Tea and cakes and things I like

I’d forgotten that I’d read this before, which was good, because although I sort of remembered it, I didn’t totally, so still enjoyed it.

Hadn’t read this one before. It was good. Jane Austen, you know, they’re all kinda similar.

Ahhh, stories of posh English people in days now sadly passed. Just think, I could have been a debutante…..

I’ve read this many times before, it’s interesting and I like re-reading it. It’s the true story of the person that Arthur Golden based Memoirs of a Geisha on - so this has less of the exaggerated nonsensica stuff in it, but is admittedly biased from the other side, making everything out to be about beauty and art and focusing less on the high class escort side of things.
Anyway, it’s pretty interesting, and after going to see the movie of Memoirs of a Geisha last night (boring), I would recommend giving the film a miss, and sitting down with a nice cup of tea to read this instead.

A classic thriller.
The first few chapters seemed strangely familiar. Could I have read this before? It was possible, but I didn’t think so. I continued to read. More memories presented themselves, but not quite true to the book. Discussion with D helped me figure out what was going on. I’d fallen asleep watching the film version, at a friends house. (I do that a lot, fall asleep mid-film, and if I happen to be at a mates house at the time, so be it). Anyway, the good thing was I must have been dead to the world snoring my little heart out dreaming of assam tea and carrot cake served on fine white china, because I had no recollection of the ending. So, I enjoyed the book.

(I can’t remember the name ok, and the book’s in the other room, and I can’t be bothered to move, and I can’t find it on amazon)

Anyway, it was a nice little collection of short stories. I especially liked the Nick Hornby one and the Neil Gaiman one, but I’m not going to write about them, because that might spoil it for anyone who manages to decipher this and figure out what the hell I’m gibbering on about anyway.

*Update, book found thanks to Arsela Undress. You can find it here.

I finished this a week or so ago now, but have’t got around to writing it up. This was great. She wrote it between 1950 and 1965, so whenever she talks about “how things are now”, it’s really how things were 50 years ago, and she’s geerally comparing things in that present to when she grew up round the turn of the last century. So yes, it’s about growing up fairly well off in Victorian England - and how when money was short they just rented their house out and spent the summer on the continent, which was cheaper. I was really born 78 years too late.
Anyway, as well as talking about that, she also goes into detail about how she became a writer, and how she writes, where she gets her stories from, and how to go about getting stuff published. She also worked in a hospital pharmacy during the war. Oh, and was into archaeology, helping her husband dig important sites in Iraq, unearthing treasures that have no doubt been destroyed over the last couple of years.

So, quite an interesting life, and an interesting book. Oh, I loved that she knew that what she wrote was popular fiction - she didn’t try to dress it up as anything more worthy - it was what it was. So unpretentious.

One of the penguin 70 years series of very short books, which are great for a taster or reading on the bus.
This was interesting enough - a mixture of the author’s history with shopping and useful tips.

The seventh in the excellent Sandman series.
Fabulous, of course.

Ahhh, childrens books you read as a kid: there’s just something cosy about them. And a litte bit wierd, you realise when you look back.

Spoliers ahead, but really, I don’t see the need to hide the rest of the post.

What Katy Did: Katy Carr, whose mum is dead and, along with her younger brothers and sisters is looked after by her aunt (her father is around, but he’s a man, so can’t look after them). Anyway, Katy falls off a swing and becomes laid up in bed. Then her aunt dies. Luckily, she has an invalid cousin, who tells her all about “The school of pain” where god teaches patience. She becomes a nice person and then is able to walk again. The end.

What Katy Did at School: Katy is too serious so she and her sister Clover are sent off to boarding school. They have japes. Katy, despite having founded a society against flirting and unladylike behviour, is accused of giving a note to a boy. Thanks to her hard work, sensible attitude and general responsibility, by the end of the school year the teachers decide that she probably didn’t do it. The end.

What Katy Did Next: Katy goes to Europe to help a widowed mother look after her young child. They run into Katy’s nasty cousin who is trying to catch the widow’s brother as a husband. The child almost dies. The brother realises the cousin is frivolous and selfish and falls in love with Katy. The end. (no wedding or anything) (they’re not even in the same country at the end of the book) (I mean, really, that’s supposed to be it?)

OK, so I want to keep a record of all the books I’ve read. As established previously, I’m crap at reviews, so they’ll be short or maybe even non-existent.
I enjoyed this. It was an interesting idea and very nicely done.

I wanted to write a review of this, as it was fantastic, but I’m hopeless at reviewing books. I like reading them too much. I used to get in trouble at school for that - we had these books where we were supposed to read a story then answer questions about it, and I never answered the questions, just read the stories. I seem to remember my mum being called in over that one, but it might have been part of my general attitude problems that year. I was told off for reading the Trebizon books as they were apparantly too old and not suitable for a 9-10 year old. Im not quite sure what’s not suitable about tea and crumpets but I think there may have been boys in these too. Instead I was supposed to read Danny the Champion of the World. Don’t get me wrong, that’s an excellent book. However, at that point I’d read it many, many times and could practically recite it from memory. I was just a precocious reader I guess, and boarding school books offered valuable escapism.

Anyway, I digress. I was thinking about reviewing books on here, as I read a lot, and I’d like to keep track of what I’ve read. However, as I’m not good at actual useful proper reviews, I think I shall write very short, uninformative reviews, just stating what I thought of the book for the record.

This book: Excellent, engaging, interesting, well written, great characters. My only complaint is that the damn thing was so heavy. It hurt my (weak, girly) wrists to read it for too long, especially in the bath when I had to hold it out of the water.