Books for Boredom
The slight cough has definitely evolved, so I'm at home, couch-ridden. It's just gone noon and I'm bored. This does not bode well.
The score so far:
Oinks, jokes about swine flu, Parmageddon, etc - 6 11
Expressions of sympathy - 1 2 3
*sniff*
Yesterday an old Penguin copy of By The Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder fell into my hands (it did!) which made me very happy. The first five chapters had disappeared out of my copy years ago and I couldn't remember how that part of the story went at all. I wound up reading the whole book again last night. As an adult, I appreciate much more the dangers the Ingalls family faced: the workers threatening Pa for more pay, taking in strange men, etc.
Reading it saved me from trying to concentrate on Watching the English, a pop sci book by social anthropologist Kate Fox. It's been interesting reading it on the Tube, and trying not to laugh out loud at her style and her observations.
Carol Ann Duffy's nomination to the post of Poet Laureate made me resolve to explore more modern English poetry, so when I saw a John Betjeman's Best Of, I took it out. Also one that requires concentration but a little easier to dip in and out of. I can see already why he was so loved.
The score so far:
Oinks, jokes about swine flu, Parmageddon, etc - 6 11
Expressions of sympathy - 1 2 3
*sniff*
Yesterday an old Penguin copy of By The Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder fell into my hands (it did!) which made me very happy. The first five chapters had disappeared out of my copy years ago and I couldn't remember how that part of the story went at all. I wound up reading the whole book again last night. As an adult, I appreciate much more the dangers the Ingalls family faced: the workers threatening Pa for more pay, taking in strange men, etc.
Reading it saved me from trying to concentrate on Watching the English, a pop sci book by social anthropologist Kate Fox. It's been interesting reading it on the Tube, and trying not to laugh out loud at her style and her observations.
Carol Ann Duffy's nomination to the post of Poet Laureate made me resolve to explore more modern English poetry, so when I saw a John Betjeman's Best Of, I took it out. Also one that requires concentration but a little easier to dip in and out of. I can see already why he was so loved.