‘If you want to write, it turns out you have to live at the same time. And if you decide to make a go at living, it turns out you need a lot of people to help you along the way.‘
I‘ve just finished this lovely book. She goes out on Newlyn fishing boats for a week at a time, learns how to gut fish, gets to know (and truly becomes part of) the crew, learns about their lives.
In fact she learns all the time. A passionate book.

I‘ve become a real fan of Natalie Haynes, listening to her #OvidnotCovid series on Twitter, and ‘Natalie Haynes stands up for the classics‘ on BBC Radio 4.
Just finished this thoughtful, approachable book about Greece and Rome, and contemporary times. I learned a lot!

A memorable small book from the small Emma Press, available at Amazon etc. Moving through the year with different Chinese food for each season, almost every page is crammed with pan-fried dumplings, sticky rice dumplings, pineapple buns and many many more. It made me hungry and envious! As strong a theme is family and memories of home, and what home means as you grow up and make a life on your own.
I‘ve already given Tiny Moons to two people.😊

Month of May, loveliest season - bright sunshine on the garden this morning, 1st of May.

A great Irish poet (d. 27th April 2020)

Sea Change

What did he leave me, my grandfather,
Who lost his life in a spring tempest
At the Chaussée des Pierres Noires
At the edge of Biscay?

With his roof of half-seen stars
His salty walls rising higher and higher
To the last inch of the horizon
He built nothing I could live in.
........

I‘ve just been gathering ladybirds ‘well loved tales‘ for when latest grandchildren reach about 4. Published in 1950, this was always my favourite of the Ladybird books- 60 or so years ago! 😊

Halfway through. Im absorbed! The author goes back to the Cornwall of her childhood (and forbears), goes out on a trawler for a week, interviews fishermen. An atmospheric book.

Learning some lovely recipes here!😊
#recipes

#crushcover #7Days7Covers Day 7!

#crushcover #7Days7Covers Day 6

It‘s often harrowing. She‘s a wonderful writer. ‘I listened to the storm blow itself out, huddling in the sleeping bag with my hot-water bottle. The shed was still rattling, only much less violently now. I felt a growing sense of well-being. I was warm (thanks to the hot-water bottle) and (mostly) dry. My shelter was still standing. For the first time in a long time, in spite of the fact that sleeping in the shed was illegal... I felt safe.‘

#covercrush #7days7covers Day 5

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/14/house-without-windows-barbara-newh...

Excellent article in the Guardian! Pre-ordered 😊

Kathleen Jamie‘s new book arrived today - my favourite Scottish poet - this time prose. Very happy 😊
The book starts: she‘s in a West Highland cave...on the next page the bones of a bear are discovered - which turn out to be 45,000 years old...

#covercrush #7Days7Covers Day 4 ⛰💨🌬🌦🌫🗻

Norwich library today 😊📗📚📘📗
#library #librariesoflitsy

#covercrush #7Days7Covers Day 3

Looking forward very much to the November publishing date. Sarah Hall has become one of my favourite writers.

#covercrush #7Days7Covers Day 2 ㊙️🈵🈚️🈷️🈯️ 😊

😊 #7Days7Covers #CoverCrush Day 1 🌲🌲🌲🌲

First job arriving back home, collecting reservations from the library😊 Looking forward to listening to The Fishermen on 8 unabridged CDs!

York station, on my way home from a weekend with my little grandson and family. I‘ll be able to get back to reading Eager again. Learning a lot!

So happy when a new Deborah Levy book arrives! I read the first page straight away - marvellous writing!

Bellview school, Teton County

‘I started first grade at Bellview school in 1933...Our ranch was about five miles from school. In good weather, our Shetland pony, Eagle, pulled us to school in a little buggy. Going home was quite an experience with that pony. At the end of the school day, he was ready to go home, and we went home fast. We were always praying the buggy we sat in would make it between the gate and the post.‘
‘

This is the kind of book I love. Jam packed with reminiscences from local people, whose families have lived there for generations.

‘Velazquez, stepping momentarily free of the shadows with his brush, visibly declares that this world is all his, that he can make a king and queen appear and yet disappear, that he can paint both in and out of focus, so to speak, knowing that the eye shifts continually, seeing sharply only on what it focuses for a second, and that it cannot take in the entire scene at once.‘

I‘d like to quote more- Laura Cumming writes so well, so vividly.

My daughter has read The Very Noisy Night to my grandson (aged 1¾) about 500 times...? It‘s a great story for toddlers!

A small memoir published in 1959, packed with reminiscences, quotations, opinions. Anyone reading James Joyce would find this book an irreplaceable personal source of details and atmosphere, written by Mary and Padraic Colum. A wonderful small book.

As always with Zadie Smith, a deeply thoughtful book. A book about loss, about striving for fulfilment, embattled relationships, home.
Set against a London estate, the life of an internationally-travelling celebrity and an African village, in a haunting way the unnamed narrator seems mostly to be on the sidelines while more embedded characters make things happen.
A wonderful read!

My current, fascinating book. ‘In Bishop‘s work, much was implied by what seemed to be mere description. Description was a desperate way of avoiding self-description; looking at the world was a way of looking out from the self.‘

#poetrymatters

Part of Colm Tóibín‘s 4 page discussion of Elizabeth Bishop‘s ‘Poem‘.

This is a very interesting book - it‘s had me sitting absorbed all morning.
#poetrymatters

I‘ve just finished Train Dreams, which I really liked. It‘s a short book: an account of a man‘s life, a man who is on few people‘s minds except when they have everyday dealings with him. Throughout you are always aware of the beautiful and unpredictable natural environment.
The wonderful writing reminded me at times of Cormac Mccarthy‘s All the Pretty Horses.

Jessica Greenbaum‘s latest collection Spilled and Gone arrived today. One of my favourite poets! 😊
‘So you see it could not have been a more humble moment./
If there was any outward sign of regalia, /
It might have been the twilight crowning of the day, just then, /
A perfect moment of dusk, but changing, as a wave does /
Even as you admire it.‘

According to the cover, she lives in her native Brooklyn.
#poetrymatters

Just about to start Train Dreams... 🌲🌲⛰🚂🌲🌲

https://youtu.be/vowqqrHbfyo — I just came across this charming YouTube Tour of Norwich‘s independent bookshops 😊

This morning‘s arrivals 😊 Blackwells in Oxford sends their books out postage free in the UK, and (from a quick look) overseas postage seems cheap. And they include these lovely bookmarks!

I‘m enjoying the abridged BBC radio Kidnapped on YouTube, it has a stirring Scottish atmosphere with fiddle music interludes 🌊🎻⛰🏔⚔️🗡🎶🎵 😊

The wonderful cover of the latest edition of my favourite poetry magazine The Rialto.
www.therialto.co.uk

Two postman came with books to the door (at different times) this morning, an unusual treat. I tried to read this as a library book but it was requested before I could make headway...I‘m glad it‘s here.

A Russian delivery from the postman this morning, a biography (by her grandson) of Constance Garnett, who translated Turgenev, Chekhov, Herzen and Tolstoy, and met Tolstoy in 1894: and Garnett‘s translation of Alexander Herzen‘s My Past and Thoughts, (vol 1).
Faber Finds publications with their grey titles don‘t show up too well in photos.

I‘ve returned to The Golden Notebook, this time listening. I‘ve always felt ‘fed‘ by Doris Lessing; whatever the subject is, you feel her mind working away. Her books have helped me think.

What a nice post delivered this morning...two singing birds for a very young grandson, and two books for me 😊

3 days of absolute sheer delight, listening to Juliet Stevenson reading Persuasion. When a few years have elapsed since I last read an Austen novel, I tend to forget the perfection of her writing: the steady continuous rhythms, the piercing insight, the laugh out loud moments. Juliet Stevenson is a wonderful reader!
#scribd
#janeausten

Just arrived! 😊 Really looking forward to this book.

Two books I‘ve really enjoyed. I decided to buy copies to read again, and they just arrived. 😊
#Japan

#poetrymatters #song
@TheSpineView

#portal #poetrymatters

I wrote down this excerpt from Virgil‘s Aeneid book 6 a long time ago, and now have no clue whose translation it is.

@TheSpineView

This morning‘s package from the wonderful Happenstance Press. There‘s always a surprise poem with an envelope included..today‘s is Dylan Thomas, In my craft or sullen art.

#poetrymatters

Treats for the grand-girls! 😄
#presents

I‘ve been reading the poems of Padraic Colum. (I first came into contact with his poetry listening to Van Morrison & The Chieftains, ‘She moved through the fair‘). I‘ve now got this library book: the prose is rich and unhurried, ‘..the citizens [of Dublin] are leisurely in their ways and disengaged in their minds. The size of the city and the pursuits of the inhabitants gave rise to an interest in character.—