Books, Books and more Books

I'm in love, again.  I can't stop thinking about it, handling it and I take it to bed early, just to be alone with it.  I'm not having an illicit affair, it's the touch screen Kindle.  I wasn't really bothered about having an e-reader before I had one, but now I wouldn't go back.  Since the 15th June when it was given to me by J it's been difficult for anyone to tear me away from it.  I've read prolifically, all of the books below and downloaded many more - just tantalisingly 'there' waiting to be read.  If I had to choose three that I'd recommend from my recent read list I'd say Eye of the Needle, The Hunger Games (a children's book - G10 has now read and relished) and The Importance of Being Earnest.  A lot of the books are free, including many classics.

Lovely jubbly...

Eye of the Needle
Broadmoor Revealed: Victorian Crime and the Lunatic Asylum

Perfect Crime
The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Phoenix Conspiracy

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Black Beauty

What Katy Did

The Importance of Being Earnest

Catching Fire
The Hunger Games

Why do I love it? It's so very light. I can read in bed without the pages flopping about as I prop it up on a pillow. I never lose my page. Ever. I can look up words I don't know, at a touch. I can read free books. What is there not to like?

Now, tonight I'm going to the first evening of a book club (organised by our very own Preseli Mags.)  We are discussing The Time Traveler's Wife and horror of horror's I couldnt' download it onto the Kindle.  I know we have free copies from our World Book Night event, but I'm so obsessed I didn't think I could actually regress back to the paper version.  I did, I coped. Just.  I hope it's not too intellectual an evening, I read only for my own pleasure and almost as soon as I've finished a book I forget the detail. I've been promised it won't be, (any excuse for a social) but just in case I started reading it Monday and finished this morning - at least it'll be fresh in my mind :)

Pick 'n' Mix

Never again… I was told, so I handed the phone over to Jon who was going to stop them in their tracks. Next thing I knew he was chatting away to the person on the other end of the phone like they were lost long buddies. Yes, he’d blown it. Here we were doing yet another interview for a paper. The positive was that we could take our own photograph, though at the last minute this was reneged upon. A professional photographer descended upon us…for four bleedin hours…. Can you just move a little to the right, you er, ummm (he just couldn’t remember our names and when he called Her Next Door Grandma, I thought his cuppa would end up over his head).

The photograph was in last week’s national paper – and I hated it! 

Back to earth with a bump after our flirtation with the paps and celebrity lifestyle (albeit double F grade), we supplied some manual labour and helped out on the village common, just tidying up really. This year though we benefited from a huge tree that needed to come down. There is still some two thirds to collect from the common land but the photos show the new wood in the store, then turning round towards the garage you see some more queueing up to go in. When it's all collected hopefully we'll be full to the brim.

Waiting wood.

Wood store slowly returning to health.

There was a great honour bestowed upon me too, I’ve been chosen to be a World Book Night giver. I’m not a great wordsmith (oh you’ve picked up on that have you?) But I do love books and reading. I’ve never had 24 pristine books in my possession before. What a fantastic treat to be able to give them away and spread the joy of reading. I have clubbed together with Maggie and Wendy to gift all our books during the morning of Saturday 28th.

Harlequin....

In between that lot, we even managed an all too short four day nuclear family break in the Easter holidays. We raced up to Aberystwyth to have a little time away. That's the main disadvantage of working for ourselves, we don't get looooong paid holidays... those sadly are just dim and distant memories. Still, we try to make the most of the time we do have instead.