Another blog resurrected

Not that I'm sure exactly when I'm going to find time to actually read a book, what with a new baby, alloment, three other children, DH, dog, two guinea pigs, three chickens, a house to decluter and organise...

Well, a girl needs a little time out now and again, doesn't she?

Just to reassure you that I haven't lost the book bug, this is what I've bought over the past year from Amazon.

• Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook
  
• Designing and Building Your Own Home
  
• Good Things for Organizing (Good Things with Martha Stewart Living)
• Trinny & Susannah: The Survival Guide - A Woman's Secret Weapon for Getting Through The Year
  
• Good Eating: Suggestions for Wartime Dishes (Daily Telegraph)
  
• The Ration Book Diet
  
• Practical Sheep Keeping
• The Allotment Book
  
• Magical Almanac: Practical Magic for Everyday Living (Llewellyn's Magical Almanac)
  
• Knitter's Almanac: Projects for Each Month of the Year
• The Knitter's Handy Book of Sweater Patterns: Basic Designs in Multiple Sizes and Gauges
  
• And Another Thing: The World According to Clarkson: v. 2
  
• Screw It, Let's Do It: Lessons in Life (Quick Reads)
  
• Magical Almanac: Practical Magic for Everyday Living
• More-with-less Cook Book
• The Paupers Cookbook
  
• The Real Witches' Handbook
  
• One-straw Revolution: Introduction to Natural Farming
• Treasure Island (Penguin Popular Classics)
  
• Confessions of an Organized Homemaker
  
• The Pheasant Cook: 97 Ways to Present a Bird
• Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down
  
• The Encyclopedia of Country Living: An Old Fashioned Recipe Book
• Low GI Cookbook: Over 80 Delicious Recipes to Help You Lose Weight and Gain Health
  
• The Sustainable Vegetable Garden: A Backyard Guide to Healthy Soil and Higher Yields
  
• You Are What You Eat: The Meal Planner That Will Change Your Life
• Real Food from Your Slo-cooker
  
• Ball Blue Book of Preserving
  
• Gardening and Planting by the Moon: Higher Yields in Vegetables and Flowers
  
• Cupboard Love: How to Get the Most Out of Your Kitchen

Are you seeing a theme here again? The odd ones out were presents for folks (such as Low GI book and the world according to Clarkson, for example).

But most of the others are on my bookshelves. No wonder I've four big bookcases and am trying to find space for another!

Little Women completed

Finished this lovely little book last night. I must admit to a sentimental sigh, in that I wished there was more about Laurie and Jo. It's not like you can't make an educated guess as to how things turned out, but did she ever write a sequel?

Also nearly finished Mind to Mind, written by a clairvoyant healer called Betty Shine. Makes for good, positive reading. As does the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, inspite of what the title makes it sound like.

Once I've finished those two, I have a pair of books by a Buddhist nun called Pema Chodron to read. They've both come highly recommended, so I'll get my gray matter around those in the next couple of weeks.

I'd forgotten how good it was to read a real book though. Seems the past 6 years I've had no time to read anything apart from my gardening books. So I'm going to promise myself to have at least one fiction novel on the go at any one time.

Time to look at that 100 greatest books list...

Done it again

I just bought more books.

:::bangs head against desk:::

But they're educational books! Honest. :)

I ordered the Kindergarten package from Sonlight Curriculums. Spent well over £300.. but the books!!! Oh my, what books. Have a look:-

Animals in Art
Enjoying Art with Children
The House at Pooh Corner
The Story of Dr Dolittle
The Story about Ping
Richard Scarry's Please and Thanks
Johnny Appleseed
Capyboppy
My Father's Dragon
Dolphin Adventure
The Light at Tern Rock
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The Apple and the Arrow
A Grain of Rice
The Hundred Dresses
Twenty & Ten
The Boxcar Children
In Grandma's Attic
Five True Dog Stories
Family Under the Bridge
James Herriot's Trasury
Dolphin Treasure
Animals Animals
Mary on Horseback
Bible Story Book
Create-a-Calendar
Children's Encyclopaedia
Wild Places
Living Long Ago
Hero Tales
Granny Han's Breakfast
Timeline Figures
Language and Thinking for the Young

and a double handful of other publications.

Oh boy. Time for a trip to Ikea and the bookcase dept. :)

Little Women

Why have I never read this book before? I'm almost finished it and it's made me actually laugh out loud, and cry real tears.

Why did I never read it?

Thinking on that, it seems that I've associated it with all the other 'female classics', such as Jane Austen and the Bronte's. And I was turned off Jane Austen for life when we did Persuasion for A-Level English Lit. So maybe I thought it was going to be boring and dusty and dry...

But it's nothing like that at all - it's funny and poignant and you can even forgive Marmee's sermons and moral tales because they work with the story. The descriptions of fashion and food and social life are wonderful and by only couple of chapters in you feel you know the girls so well. Personally, Jo is my favourite.

Will add to this once I've finished it :)

Books galore

I have suddenly realised that I have an awful lot of unread books kicking about the house.

This is partialy due to me having no time, but has been exacerbated by my appalling addiction to eBay, Amazon and the Book People. A week doesn't go by without me buying books of some genre or other.

I have to admit, they're mainly non-fiction, but I've collected a few fictions that I should really read (or rather, should have already read and haven't).

As an example, I shall list the books that litter my computer desk:

Gardening & Planting by the Moon 2005; Nick Kollerstrom
The Wisdom of No Escape; Pema Chodron
The HandBook of Homemade Power; Mother Earth News
The Survival Handbook; Michael Allaby
Essential Bushcraft; Ray Mears
How Children Fail; John Holt
Meditations; Marcus Aurelius
Snow White & Rose Red; Ladybird book
On Next to Nothing; Thomas and Susan Hinde (edited to add this one after it fell off the top of my desk into my lap...)

On Saturday I received a package from Amazon.co.uk... in it were the above mentioned Gardening & Planting by the Moon, and the Wisdom of No Escape. As well as a book for a friend of mine, and 3 books by Betty Shine for DH.

And yesterday a box from the Book People landed, containing:
Grow Your Own Vegetables; Joy Larkcom
Preserved; Nick Sandler and Johnny Acton
Delia's Kitchen Garden; Gay Search & Delia Smith
Usborne Farmyard Tales - Children's Cookbook
And a packet of KS1 workbooks for my eldest.

And I was going to leave it here for a time, except I just glanced at the chaos that is my dining table, and spotted another pile of books in the corner -
One-to-One; Gareth Lewis
The Art of Education; Dobson
The Allotment Handbook; Caroline Foley
The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency; John Seymour (1996 edition)
Self-Sufficiency; John & Sally Seymour (1977 edition)
Organic Bible; Bob Flowerdew
How to Grow More Vegetables; Jeavons

Are you beginning to see a theme here?

And having just cleared the stack of books from next to my bed and brought them downstairs for re-homing, we have the following on the kitchen counter:
The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying; Sogyal Rinpoche
If the Spirit Moves You; Justine Picardie
Little Women; Lousia M Alcott
Animal Farm; George Orwell
Hedgewitch; Rae Beth

And I haven't even mentioned the book case in the living room... nor the boxes in our garage... or the boxes in DH's parents conservatory... all full of books. Do you reckon there's a Bibliophiles Anonnymous?