises posts by months, I’m astonished that I managed 28 in October and May. Well, 24 isn’t bad for November. Especially since 30-days-have-September, April-June-and-November (do they still teach children that in Primary School? It all tails off in ‘except for February alone, which has 28, unless it’s a leap year…’ – not so much with the scansion, there).

I’m currently at ‘work’ in the Bodleian – my Saturday duty, which I do once a month. Except term ended yesterday, and only the very dedicated have shown up to study once everyone else has gone home. Not run off my feet. And all this got me thinking about the blogging schedule – what time do you blog? What time do you read blogs, or go through the daily blog-crawl? Same time everyday? Whenever you have a moment?

With some exceptions (like today), I blog between 10.30-midnight just before I go to bed. That’s because the mornings are invariably a rush, and the evenings seem more flexible – but also explains why I never had photographs taken in the light, and why I’m often ineloquent and sleepy-sounding…

My blog-crawl comes at about 10.00, when the morning rush is over in the library and I have time to look through some websites. That might change when I start in the main Bodleian on Monday… I’ve already talked about the blogs I visit daily, and it’s nice to know which ones will have something new. Dovegreyreader seems to update at early o’clock, with Random Jottings not long after – Cornflower will be mid-morning, usually, and so it goes on. All gets a bit more confusing with US blogs, which probably get updated while I’m asleep, but a check at 10.00 will generally insure something different has arrived.

And all this is by way of a sort-of apology – because I daresay my regular visitors hope to see something arrive before midnight (or, rather, be there in the morning) so those of you who checked in early this morning… sorry. I was asleep!

And to offset an apology with a thanks – three of you lovely people offered me a cutting of the Guardian bit mentioning me, so thanks Julie, Carole and Peter (I assume Dark Puss can’t read?) and especial thanks to Julie who was first, and thus to whom I responded first, and is responsible for the article now on my desk at home!