Christmas = mango-covered fingers

Ahh, Christmas. Mangoes. Cards in the post. Presents. Family. A new straw hat. Surprisingly cool weather. And then back to work.
I was reduced to re-reading books off the shelves at Christmas, a terrible state of affairs, so I was happily surprised to find that the public library was [...]

Battle wounds

My free computer time has been somewhat limited this week, for two furry little reasons that installed themselves in our spare room over the weekend. Yes, after all my lengthy soliloquies about the joys of dogs, and when would I have a dog, and oh, could I please have a dog, we now have [...]

Christmas thinking

Now that we’re nearly in December, I’ve begun thinking about Christmas and presents and decorations and trees. (Atheists like presents and excuses to celebrate too!) I have a genetic aversion to plastic Christmas trees, and unfortunately I also have one against paying enormous amounts of money for a live and very unnative pine tree. I’m [...]

Puns

I was having a little browse through Amazon’s website for fiction about baking, for some reason – I quite like Kerry Greenwood’s series of Corinna novels, set in a bakery, and I thought perhaps there were some other similar books out there.
Tapping in search queries, I was swept away unawares into an alarming world of [...]

Books read in June and July

Man, getting married put my book recording completely out of whack. And I’m too exhausted by the size of this list, and how long ago I read some of these books, to do proper summaries of them. So I’m breaking the formula and doing a few descriptive words by each one. (I [...]

Books Read in May

Wedding Photography: Getting Perfect Results Every Time by Ian Gee
The Art of Wedding Photography: Professional Techniques with Style by Bambi Cantrell
You Drive Me Crazy: Love Poems for Real Life ed. Mary Essleman and Elizabeth Velez
Poems and Readings for Weddings ed. Julia Watson
Essential Poems (To Fall in Love With) ed. Daisy GoodwinSpirit [...]

Delving into the murky waters of finances

My weekend with the Doctor was wonderful. As seems to be the case with all good friends, we immediately fell back into our familiar easy camaraderie, as if the intervening three years of sporadic communication had not existed. We spent the all-too-brief time talking, about friends in common, our familes, [...]

Books Read in February

Secret River by Kate GrenvilleSpecials by Scott WesterfeldThe Scold’s Bridle by Minette WaltersThe Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick HornbyThe Golem’s Eye by Jonathon StroudGolden by Jennifer BarnesSnapshot by Garry DisherThe Tenth Circle by Jodi PicoultInkheart by Cornelia FunkeThe Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L Sayers (unfinished)
The bookclub I belong to began again this month, with [...]

Buried in a book

I was a bit headachey all weekend, due, I think, to drinking a cappuccino each day last week. I normally have coffee about once a month, if that, and never drink caffeinated soft drinks. Due to this low intake of the drug, it has quite an extreme effect on me - jitteriness, mildly [...]

Books Read in January (Part Two)

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld (YA)
The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue
The Silver Road by Grace Dugan
When the King Comes Home by Caroline Stevermer
Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison (abandoned)
Labyrinth by Kate Mosse (abandoned)
Second Honeymoon by Joanna Trollope
Next of Kin by Joanna Trollope
Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marissa [...]