On the Wonder of Books

Quite exhausted from yesterdays rant.

On the knitting front, I am halfway up the first sleeve – so I may go very close to a two week jumper on this one (yay!) – thank you, Ms Black Dog.

I had some positive feedback yesterday from the rant – thank you ladies – When I work out how to deal with teenage attitude in my not-yet-five year old without screaming and yelling and threatening to cancel birthdays I’ll let you know!

Today I thought we could talk about books.

I love reading – and would like to be better at reading and knitting at the same time. I’m currently reading ‘The Book of Lies’, having just finished the first 2 Lily Bard mysteries by Charlaine Harris. I’d read all the others but not those. I enjoyed her ‘Southern Vampire’ series so much, I just had to check out her others – enough humour and sex, without taking anything to seriously.

You may have gathered that I am a science fiction and fantasy fan, with love of children/young adult books as well as the grown up ones. I adore the classic children’s books – Winnie-the-Pooh (NOT the Disney version – yech yech yech!), Wind in the Willows, Milly-Molly-Mandy, Paddington Bear, anything by Roald Dahl, Alan Garner, and J P Martin’s Uncle books.

I’m very much in love with all the Tamora Pierce series – particularly because they have great female central characters in non-traditional areas, Phillip Pullman (I understand there is a film of Northern Lights coming starring Our Nic), John Flanagan, Joan Aiken and Nicholas Stuart Grey (sadly out of print, but email Penguin Books and keep asking for them – that’s what I do). My excuse is that I buy all these for the children when they’re older, but the truth is that I just enjoy them.

Growing up on a farm as an only child, with 2 TV channels (which didn’t transmit 24 hours a day – no morning TV in those days, and it finished at 10.30pm with ‘Thought for the Day’ and the National Anthem) I read. And read and read and read and read – I read out the children’s section of the local library before I was 7 and then got a special dispensation to take out adult books.

Someone I know suggested that the best way to get kids to read was to give them a torch, and then forbid them from reading after you turn out the lights, and there may be something in that (certainly my children are more likely to do something I have told them not to, than something I tell them to do!)

I envy Taph her ability to set books free into the wild – I can’t give up books (unless I really hated them!). Books, to me, are friends. My favourite shops are my LYS and bookshops – new or second hand, don’t care. My favourite bookshop is Galaxy in Sydney. I don’t often get there, but I mail order regularly (if less frequently than BC – Before Children). I’m currently still working through last December’s order – the local library has been providing me with all the books I requested in the last few months, and library books get priority over the ones I own.

I love the smell of bookshops, especially second hand bookshops of the sort Terry Pratchett describes, where books are stacked and piled in no apparent order, and manage to bend into L-space. I don’t get enough time these days to smell eau-de-tome, but enjoy it whenever it is offered.

I also re-read books – unfortunately if you hoard enough books, you don’t get enough time to re-read all the ones you want to – but I’ll get around to it when I work out how not to mess up my lace knitting every time I get to an exciting bit in Chapter 7.

Enough already. Have think of something wonderful to do for dinner with leftover roast lamb. Unfortunately ‘Delicious’ is a bit light on for ideas on how to use up leftovers, so I guess I’m on my own for that one!