Not as good as the book....

I was SOOO looking forward to The Golden Compass last week,only to be hugely let down by the film and the worst bit was I had recommended it to some other people before actually seeing it and now I feel really bad. Maybe it's better if you haven't read Northern Lights,but I would imagine it would be more confusing. Anyway,I was not impressed by the casting of Nicole Kidman as Mrs Coulter and the film skipped over so many of the plot essentials. So,I had to re-read the book,just to restore my faith in the story as one of the best books I've ever read. And now I realize that Lyra was probably about the only thing the filmmakers got right. Ah well,maybe the sequel will be better,but I'm not holding my breath!

Christmas fare for mind and body

Can I recommend Marks and Spencers Milk Chocolate Covered Toffee Butter Popcorn? Yum.
Meanwhile, the book group is doinng local poetry this month - we're all reading Jim Mainland's book A Package of Measures then whatever else we want, dialect or non-dialect, so it will be interesting to see what folk find. Last month's discussion was good, hearing about the varied Latin American authors that folk picked up on. A theme like a country is quite a good idea sometimes. Think we should bring appropriate food into the mix next time though. A smorgasbord of Norwegian food and literature?

The Christmas Mystery

Ok I know some of you probably aren't really that keen on Christmas, but if you are not in the mood for heroin addiction and prostitution can I suggest as an alternative the Christmas Mystery by Jostein Gaarder. This is the best time of year to read it because it is like an advent calendar, one chapter for each day in December till Christmas. Last year I read one chapter a day on the corresponding day, and I really enjoyed it. Get your copy now!

Sex and Drugs

Just read a memoir called In My Skin by Kate Holden. It's the story of how a nice educated middle-class girl falls into heroin addiction and prostitution. I liked the fact that she wasn't pitying herself or blaming anyone else - she had a good stable loving family who never gave up on her. She describes very matter-of-factly how heroin gradually got a grip on her and inexorably messed up her life so much that she found herself streetwalking. She had chances to give up, she did occasionally give up, but the pull of addiction was too strong to resist. Interestingly, it was managing to get off the street and into better class brothels that ultimately empowered her and gave her the self confidence she needed to kick the drugs. She describes her work - all the sex with all the men - in unflinching detail, and some of it is horrible, as you'd expect. But she also acknowledges that there were some times that she enjoyed her work, even found great joy in it. This is a really well-told story. I avoid the rash of 'poor me' memoirs like the plague normally, but this was a different sort of tale.

Hooray!!

I was reading some reviews of forthcoming titles in the Sunday papers yesterday,and was overjoyed to see that at last Susan Fromberg Schaeffer's Madness of a Seduced Woman is to be republished in January. Those of you who know me will probably have heard the woeful tale of how I was given a copy by a friend many years ago,read it,loved it,passed it on to a less reliable friend who left the country with it,never to return! By the time I'd given up waiting for it to to appear back by post (ever the optimist!),it had gone out of print. Yes I suppose I could have tracked down some battered secondhand copy, but I do like my books to be in pristine condition,and so from time to time I have clicked on Amazon in the vain hope that a reprint was imminent. So now I'm really happy -roll on January!!

Mixture of mercies

Good luck with the ipod Lesley. I never quite get round to listening to audio books, probably because I don't have a car and don't do much ironing. It's being forced to 'read' at the pace of the speaker that's frustrating. I'll sometimes listen to a story if it comes on Radio 4, but I think the answer is indeed to take up knitting, you have to have something else to do at the same time. Having said that, I've got a couple of long train journeys next week so I'll take along an Ian Rankin and my old chuggy Walkman (belatedly become a Rankin fan so lots of catching up to to) .

Been dipping into a complete mish-mash of reading lately. Working through Midnight's Children, and it's really an OK read but I've allowed myself to think of it as worthy and dense which gives me false justification for conntinually putting it down to read something light. Dipped into a bit of Latin American stuff for our next meeting. Read Nigel Slater's new one Eating for England which is a collection of snippets - some which really hit home - about the British way with food. Like the bit about the ghastly person who always insists on totting up exactly what they've eaten rather than just splitting the bill on a group meal. His memoir Toast is far better though: all based round food, a bittersweet - or sometimes just plain bitter - look at family life. What else - oh yes, more nostalgia new to the library - a book of classic British camper vans which is gloriously anoraky and copiously illustrated. Another one is Britain's Lost Cities, a book of photos illustrating how we carried on ruining our cities where Hitler left off. There's a picture of an astonishing ornate arch which used to grace Dundee harbour till it was gratuitously demolished. It was actually hideous, but having said that it was the prettiest thing in Dundee. Interesting book but would be better if it had 'after' photos to compare with the 'before'. Also dipping into a new illustrated Kama Sutra, just need to check it's suitably tasteful before loosing it on the public. (It's printed by Dorling Kindersley, no less, with the excellent full-colour illustrations one comes to expect from them...).

Audio adventure

I thought it was time I started posting to the blog. (Karen has been telling me it was time for a few months now!) I have managed to read quite a bit lately. I really liked 'In the Woods' by Tana French, about a detective investigating a murder in woods next to an estate in Ireland. He doesn't admit to it, but he and his friends were abducted there when he small, and he moved away and changed his name after he was the only one to make it out alive. He remembered nothing at the time, and still doesn't, although the case brings back some echoes of memory. It was like your usual crime thriller, but with a lot of thoughfulness added in.
I have also been reading my usual teenage fare, two diares, one a hilarious modern 'adrian mole' type (My so called life) and one more of an 'I'm fat and sad becuase nobody loves me' type (my fat, mad, teenage diary). I liked the first one best. I finally got around to the latest Kevin Brooks 'The road of the dead' which was, like all Kevin Brooks, fantastic. I really like his style of writing.
I am off south on a school trip tomorrow and will be taking my dinky little ipod shuffle and two audiobooks with me. I have subscribed to an audiobook service, and I will be getting one book a month (and the ipod was free!). I have never had much experience of audiobooks, so I am hoping I will like it. Now that I take the car to work I really miss my time on the bus - two half hours a day of guaranteed peaceful reading time. I am hoping to play audiobooks in the car to get nearly the same effect, although I will have to remember to pay attention to the road!
I am also hoping to knit while listening to audiobooks, since it is not possible to knit and read normally (yes, sadly I did try!). I have only recently started knitting and I am very slow at it, so need to do something else at the same time. I have started with 'On Chesil Beach' and 'The God delusion'. I will let you know how I get on with them.

Poetic leanings

Next month the book group's going to get into a bit of local poetry, which I'm looking forward to.

I'll bring the Scottish Poetry Library's resourse box along to the meeting for us to delve into. I thought I'd share this 'novel approach' idea from the Scottish Poetry Library, which has a nice new 'reading room' section on their website - www.readingroom.spl.org.uk. Novel approach is an idea that pairs up novels with poems, and there are examples on the site, e.g Sarah Water's The Night Watch teamed with Vicki Feaver's Book of Blood. However, I think we should think of some of our own - can anyone suggest a poem that sums up a book we've read?

Or maybe we should try writing poems to sum up the books we've read? Can anyone do Housewife Down in a haiku?...

The Red Tent, ah, for the good old days

Well, I know you have all long since moved on from The Red Tent, but I have only just finished it. At first I thought boring..., as one or two others said 'It's a bit repetitive' and as for the motherhood bit, well being a mother of five myself, I don't really need to be reminded of the agonies of childbirth on every second page. But as the book went on, I really began to enjoy it and apart from the bloody massacre bit, I liked the peacefulness of the daily routines and a much simpler way of life. Hmmm...

I've read half of Salman Rushdie's Midnights Children, heavy going but I will get back to it.

I'm into all things Gavin Maxwell at the moment, having seen the play at the Garrison the other week, it prompted me to do a bit of research on the guy - a fascinating character, totally eccentric of course, but that's what made him so absorbing. Tried to get hold of Douglas Bottings' biography of Maxwell, but alas out of print and no longer avaliable through Amazon. Shame.

Has anyone read Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson? I love the style of it, a quick read too, might be worth thinking of for future book group reads.

Good news! Maybe my previous wailing on the blog about the loss of my beloved books stirred some guilt pangs as I've recently been able to retrieve a large percentage of my book collection! It was a happy day when I went to collect them. Now those books combined with the books I've gathered in the past twelve months amount to a fair few books as you can imagine...

We are about to move house, to a very old house in Mossbank (it's a listed building). My plans for my study (library) in the upstairs attic rooms have been scuppered. Paul says the 150 year old floor will not cope with the weight - back to the drawing board, or should that be floorboards?

Red Tent again. And Hairy Men.

Good June, glad you enjoyed it - for those who didn't make the meeting, The Red Tent caused a schism in the book group, with about half of us liking it, the other half not - partly, if I'm understanding this right, because it was too repetitive and uneventful. I'm in the first camp - if you'll pardon the pun - like June I really enjoyed the description of day to day life, and in fact when the real action did come, in the form of a very biblical massacre, I was quite aggrieved that the rhythm of the story had been disrupted.

On a different matter entirely, I was recently browsing through a 1983 edition of The Joy of Sex, for reasons I won't detain you with. Those of you familiar with this work will recall that the illustrations - rather fine and very graphic - unfortunately feature a model universally refered to by readers as 'that dodgy bearded guy'. He does kind of put you off a bit - but I'm pleased to report that I've checked Amazon and there's a new updated version with photos, and no bearded man. The end of an era.

The Red Tent: a late opinion

28th October.

I enjoyed the story and the detailed description of the way of life, so typical of rural societies the world over until quite recent times. June.

What next?

You would think that during a two week break I would have managed to get through at least some of my bedside book collection,but no. I have read magazines,newspapers and watched daytime TV,not to mention a lot of evening TV. I have been down to Aberdeen and onwards to Glasgow and Edinburgh,and still nothing more intellectually challenging than Puzzle Monthly to pass the time! Still,we did win the pub quiz in Frankenstein's on Tuesday night,despite there being absolutely no literature questions for me to show off with!
OK,I am going to pick up a book this weekend -the third Denise Mina in the Garnethill trilogy - if only to find out what happens to everyone, and then that's me right off crime for the rest of the year. Think I'll move onto humour -it seems ages since I read a book which made me laugh out loud so any suggestions would be welcomed.

Literary fatigue

I seem to have developed some kind of terrible medical condition which is preventing me from finishing any book I am reading. I couldn't get into Venus as a Boy at all, then I started reading Iain Banks' The Steep Approach to Garbadale, which is good but it's taking me ages to read, now I have managed to get hold of the Red Tent so I am hoping that this will cure me of my current Chronic Reading Fatigue. First impressions are good anyway so here's hoping.

By the way, has anyone read Ian McEwan's Atonement? I am thinking this might be a good book group film trip/read as it is on in the Garrison next month. I saw it in Glasgow last month and it was pretty good. Although I can't approve of what Keira Knightley and James McAvoy were doing to the bookshelves in the library.

Holiday reading

Oi, someone else write something on this blog, its turning into my own sad diary! Just off on holiday, taking Ian Rankin with me - Black and Blue, the one where he comes to Shetland. Never read any of his books before, believe it or not, and it's very good I have to say, think he still holds his own against most of the tartan noir brigade. Also taking Salman Rushdie with me, just in case I've to spend a long time in airports.
Apart from that, I did of course read a bit of the Bible, which was interesting! And managed to read another of the Bookler shortlist books, which have come into the library at a really miserable trickle - The Reluctant Fundamentalist - really liked it, topical and menacing, oh and short too which is always a bonus. Been glancing at what this year's Booker book groups are making of the selection and they seem to like Mr Pip a lot, and find The Gathering utterly miserable. Bye for now!

It's driving me to the Bible!

Red Tent was a jolly good read, and now I feel obliged to go and read the book of Genesis. Shame on me, I don't think I have a bible anywhere in the house, though I assume we must have one in the library.
I was moved by the poignant tale of Laura's lost books, though I have to say I kind of deliberately try not to collect too many books due to lack of space and aversion to dusting. When I first worked at the library and got first crack at all the withdrawn stock, I used to go off home with armfuls of the things, till a couple of years later I realised they were just sitting there and I never read them. I work in a library, for goodness sake, I don't need to fill my house with books too. So I dragged them all back to the library and stuck them on the 10p shelf, where the y got doubly recycled. There are probably a couple of shelves of my books I wouldn't let go, and don't trust the library to hold in trust for me - they are mainly George Orwell, Arthur Koestler and Dervla Murphy, plus some cherished cookery books.

Loves and losses

There is a house in Stanegarth that is home to several thousand books. In each room most of the walls are lined with what I guess will now have to be called my 'former' book collection.
I became a serious bibliophile about ten years ago and quickly amassed a large book collection, and then in 2000 I moved house and many of the books were taken to second hand book shops. When I told people what I had done, many of the true book lovers were shocked, horrified, scandalised even and I felt castigated, I had become a pariah lurking among the real bibliophiles.
I vowed never to part with my books again and when I came home to Shetland two years ago, the whole lot came with me, (Nearly 4000 books!) by this time the book collecting bug was deadly serious, all my books had my name in them and where and when purchased.
But circumstances change and sacrifices have to made. When I hurriedly left the Stanegarth house I was able to grab a few of my most precious books, including the signed collection which is something, but looking at the reading list for the book group, I think to myself 'There is a hard back copy of The Stornoway Way at Stanegarth, A copy of The Red Tent, Several Salman Rushdie books including Midnight's Children of course. Could I retrieve these books? Not without a lengthy legal process I'm told.
All these books can be replaced and many have been, but some how 'Purchased amazon.co.uk - Sept '07', doesn't have the same romance as; "Child's second hand book shop, Okehampton Devon, - holiday August '03".

Red Tent: do a wall chart!

Got well into our next book The Red Tent last night due to insomnia: great book but I have a Top Tip: photocopy the family tree from the front of the book before you begin, so that you can glance at it to see who's who without constantly flicking back and forth through the book!

Was sorry I missed the start of last night's meeting, I felt addled by my two hours of belly dancing by the time I got there (this Shetland social life is just a bit much at times...) and it was hard to concentrate on the books. I thought the two were interesting to read in tandem. The Stornoway Way will stick in my mind more, even though it annoyed me at first - I thought it's description of alcoholism was very haunting in the end. I sometimes note down phrases that grab me - one from this book was the hilarious description of a 'quiveringly ambitious carry out', the other was nearer his demise - 'drinking is like filling yourself up with emptiness'. Think I'll stay off the gin for a wee while.

McIllvanney and the power of reading

Just read William McIllvanney's Weekend, not perfect but I loved it, he seemed to have a great tenderness for his characters, one bullied woman was described as 'living in the corners of herself that he'd left to her'. This is a nice bit from it, about why reading is good: "The book makes heavier demands on us [than television]...A scene in it's pages doesn't appear ready-made before our eyes, so that all we have to do is lazily record it. We have to construct it in our imaginations. It is a much more participatory medium, more our own creation. It's a DIY experience, he thought. The practice of it empowers us with a sense of ourselves by demanding our own individual interpretation be earned by decodifying it." So there we are, reading is a highly developed intellectual activity!

I've also been reading a second book by Arnaldur Indridason - Icelandic crime - stars a tough cop who seems quite a cool guy, but to my horror the author insists on describing him, revealing that he's thick-set with bushy red hair!!! I've gone right off him, I have to say.

Venus as a Boy

I have grudgingly put down Iain Banks' new book The Steep Approach to Garbadale in order to read Venus as a Boy for the next meeting. Venus as a Boy is a strange book, I really liked the first two pages but then it got extremely depressing, I'm not sure if I can keep reading it without slitting my wrists or chucking myself out the window but I'll have a go.

Back again!

Arrived back from Glasgow on Friday afternoon,amid the kind of turbulence which didn't unduly alarm most Shetlanders on the flight but must have been highly scary for anyone not accustomed to the semi-vertical approach and drop-from-the-sky-like-a-ton-of-bricks landing!
However,I'm sure it was less alarming than the previous night's boat journey! Anyway,still savouring "Exile" and in between I've also read "Venus as a Boy",which took up most of Sunday afternoon. Hmm.. I'll leave comments till the next meeting,but I do feel that Luke Sutherland might be an interesting candidate for a future Wordplay!

Wordplay: how was it for you?

So did anyone have interesting times at Wordplay? It was nice to see Denise Mina, she seems like an out-and-out nice person, though I'd have rather have seen her read her own stuff and I think some others in the audience were less than impressed by her and Iain Banks thinking it was a jolly wheeze to read each other's work. Twice Iain Banks has been up and he's still not read a bit of his own fiction. Really enjoying the last of the Garnethill trilogy, Resolution, and hope Morag is having fun in Glasgow with Exile. Just dinna wander into any dodgy places Morag!

On our book group reads, I've decided I quite like The Stornoway Way after all, though it irritated me at first - kind of sorry I never saw Kevin McNeill read at Wordplay, but the writing workshop ain't my thing, and from what I hear about the joint poetry reading he did, he didn't get the time he deserved. Venus as a Boy is a good read too, by the way, and very short!

One of the best things I heard at Wordplay was a poem called Mam's Chair by our very own Laura Friedlander - hurrah for Laura! There was a lot of good stuff at the festival but there didn't seem to be so many folk about and lots of good things clashed, not to mention clashing with the films, hope the book festival gets it's own weekend next year.

A weekend of excess....

Well,that's Wordplay by for another year - too many authors and not enough time to fit them all in, and now I'm thinking I should have made a bit more effort to hear them all. Still,Debi Gliori was brilliant as usual and Keith Gray was excellent. Just a pity more boys didn't turn up to his first session,but hopefully the school visits will address that. I'm off on the plane tomorrow with Denise Mina (the next book,not the author!) although who knows,she might be on the plane as well! Anyway,I'm back in Glasgow with my copy of Exile,which I've been saving for this occasion,to read "on location",as it were. Will report back soon if it lives up to expectations!

Bookermania without books...

High excitment! The Man Booker Shortlist is announced.
High irritation: hardly any library copies have arrived yet, so my plan of having a short-loan frenzy for folk who wanted to read the six books before the prize is announced has all gone damp squib-like. (hoping some will be here in a few days...)
Don't you wish we were reading them all again this year? If you navigate your way to the 'debate' section of the website you should find that this year's chosen groups have started blogging already. I guess they'll all be dancing on the streets of Piccadilly tonight...
On other matters, grappling with Kevin McNeill and not sure whether to like him or not, shall finish him off tonight and prepare to debate the finer points of the Gaelic language with Morag.

Bad Sex

Zipping through a big variety of reading - managed 2 Booker longlisters basically as they're the shortest ones - and most of the others haven't arrived in the library yet. Anyway I read On Chesil Beach and tend to agree with a comment I heard that it may manage to win the Bad Sex Award if not the Booker - by the way have a look at the Bad Sex Award website, it's exruciating!

Then I'm halfway through Catherine O'Flynn's What Was Lost, (seems interesting and different) after which I need to move speedily on to another Denise Mina, then it's on to The Stornoway Way, then I'm hoping Venus as a Boy will have arrived from Amazon, it's all most frantic!

Still reading....

I'm still only half way through Garnethill and have been for a few days now....think I must be falling asleep before finishing a chapter. Or maybe I'm just spinning it out since I'm enjoying it so much -who said you can read too much crime?
Good meeting on Tuesday -lots of interesting opinions and the food and drink was particularly nice too! If you haven't read the Guardian article by Luke Sutherland,do so before reading the book. No wonder he got out of Orkney fast...!!! (link here...)

Books from here till Christmas

Good meeting last night, dare I suggest folk seem to enjoy coming. Good to see membership staying strong, we are without doubt the nation's premium book group. Can't see why we didn't win the Book Group of the Year prize, they'd better give it to us next year or else.

Interesting reads for next month - Venus as a Boy promises an alternative view of Orkney and The Stornoway Way the same for the Western Isles, should be an interesting compare and contrast exercise. Since we wanted to read everything suggested last night we've now got our next three month's reads sorted as well:

• October it's The Red Tent by Ann Diamant
• November The Reader by Bernard Schlink
• December Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie.

Though it could still change if we get overtaken by an urgent and all-consuming need to read something else...

Poetry room at Wordplay

I'm looking forward to Karen's poetry room at Wordplay, complete with lava lamps and chaise longues.

Mina and more

Yes, Denise Mina if good (I'm just back from Glasgow too!). I like Exile, the follow up to Garnethill, interesting reminders of the horrible night bus to London. Other things I read on my hols - of interest to book-groupies will be Susanna Jones' new one, strange tale, quite liked it though not as much as her first two.
Also, best thing I've read in a long while: Jackie Kay's book of short stories, Wish I Was Here, utterly charming, lovely light touch to her writing.

Garnethill

Thanks for the tip Aileen,as I was about to check out some other Denise Mina titles,but obviously I won't now untill I finish Garnethill! Started reading this in Glasgow earlier this week and sadly I was like one of those Da Vinci Code geeks,checking out locations to see if certain places mentioned were as described in the book! I have to admit that this book has got me totally hooked - it would be a great read for the book group as there is a lot to discuss and the characters are brilliant!

Denise Mina

After finishing off the Mark Spragg book I thought I'd make a start on the Wordplay authors, haven't read any Iain Banks I'm ashamed to admit, but I started with Denise Mina, Garnethill since it's based in my home turf and I'm quite into crime novels anyway. The opening page didn't look all that promising, I thought it might be a bit gloomy and hard going but she has a good sense of humour which really lightens the book. However I made the mistake of picking up the next book in the serious as it was lying about in the library, and the blurb on it reveals the ending of Garnethill so I was really hacked off. Why do they do that, eh?

Can't keep up!

With the reading or the blogging! Meant to do this days ago but where does the time go? I have to admit I'm currently reading 'Harry Potter' whilst waiting for 'An Unfinished Life' to arrive from Amazon.
Lately I've been reading lots of horsey books having jsut acquired a horse after an absence of a couple of years. I've jsut finished a lovely book called 'Horses Never Lie' a 'how to' book rather than a story, but very good. By Mark Rashid,it is based on the horse whispering theory which is becoming increasingly popular among horse owners nowadays. It certainly got me thinking and I guess it had an effect in that I did start to think diferently about one or two of the pre-conceptions I've held about horses for many years.
But enough of that, the latest Harry Potter doesn't seem to have the same continuity as the other books and I get a real feeling that old JK just couldn't wait to get to the end and be shot of the whole caboodle so that she can finally rest on her (no doubt gold plated) laurels. All a bit of an anti-climax really.
I wish the Mark Spragg would hurry up and arrive.

Harry Potter

Well it's Monday and I'm still only half way through Harry Potter,my bedtime reading having been disrupted by a night under canvas at Sandsound! But I have to admit I am enjoying it so far - I just need to read a bit faster! The pile of books at my bedside now includes several WordPlay authors,several recommendations from friends and various titles which I intend to re-read but in all honesty probably never will. Anyway,early night tonight....

Weekend reading

Unfinished Life was a good book to relax with, a feel-good story I thought, though that sounds a bit trivial. Liked how it concentrated on the goodness in people and how they needed each other. And liked how it stayed in the present where the temptation might have been to go lurching back for lots of big flashbacks.
Now I've decided I may as well get Harry Potter out of the way so spent most of yesterday immersed in the Deathly Hallows and jolly enjoyable it is too. A bit self-indulgently overlong as is J K Rowling's wont, but a good read.
Booker longlist: as usual I hadn't managed to predict any of these so we only have about 4 of the books in library stock already. But did hear the Chair of the judging panel admit on the radio that he'd only heard of about 4 of them too, so don't feel too inadequate. They are all on order.

Booker excitement mounts!

The Man Booker longlist should be published today, keep an eye on their site - apparently the longlist will just comprise a dozen books this year. At the library we're going to try out a short loan system for the shortlist to help folk who want to read them all - loans for a week, no renewals or reservations - some of our members might be interested after our feat of reading round last year's Booker. We'll feel a bit left out if we don't do it again. This year a different six groups are shadowing the prize so they should have blogs up on the official site soon like we did. And they get to go to the shortlist party, and we don't, it's just not fair! www.themanbookerprize.com/

Wordplay 2007

Here's a list of authors coming up to Shetland for the Wordplay 2007 book festival 0n 8th-9th September (in case you want to get reading):

Iain Banks
Debi Gliori
Denise Mina
Kevin McNeil (and he has a blog!)
Pam Beasant - George Mackay Brown Fellow, from Orkney (couldn't find a website)
Fred Normandale
Keith Gray

The festival will be held in Isleburgh Community Centre.

Poetry Rules

Unfinished Life shaping up well, but only read a few chapters as head too full of poems - our very exciting Open Mike* Poetry night at the Library is taking up all my brainpower. One of the treats of the evening will be a rendition of Edwin Morgan's Loch Ness Monster song. You can have a sneaky listen here at the poetryarchive.org, a splendid web site I thoroughly recommend.

*Let's open up the debate which has recently split our small community: would you spell the diminutive of microphone 'mike' or 'mic'?

An Unfinished Life

Finished this book last night, although I'll admit I had to re-read the last two chapters this morning as I was very tired when I finished it and couldn't remember the ending! Anyway,it was a great book -I've now passed it on to Aileen and she's given me Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I'm not the greatest Harry Potter fan but I feel obliged to read this as it's the final book. If I enjoy it I may go back and read books 2,3,4,5 and 6,which I haven't read either!

An Unfinished Life

Well,I'm three quarters of the way through this book now and have to admit that I am really enjoying it. Definitely not a book you can skim read,which is why it's taking me a fair bit of time to get it finished. Really looking forward to the book group discussion on this one and quite keen to see the film as well - not sure about J-Lo as the main female character but I can imagine Morgan Freeman as Mitch. Anyway,I'm sure the scenery will make up for any mis-casting!

Harry Potter

Just reading the new Harry Potter, not sure what I'll do when it's finished, maybe just read them all again.

weird video

Came across this very strange video about being a librarian on youtube

An Unfinished Life

This month the group is reading An Unfinished Life by Mark Spragg

The next book group meeting is on Tuesday 28th August at 7.30pm in the Old Library Centre.