November Books & The Library Challenge

[callmemadam]

I’m going to follow the excellent example of geraniumcat and take up the Support Your Local Library Library Challenge next year. I’m not setting myself any targets I don’t think I can meet, so I’m not aiming for fifty. As I said before, I’m already using the library more often and have the jolly little pile above to read.

Dark Puss/Peter the Flautist, whose comments I am often reading on other blogs, is always exhorting people to use libraries instead of buying books. Very laudable but there is a problem: libraries now only keep books for a very short time. I had to buy this Hazel Holt book



from the library (30p); I couldn’t borrow it because they were throwing it out. So if you borrow a book and think you’ll want to read it again, you really have to buy it or it’s gone forever.


Hello, Leslie Phillips. Here’s an intelligent man who takes the craft of acting very seriously. He’s had an interesting life but unfortunately the book is so full of Viz-style ‘Phwoarr’ and ‘Snigger’ that I found it hard to read. Nevertheless, he comes over as a nice chap.

Poison in the Pen, Patricia Wentworth. Predictable.
A Perfect Life, Raffaella Barker. Couldn’t stand the characters; gave up.
The Story of The Treasure Seekers, E Nesbit. What a wonderful book! I was inspired to read it again after watching the episode about Nesbit in the BBC’s An Awfully Big Adventure series. (I seem to have seen parts of this before; a repeat or a rehash?) It’s the narration that makes this book. I remember reading it as a child and feeling clever when I guessed who was telling the story; exactly what the author must have intended, of course. More childhood memories with Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce. I wanted to check something in the book and ended up skim reading it. I don’t like fantasy but love time-slip books and this is possibly my favourite. I almost had a time-slip of my own, as I suddenly felt I was reading it in my childhood bedroom and Hatty’s skates were hidden in the cupboard there, just as I’d imagined when I was young.

What Was Lost, Catherine O’Flynn. Brilliant.
Girl, 15, Flirting for England, Sue Limb. Not as good as the next one.
West End Girls, Jenny Colgan. I couldn’t finish this.

Currently about a third of the way through and loving The Discovery of France, by Graham Robb, which I plan to write about later. Also enjoying Star Gazing by Linda Gillard.