Month: August 2011

Hi everyone – I’m back from my holidays, which were fun – some photos soon, and reports on my (fairly limited) reading. The last four books I’ve read have all been over 400pp., so I’m not rattling through them as I usually would on holiday. Here’s one photo to be going on with (all these years with no photos of me on here, and now you’re spoilt with three in the space of a few weeks… maybe this means I’m getting more confident!) This is me, weary and wet and wholly inadequately dressed, at the top of misty Snowdon.

But, before I do any recapping (and of COURSE there will be a post on my new purchases) I’d like your advice… my camera gave up the ghost on holiday, after having survived a respectable six years. Could you help me with advice for buying a new digital camera? I don’t want anything too fancy, but reliable would be nice, and with good close-up focus thingummy…

Right, this time I really am off on holiday, to Shropshire and Wales sans internet, sans everything. See you in a week’s time!

Thanks for playing along – do keep your sentences coming! Just thought I’d let you know the answers – and point out my bit of trickery, which nobody spotted!

1.) is a rather lovely sentence from The Diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner.

2.) is in fact not Emma, but Mrs. Elton in America by Diana Birchall. Sneaky, no?

3.) was correctly identified by several people as The Bible.

I spotted a fun and familiar idea on Facebook, to celebrate National Book Week, courtesy of my friend Katie. It comes with an unrelated picture of a horseshoe-horse, from Town Tree Nature Garden, which I visited yesterday.

The idea is to grab the nearest book (I wonder if any of us are more than arm’s-length away from a book?), turn to p.56, and copy out the fifth sentence without identifying the book. Fairly pointless, but also fairly fun. I’ll do three – and probably edit to add the book info in after a while. Guesses are welcome! And then, of course, have a go yourself.

1.) ‘It is like turning such a brilliant light onto a tangle of wool that one doesn’t see the woollen tangle at all, only some peculiar rhythm of curves.’

2.) ‘This Miss Woodhouse was intolerable!’

3.) ‘”Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us.”‘

So… everyone (including my bro) seems to be reading One Day by David Nicholls – but the 3-for-2 tables and newspaper musings don’t give me the views I rely upon. I’m throwing this open to my ready-made decision-makers. One Day… thoughts? (I’m setting aside the fact that I totally had the idea for this sort of book years ago… except mine was going to cover eighty years… yeah, probably why that didn’t get written.)

Quick blog post, for Wikio blog rankings – always a bit of fun. Tomorrow – expect some Somerset photos, and a list of the books I’ve been buying… although, so far, I’ve bought almost as many for other people as I’ve bought for myself. Almost.

Ranking made by Wikio

I’m joining lots of folk across the blogosphere today in wishing Verity a very happy wedding!

You’ll probably see quite a lot of these greetings appear – it was the brainchild of the blogger we all know as Joan Hunter Dunn.

To make this a bit more collaborative, why not put forward your ideas for the best married couple in fiction? I’m always drawn to Jane and Bingley, even though we don’t hear much about their married life together. Ian and Felicity in Greenery Street is another good’un. Thoughts?