Life must be filled up

huskyteer has alerted me to Molesworth: the early years. This is the pre-Young Elizabethan incarnation of Molesworth in Punch and well worth looking at.

The Booker longlist was announced yesterday: yawn, yawn yawn. Those of you who do enjoy the Bookerthon, have fun if you possibly can. A hot tip for this year is David Mitchell’s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. I had a look at this in a bookshop and decided it was definitely not for me, but I’m one of many readers who couldn’t get through Cloud Atlas.

Daft eBay listings. These are not happy days for people trying to sell books on eBay, so why make it harder for yourself? Whoever, looking for a book, does a search for ‘good book’, ‘rare’ or, mysteriously, ‘3-D view’? Then you might try to get the title right. One seller repeatedly put up a book called Patricia, Perfect. The book is called Patricia, Prefect. You’d think the seller would notice on the nth time of listing? Another relisted book is called, allegedly, La Vaste Monde. That ‘La’ irritates me every time I see it.

Our town changes! I posted here about plans to build a new Waitrose on the site of our cricket ground. After much controversy, public meetings and votes for those living nearby, Waitrose got permission to build and began a charm campaign. Yesterday, ramblingfancy and I went for a scout round. There are several surprising things about this development. First, it was scheduled to open next Christmas and actually opened, complete with underground car-park, earlier this month. Secondly, it looks very like the original architect’s plans. Thirdly, the argument that local people would have greater access to what had previously been a privately owned site turns out to be true. Looking through huge windows, the view is of trees and grass all around. It was very odd to see the view reversed, as it were. The stock is what you would expect, the staff are new, keen and helpful and shopping there could not be a more different experience from trying to shop in the depressing Somerfield/Co-op we’ve had to put up with until now. Let’s see if the famous ‘Waitrose effect’ does revitalize the town as is hoped.

There’s a book meme ‘everyone’ is doing, which I’ve decided is too much like hard work as it’s called The Thirty Day Book Meme. I am very interested in other people’s efforts, though, as they all seem to write about books I’ve never heard of! The full list of questions is under the cut.
( questions )