Tuesday, April 5, 2022

Books

My daughter bought home a thick copy, a doorstep of a book, of Robert Tressell's The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist' a few days ago.  As I am listening to it on Audible, I don't need to read it.  But interestingly the foreword and an introduction by Anthony Wedgewood Benn was interesting and not something you get on Audible.

Yesterday she came back with another book by Lady Margaret Blackwood called 'Corrigan'.  A writer from the wealthier class and someone who married Lucien Freud, I am not a great fan of his but I went and found a picture of the painting for you.  Girl in Bed.  Her large blue eyes remind me of Matilda.


So Blackwood has written several books, so I might go and explore her writing.  Her marriages influenced her writing, the third marriage to Robert Lowell, the poet, who inspired her to write  You can see she ate men up greedily for the essence of their creativity.

At the moment I have an Elly Griffiths on the go, the Dr.Ruth Galloway series.  What makes me cross about Griffiths, is that in the several books she has written on the subject of archaeological bones, she always goes back and reiterates (that should be regurgitates) the character of  the people, stories and everything under the sun in her books which makes them rather repetitious.

The last book I have on the go is Naomi Klein 'This Changes Everything' a look at geo-engineering the climate to stop the over heating of the planet.  The moral of the story being of course is if you mess around with nature you provoke unforeseen problems, so creating cloud cover may look good from the inside.  But by the same token the build up of heat outside the cloud will come back doubly so.

10 comments:

  1. So many books all at once!
    Much too serious for me except the Elly Griffiths

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  2. Well only two Sue, The Griffiths almost finished, and the Klein picked up to finish (because it was too boring). Having books read to you is a different experience from reading yourself. It also leaves you free to do other things as well, already contemplating buying another spinning wheel but they are very expensive.

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  3. So you are one of these people who can cope with several books at once. I have to read one, digest, put it back on the shelf before I attempt another.

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    1. Lovely to see you back Pat. Yes if they are not complicated, one fiction, one non fiction. And of course the one I have fallen out of love with, will be picked up a few days later.

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  4. I agree with your comments about the Ellie Griffiths' Ruth Galloway books.

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    1. Glad someone else finds the problem Anne. It is alright if you read each book as a standalone but if you go through the series it becomes tiresome.

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  5. I enjoy Elly Griffiths and forgive her her transgressions of repetitiveness! Just nice to romp along through a book.

    I've just finished Barbara Erskine's The Warrior's Princess (hated to reach the end), and have started Ann Cleeves' The Long Call, set in North Devon. I'm also reading one called The Good Life, about a couple who leave Cornwall to settle in the Yukon but it's annoying me as they went about it so stupidly. Who, with no canoeing experience when they arrived and only a few weeks of it under their belt, would face a dangerous long stretch of river without a map of the rapids etc? This and other such perils - home made tent and bears etc - so that's put down for the moment.

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    1. Yes I definitely enjoy the Ruth Galloway books. perhaps listening to them read, which is a slower pace than reading with the mind gets tiresome. There is a whole bookcase on the landing dedicated to female writers in this household, Karen of course gets first choice in the charity shop but I don't think I will tackle them. But like me you have a couple of books on the go Jennie.

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  6. I usually have some light reading on the table by the bed. I have another book going in the living Room. Right now all I need is time to read!

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    1. I thought you had retired Debby ;) Time for crafts and books and grandchildren of course!

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