Well three books bought recently, the first is 'Boneland' by Alan Garner and the sequel to the trilogy of Moon of Gomrath and the Weirdstone of Brisingamen. Had to read these two books before I read Boneland, which surprisingly is aimed at grown-up people. This of course due to to the fact that Colin has grown up and needs the help of a psychologist who is probably the old witchy person in the first two books.
Did I like it? difficult to say, his characters are very thin and I definitely did not like the psychologist and Colin has grown up into a 'sauvant' extremely clever scientist but he is a bit 'wet'. The story is told in what I can only describe as a poetic prose form, short, short sentences and the fact that he is trying to find his twin sister Susan, now locked up in some star galaxy is the theme, perhaps in real life we would see it as a rationalisation of a lost sibling which resides deep in his psyche, still an interesting read, and it is not Garner's fault that I fall out with his witch/psychologist character....
The second book which I have read through is about the Yards of Whitby, which of course is just history but fascinating all the same, and I shall write about it later, my love picked it up and then reading through it in the book shop (he always reads them in the book shop) found our cottage photo in the book with its date stamp of 1736 so we had to buy it.
The third book just started is Stephen Moss, Wild Hares and Hummingbirds, he writes occasionally in the Guardian in the Country Diary bit. He lives with his family near Glastonbury in a village called Mark, the hummingbirds by the way is the hawkmoth, to be found occasionally in the south-west, I used to see it in the garden feeding on the soapwort, it acts just like the bird with its long proboscis, it comes to England via France I think and a great thrill to see in motion, has a short stubby body and is not particularly colourful. Reading the winter months at the moment and he is bemoans the loss of many birds, especially the sky lark, which I used to hear over the downs at Bath racecourse, their lovely song as they rose high in the sky leading you away from their nest in the grass. One of those moments to remember as well is of course the barn owl floating so silently over the watery meadows of Avalon marshes, saw it on tv once, and we had the same experience just round Avebury one night as an owl floated silently alongside the moving car - magical..
Photos from now on will always be on the Word Press site, when I remember to put them on ...
Photos from now on will always be on the Word Press site, when I remember to put them on ...
Ah books. Where would we be without them? Tam was keen on Alan Garner as a teenager (Elidor) and I think had the first two books you mentioned although I have probably charity-shopped them by now.
ReplyDeleteThe Yards of Whitby book sounds fascinating. Had to smile at your dear man reading books in the bookshop. Mine does the same to the extent that I have been known to remark if he likes the book that much, he had better buy it!
The Stephen Moss book sounds fascinating. I too mourn the loss of the sky larks, and the Peewits - I bought Keith a card with a painting of Peewits on it when I was in Sheffield recently. Like you, I have a memory of a Barn Owl floating across a winter meadow (near Bath), but in daylight, so it must have been desperate for food.
Hi Jennie,
ReplyDeleteIt is rather embarrassing this habit of our men reading for such a long time in bookshops, pretending you are not with them is another ploy. Just been correcting my spelling my inability with any word beginning with phsych AND I still spell it wrong! We are back to Essex end of this week, unless the weather dictates otherwise.
Barn owls seem to be more common round the south west, probably because there is more pasture land.