It's been a while...
I've just realised I haven't posted here for nearly 2 months. I'm not sure how that happened but we do seem to have been amazingly busy, mostly enjoying ourselves but also assisting my mother, and then I came down with a terrible cold, which has delayed everything. I have been reading and commenting occasionally, so I am still around, but once you get out of the habit of posting it's very difficult to get back into it.
Anyway, back to the Book meme.
What I Just Finished Reading
Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin. Absorbing account of Jane Austen's life. Particularly interesting on her fascinating family connections and the difficulties faced by unmarried women at that time. A really illuminating look at the author and her world and a pleasure to read.
Also for the History Book Club I joined I read
Tom Paine by John Keane. Long detailed life of an important political thinker who lived through extraordinary times. Thomas Paine was born in England but repudiated the government of George III to play an important role as a political polemicist in both the American and French Revolutions. At times fascinating and at times turgid I didn't warm to the massively conceited Paine but the author did a good job of describing Paine's life and thought though I would have appreciated a greater analysis of Paine's times, which would have made the impact of the man clearer.
Let's just say I infinitely preferred spending time with Jane Austen!
What I'm Reading Now
Can You Forgive Her by Anthony Trollope. The first in his "Palliser" series of novels. I was feeling I ought to read at least one classic novel this year and as we'd been on a Dickens Walk recently I went looking for a Dickens, but ended up with Trollope instead. Can You Forgive Her seems to have materialised on our bookshelves without either of us having any memory of having bought it. I'm sure books do that sometimes as, while this book has appeared, another book by Trollope, which I'm sure I owned, has vanished. I can't help thinking there's a great depository of teleporting books somewhere! As I'm really enjoying Can You Forgive Her it would be very nice if the next book in the series would teleport in too! The only problem with it is that I watched The Pallisers (surely time for a remake) on TV years ago and cannot get Susan Hampshire and Philip Latham out of my head as Lady Glencora and Plantagenet Palliser.
What I'm Reading Next
Probably The Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay and then it's back to the History Book Club with Robert Peel by Douglas Hurd. I suppose this was a good idea, though at least it's shorter than Tom Paine.
In other news I'm still completely out of step with fandom as everyone is squeeing over Marvel and I'm enjoying DC with Arrow and The Flash, though I did like Agent Carter, but in a totally non-fannish way. We've been to a couple of films recently including Spectre (great fun) and Carol (beautiful and unsettling) and I'm getting ever so slightly excited about the new Star Wars film though I'm unlikely to see it until after Christmas.
That's all for now. I'll try and post more frequently but it is quite difficult at the moment to find as much time as I used to have, but I am still reading if not often posting.
Anyway, back to the Book meme.
What I Just Finished Reading
Jane Austen: A Life by Claire Tomalin. Absorbing account of Jane Austen's life. Particularly interesting on her fascinating family connections and the difficulties faced by unmarried women at that time. A really illuminating look at the author and her world and a pleasure to read.
Also for the History Book Club I joined I read
Tom Paine by John Keane. Long detailed life of an important political thinker who lived through extraordinary times. Thomas Paine was born in England but repudiated the government of George III to play an important role as a political polemicist in both the American and French Revolutions. At times fascinating and at times turgid I didn't warm to the massively conceited Paine but the author did a good job of describing Paine's life and thought though I would have appreciated a greater analysis of Paine's times, which would have made the impact of the man clearer.
Let's just say I infinitely preferred spending time with Jane Austen!
What I'm Reading Now
Can You Forgive Her by Anthony Trollope. The first in his "Palliser" series of novels. I was feeling I ought to read at least one classic novel this year and as we'd been on a Dickens Walk recently I went looking for a Dickens, but ended up with Trollope instead. Can You Forgive Her seems to have materialised on our bookshelves without either of us having any memory of having bought it. I'm sure books do that sometimes as, while this book has appeared, another book by Trollope, which I'm sure I owned, has vanished. I can't help thinking there's a great depository of teleporting books somewhere! As I'm really enjoying Can You Forgive Her it would be very nice if the next book in the series would teleport in too! The only problem with it is that I watched The Pallisers (surely time for a remake) on TV years ago and cannot get Susan Hampshire and Philip Latham out of my head as Lady Glencora and Plantagenet Palliser.
What I'm Reading Next
Probably The Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay and then it's back to the History Book Club with Robert Peel by Douglas Hurd. I suppose this was a good idea, though at least it's shorter than Tom Paine.
In other news I'm still completely out of step with fandom as everyone is squeeing over Marvel and I'm enjoying DC with Arrow and The Flash, though I did like Agent Carter, but in a totally non-fannish way. We've been to a couple of films recently including Spectre (great fun) and Carol (beautiful and unsettling) and I'm getting ever so slightly excited about the new Star Wars film though I'm unlikely to see it until after Christmas.
That's all for now. I'll try and post more frequently but it is quite difficult at the moment to find as much time as I used to have, but I am still reading if not often posting.