Ireland Reads Day 2025

Today is Ireland Reads Day, hence the almost unprecedented phenomenon of three blog posts in one month. I have not marked this date in the reading calendar on The Landing blog in recent years, so I thought I would chip in with a bookish update this year to make up for that lack.

In the interests of sharing reading inspiration, I will give a quick rundown of what is currently awaiting/occupying my attention. Or should I say, what is immediately holding my attention, as to do any more would require extensive auditing of the Landing Book Shelves. The extensive TBR Pile is very extensive indeed. So much for the blog’s core aim of reading my way around the shelves. I am not sure that I have come very far in the twelve years that I have been book blogging! But, on with some book notes …

Having curtailed my book buying in favour of trying to read what I actually have on the shelves is good, but those library loans will tend to keep on creeping in. My library audio book of the moment is The Winter of our Discontent by John Steinbeck (narrated by Jeff Harding). Attentive readers of this blog will know that I usually listen to crime on my bus rides, so this is something of a departure (no pun intended) for me. So far so good, though I have tended to doze off once or twice on the way home while listening. This is I am sure, no reflection on either Steinbeck or Harding, merely that after a day’s work a little bit of tension goes a long way towards keeping me awake. Though it is fair to point out that tension in the narrative is now growing as Ethan Hawley puts aside his previous scruples to improve his financial and social position.

I have several TBR library books at the moment, two of which are advance reading for a short Irish literature course that I am planning to take in April. In addition, and in no particular order are: The Death of Nature by Bill McKibben, The Millstone by Margaret Drabble, At Dusk by Hwang Sok-Yong and The Longest Afternoon: the 400 Men who Decided the Battle of Waterloo by Brendan Simms. As is often the case a moment of serendipity played a large part in the borrowing of these titles. I am a sucker for the trollies of the ‘Just Returned’ items. On the future ‘commute pile’ (I just invented that term) is One Big Damn Puzzler by John Harding (read by Peter Brooke), which is allegedly ‘painfully funny’, so that should surely keep me awake on the trip home. I will let you know.

At this stage of the year, I am still working my way through books I had for Christmas. One of these was Art History without Men by Katy Hessel, which I am dipping into in between novels. I have met some familiar artists, but also some new names to follow up on at my leisure. I may return to this one for a future blog post. Also on the Christmas pile is The Hidden Life of Trees: The Illustrated Edition by Peter Wohlleben. This I have yet to read, although I have browsed the photographs, which are absolutely fabulous.

Well, that is a quick snapshot of reading-in-progress chez The Landing, so I will go off into a quiet corner and carry on reading. I hope you have a pleasant Ireland Reads Day! Do let me know what you have been reading in the comment box below.

Nature on The Landing: Bird Feeders

Feb25

As the weather is still tending to be generally less than springlike, I thought that I would revisit my attempts at making fat cakes for our garden bird population. I first had a go at making some back in 2018, inspired by a section in a book that I have on The Landing called The Secret Life of Cows by Rosamund Young. Originally this rather sticky activity featured in a post on the craft blog that I used to write with The Bookworm called, Curiously, Creatively. I thought that I would disinter that post from February 2018 and reprint it here (slightly edited) in case you would like to have a go yourselves. All I need to do now is to find some foolproof way of ensuring that the magpies, crows and seagulls (not to mention acrobatic squirrels) don’t charge in and savage the treats before the robins and bluetits get a look-in. Any thoughts?

The immediate prompt for making a feeder (and choosing to make a fat-based feeder) was reading a book that I was given for Hogmanay, The Secret Life of Cows by Rosamund Young (Faber 2017, Farming Books & Videos Ltd, 2003). In amongst all of the cow, sheep and pig stories was an episode about wild bird feeding. The Youngs make winter bird feeders by melting fat, stirring in bread crumbs and moulding the mixture in small plastic cups. I was very taken with their method of fixing the feeders onto canes and putting them in the ground instead of stringing them to hang on a tree. This, I felt I had to attempt for myself.

I used a basic cooking fat (Frytex in this case) from the supermarket and reckoned that trying 100g would give me about the correct amount to fill my two cups. For my mixture I had a root around the kitchen and came up with porridge oats, desiccated coconut, a dried fruit and cashew mix, mixed seeds (pumpkin and sunflower seeds) and some brown soda bread. I didn’t have any cheese, but I figured that if you have a fat base then you don’t really need the fat in the cheese. I used a blend of these ingredients to make up 200g, crumbling up one slice of bread and crushing up the cashews a little before mixing with my melted lard. My mixture just nicely filled the two containers. For the one cup, I made a hole and put string through for hanging. I fixed a wooden spoon in the other to make it easier to fix the cake onto a cane when set. I popped both in the fridge for an hour to set firm.

The final stage was to fix the fat cakes in place in a good spot in the garden. I hung my strung feeder onto the lilac tree, near the old wooden feeder as that spot is familiar to regular bird visitors. In one of last season’s tomato pots, I stuck a long cane and fixed the other cake on to it (after removing wooden spoon!). I did push a bit too hard and the cane came through the end slightly, so I fixed some wooden pegs underneath so the cake wouldn’t slide down the cane. One of our ever-curious resident robin pair came to have a close look at what was going on, while the mate kept a watch from a distance. Then, I retreated to the house to watch for my first proper customers. Perhaps not surprisingly, the blue tits were the first to sample new tuck shop, though the robins were not too far behind. Both these birds managed to get the hang of the feeders very quickly and perched or clung on to feed. These birds have managed to feed from both types of feeder quite easily.

Rosamund Young describes the antics of various species of birds when confronted with a delicious new food source on a stick. Similar to my experience mentioned above, she comments that the blue tits ‘learn how to feed from them within minutes, hanging upside-down with ease.’ Where we differ is in the case of robins, as she notes that it took the robin some time to achieve success. She writes, ‘The best the robin could ever manage was to screw himself into a tight ball on the ground directly under the cup and leap vertically’ until eventually one bird learned to shimmy up the bean pole to feast. Apparently, chaffinches became quite angry with the feeders, but so far, I haven not spotted any in our garden so I am unable to make a comparison. What we do have are greedy starlings however, arriving en masse to hog the food and scare away smaller feeders.

I will just add that this year the birds have peanuts instead of cashew nuts, but I doubt that they will complain too much. I made cakes in mini plant pots and plan to string them up in a holly tree, which is a favoured bluetit haunt in this garden. What I failed to make allowance for was the determination of an acrobatic squirrel making inroads into the bird feed. I tried to film the little critter but couldn’t get a good enough shot. Anyway, it was very entertaining to watch.

That’s all this time, from nature-watch on The Landing Bookshelves!

New Year TBR Pile: Status Update

Jan31

This is the post where I talk about all those lovely books that I received for Christmas and that now adorn my never diminishing TBR Pile. I know that it is almost the end of January, but bear with me. I’m sure I’m not the only person always playing catch-up with the reading pile. Here’s a brief run-through of my latest acquisitions.

Two books in particular I had had my eye on for a while, so when I got word that a family member wanted gift ideas, well that was my opportunity. The two books in question were The Lost Rainforests of Britain by Guy Shrubsole (William Collins) and Where the Wildflowers Grow by Leif Bersweden (2022, 2023 Hodder). I have begun to read the former and I am already fascinated by the huge variety of lichens and mosses to be found around Britain. The only problem I am having is wrestling with the Latin names; as Shrubsole points out, very few lichens have common names unlike more well-known specimens in the wider plant world.

I also had a Christmas crime fix in my book stash (which was in addition to a couple of library crime books awaiting my attention) from He Who Put the Shelves Up. Now, these two sets of crime novels resemble two sets of twins. In each corner I have a Japanese classic crime novel and a British Golden Age crime novel. The similarity is quite uncanny really, or would be if my crime fiction tastes were not so well known to my nearest and dearest. The Japanese mystery is from an author new to me, Fūtarō Yamada (1927-2001). This is the intriguing sounding The Meiji Guillotine Murders (2012, translated 2023 Pushkin Vertigo), a historical crime story set in 1869, after a recent civil war. My second murder tale is Murder in Blue (Galileo 1937, 2021) by Clifford Witting (1907-68), another author new to me. This tells of a case of a murdered policeman, whose body lying alongside his bicycle is discovered by a local bookseller and writer out for an evening stroll. This reprint is of Witting’s first crime novel from an eventual sixteen. So far Galileo seems to have reprinted a couple of titles so maybe there will be more to come. The original books are apparently very collectable and rare now. I did find a first edition copy of Murder in Blue on ABE for, wait for it… £1,622.48 (plus postage and packing!) Thank goodness for good quality reprints is all I can say.

The stack of books that I had for Christmas — A stack of Christmas books

By way of a complete contrast to anything that has gone before, I received a copy of a collection of George Eliot’s essays (2023 Renard Press) from one of my sisters. The titular essay is, ‘Silly Novels by Lady Novelists’ in which Eliot lists the ‘qualities of silliness that predominates’ in the novels in question. As you will surely want to know, I will tell you that they are, ‘the frothy, the pious or the pedantic.’ This book contains a collection of four essays, all published in journals between 1854 and 1879. So I shall be dipping into Eliot in between crime novels I think.

Finally, my post-Christmas TBR pile includes a copy of Hilary Mantel’s A Memoir of my Former Self: A Life in Writing (2023 John Murray). This is a collection of Mantel’s writing collected and edited by Nicolas Pearson, Mantel’s longtime book editor. I have read several of Mantel’s novels including the Thomas Cromwell trilogy, but I haven’t read any of her articles or reviews. I have dipped into this collection only a little so far, enjoying very much her essays on Anne Boleyn and Marie Antoinette. Mantel’s range is wide, so it looks to be an interesting anthology.

Now that is the Christmas present list wrapped up, but I did mention that I had a couple of library crime reads on the dreaded pile. The Japanese novel in my library pile is by Seishi Yokomizo (1902-1981), The Devil Comes and Plays his Flute (1979, translated 2023, Pushkin Vertigo). This features Yokomizo’s regular detective character, the rather eccentric but endearing Kosuke Kindaichi grappling with a very strange case indeed. I have read all of the Yokomizo titles reprinted by Pushkin Press and highly recommend them. The other library classic is The White Priory Murders: A Mystery for Christmas by Carter Dickson (the pen name of John Dickson Carr), originally published in 1935 but reprinted in 2022 by the British Library. I did borrow this before the festive season, planning to read It over Christmas, but sadly that didn’t happen. I will squeeze it in while we are at least still in the wintery months!

My task now is to read all of those books, before the distraction of acquiring anything else to read. Why don’t you drop me a line and share your TBR Pile status?

The New Year Resolution that wasn’t

Jan30

The germ of this first blog post of 2022 is a resolution that I probably ought to make this year, should have made in previous years and in all likelihood will never in fact make. And if I was mad enough to make it, I would almost certainly have broken it before the end of the first week in January. So what is this dread resolution then?

It is: Not to start another book before finishing the one I’m reading and therefore not to end up with several books on the go most of the time. I would just read one book at a time, finishing it before starting the next one in the pile (or the next one that I came across). I could go as far as to say that I wouldn’t even borrow or buy another book until ready to read. (Of course, there are still many unread books here on The Landing, but that’s another resolution altogether, for another year entirely).

It does sound a very simple proposition, but I’m afraid one that would be doomed to failure were I to attempt it. Moreover, in all honesty, would I really want to make and stick to such a draconian resolution? I do have moments of frustration when I feel that things are getting a bit silly and that I have too many books underway, but most of the time it works for me. I do generally enjoy reading in this way, moving between different genres. Though sometimes I get ‘stuck’ as it were with one book, so that it slips further and further down the reading pile as my attention moves elsewhere. It may then languish on the side-lines for a while as another book makes the running. Occaisonally I give up on a book, but mostly I come back with renewed interest.

Many of the books that leap ahead in my reading programme are library books, spotted while I shelve my section. I have recently begun to feel that I should cut down on library borrowing and return to the reading matter in hand. But feeling hasn’t yet been transformed into action. It is just so tempting to borrow yet another book, that I know that I will then start reading at lunchtime or tea break and thus add into the bookish merry-go-round.

The multiple reads situation has been compounded by my recent move into audio books. In particular, the mp3 Playaway versions that I have taken to listening to on the bus. I find that I cannot read on buses so audio books have proved very successful as an alternative. My commuting books tend to be mostly crime fiction as I find that this genre tends to liven up the tedium of travel. However, it can be irritating to have to try to zone out the travel announcements during the crucial plot points.

Here is a rough list of my current partly-read stash:

How to be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman. This is one that I’m reading in the evening, alternating with Smallbone Deceased by Michael Gilbert (1950) as a lunch and tea break read. The Victorian history is a fascinating trip through Victorian domestic life from a historian who has tried out many of the household chores herself, wearing an authentic corset to boot. The author has also tried making up some of the homemade toiletries and remedies, with some success apparently. I’d be a bit dubious about some of the medicinal preparations though!

Smallbone Deceased is a murder mystery set in Lincoln’s Inn Court, with a dead body discovered in a deed box. I have read quite a few novels from the British Library Crime Classics series, snapping them up whenever I spot one. I’m afraid that these crime novels are a big driver of my multi-read habit! Before I had finished Smallbone, I had requested (and begun reading) a copy of Seven Dead by J Jefferson Farjeon (1939). As the title suggests, this locked room mystery (always a favourite type) begins with the discovery of seven murder victims in a country house.

I have been listening to The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz on my morning and evening commute this week. It’s the first in the Hawthorne and Horowitz crime series and is also the first of any of Horowitz’s books in my reading history. This is very entertaining, so I think I will follow the series a little further. The next one is now on reserve, again in an audio version. Rory Kinnear is the series narrator, doing a fine job of bringing the characters to life.

The Morville Hours: The Story of a Garden by Katherine Swift. This has been on the part-read pile since before Christmas, a victim of a new glut of library books. The book tells of the development of Swift’s garden at the Dower House of Morville Hall (a National Trust property) in Shropshire, begun in 1988. I hadn’t read very far before I decided that I would like to visit it one day.

The Comforters by Muriel Spark (1957) was her first novel. This 2009 edition has an introduction by Ali Smith. Are you entitled to say that you’ve started a book if you’ve only read the introduction? Just asking.

I think that’s enough to be going on with for the time being. Of course, I haven’t mentioned the stack of library books yet to be begun, nor my Christmas gifts, nor yet, the books that I bought last autumn from The Last Bookshop in Camden Street, Dublin which still lie unread on my bedside table…

Does anyone else enjoy having several books on the go at once?

Pondering on those interminable book lists

Oct3

Cover of my book of books — **Book of Books**

Yet again, I have to account for a long blogging gap on the Landing Book Shelves, as it has been a few months since my last optimistic post. Yet again, I am trying to get back into a reasonable writing routine. In fairness it’s not that I haven’t been writing (or reading for that matter) but that I have been writing letters and emails instead of blog posts. In addition to that are bits of writing for work so I have been attempting to keep my hand in. Sadly, it means that the Landing has been getting neglected and dusty once again. And of course, as I mentioned in my last post, technically the Landing Book Shelves doesn’t exist anymore, being now an imaginary landing. No stairs, no landing, but of course still book shelves, which is the main thing. As is inevitable in a move, much has been relocated and many books are still not really in their ideal place.

As a form of book blogger procrastination, I have recently been downloading my library borrowing history for the last few years. It’s as good an occupation as any for an autumn evening and my rationale (excuse?) for doing this is that I am going through a phase of puzzling flashes of déjà vu about odd bits of plot and conversation. Had I read this particular book before and forgotten most of it? It is unnerving to think that I may have completely forgotten having read a particular book, so I thought that I would remind myself of what I have read (or at least what library books I have read) in recent years. It’s taken me a while as I have been combing through the list taking out DVDs and books for my fellow readers in the house (they know who they are!)

In addition to this list, as I’ve mentioned before, I used to jot titles in a couple of old notebooks, of my reads each year but that lapsed as a regular habit a few years ago. Hence my interest in my library account history. Having downloaded the library list, I am now not quite sure what to do with it. Somehow, retaining a digital list doesn’t seem to be in keeping with the original notebook list going back into the early 1990s. It lacks a certain bookish charm shall we say. But, the thought of transcribing a couple of hundred or so titles into a notebook is daunting. To add to this digital list, I am accumulating yet another digital list (footprint?) of the audio books that I have downloaded from the library website. Now this list only dates back to earlier in the year so it is much shorter (at least at the moment!).

And finally, let me not forget to mention the list of books that I have yet to read. This is worse than the TBR pile, but it has at least the advantage of taking up less room in the house than a physical stack of books. It does however exist in a variety of places, which makes it a rather slippery thing to audit. I have an official notebook for titles that I come across, but in reality, I tend to jot them down in any notebook that comes to hand. This means that I come across random jottings, months or even years after the fact. Occasionally these notes can be very cryptic, if I only had a bit of information to hand and not complete title, author, publisher etc. Even more cryptic are the dread scraps of paper and Post It notes tucked away for safe keeping!

So, what purpose these lists? And should I just stop keeping them up? Who is going to be interested in my reading archive? The problem is that I think I would miss compiling my reading lists, even if keeping them up has become patchy in recent years. The lists provide a literary trip down memory lane now and again. It amuses me to remind myself of what I was reading for instance, in 1993, which is the year of my earliest entries. Off the top of my head, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what I read in any given year, but once I look at the list, it all comes flooding back to me. Well mostly. Sometimes I simply have no recall of a particular book. I was also relieved to pin down one suspected case of déjà vu: I had previously caught snatches of the audio version at my mum’s house. Phew!

To sum up the situation, I have lots of lists about books (both actual, virtual, read and unread) and I have no idea whether this is a good, necessary or sensible thing or not. Any thoughts?

A Brief Notice: The Landing Book Shelves is on the move!

Mar30

You may think that things are never-changing here on The Landing, but that is not in fact the case. There is always a certain degree of book shuffling going on in addition to new arrivals taking up their rightful place. Rarely of course, is there a literary departure! Now however, we have to contend with a much bigger upheaval; a major event in the Landing’s ten year plus history. The entire landing book realm has been relocated, not merely away from its location on the turn of the stairs, but to a new abode altogether. At the moment the un-boxing stage is yet to be completed but the core of the blog’s material will not be on a landing, for the simple reason that there is no landing here.

Yes, the crucial fact of the matter is that in a bungalow, there can be no landing and therefore no Landing Book Shelves. I have contemplated changing the name of the blog to reflect the new surroundings. So far, I have only come up with ‘Front Room Book Shelves’ or perhaps ‘The Study Book Shelves’, neither of which really work for me. If you recall, the blog gained its title partly from the fact of there being books on the landing, but it was also inspired by the title of Susan Hill’s literary memoir Howard’s End is on the Landing. That makes it as much a metaphorical book shelf as a real one (I think).

I am therefore working my way round to deciding not to change the title of the blog at all (of course changing that, would also mean changing the blog’s Twitter handle) and simply going along in the same old way. My only worry is that this action will make me guilty of misinformation of which apparently, there is a lot about these days. Do I wish to add to it? On balance, considering that the blog location has always been as much an imaginary book haven as a real set of shelves, I think I will leave The Landing Book Shelves name well alone…

A Landing New Beginning…

Mar24

A few more to read…

As I am sure I don’t need to point out, it’s been a while since I visited the Landing Bookshelves, so things are a little dusty around here at the moment. The spiders and their cobwebs have certainly taken over here. I have recently found myself at home with time on my hands during the last couple of months so it seemed a good idea to spend some of this time rummaging around in the Landing domain. However I am forced to admit that I have so far avoided doing any cleaning while I browsed. In so doing, I have re-discovered a few treasures tucked away (needless to say, rather dusty ones) and a many still un-read tomes. Plenty of food for thought.

During my enforced stay within the confines of the Landing, I have become convinced that if somebody confiscated my library card (OK, both of them) and my debit card then I would still have plenty to read for a very long time to come. Now, this profound realisation takes me back several years and to the very raison d’être of the Landing blog in the first place. I set myself the task of reading around the bookshelves situated on our landing in 2012 and clearly I haven’t finished yet. Hmm, I wonder why that could be. I must stop buying and borrowing books if I’m EVER to finish this project…

You’ve probably guessed by now however, that although there are indeed (three) bookshelves on the landing itself, the strict definition of the ‘Landing Bookshelves’ has become somewhat of an elastic concept. I have dipped into bookshelves all over the house and most recently have been ferreting in the Bookworm’s shelves while she is away. I also occasionally trawl through books belonging to He Who Put The Shelves Up (Am I the only person who buys gifts of books that I would like to read myself? Surely not).

As I have mentioned above, I have strayed somewhat from my original reading plan and I have incorporated library finds, purchases, review copies etc into my Landing blog, which while it dilutes the TBR content, doesn’t (I hope) detract from the range of literary topics covered. I have also really enjoyed having a few writers along to the blog to give a guest post or to answer a few questions on their latest book. The first of these was Andres Neuman, all the way back in 2012. Perhaps an author post is an idea to revisit in the future.

What I am trying to get around to saying here, is that I have really enjoyed writing this blog, despite the fact that my original bookish intentions have gone off the rails at times. Now, after a gap of a year I would like to get this blog back on the road. I hope to get back into a reasonably regular pattern of blogging before the year is too much older. I’m not promising to avoid library reads but I will delve a little more deeply into the extended Landing Bookshelves. I plan to work out a theme for a mini-series of monthly posts and get the old fingers tripping over the keyboard more regularly this year. I have decided that having kept the Landing Bookshelves going since 2012, it was a shame to give up on it without giving it another go.

More soon, but meanwhile if anyone would like to drop me a line to let me know if you have a favourite blog item, please feel free to do so!

TBR Pile Update: It’s growing larger, not smaller

Nov22

Not getting any smaller…

I am yet again becoming worried about the size of my TBR Pile, as I seem to be adding to it faster than I am reading it. The interesting aspect of this TBR growth is that new piles have begun to accrete in different places. To be strictly accurate, the growth in the bedside table pile is not a new phenomenon, but the strangely solid, immovable quality is a new feature. In the past, bedside table books tended to come and go, so the whole pile had a fluid feel to it. However, for the best part of this year, the books on the pile have been behaving like a sticky post or a pined tweet, and staying firmly put. That is not a good sign. Now, I will admit that books have remained on my bookshelves unread for about twenty years, but a bedside reading table isn’t supposed to work like that. I am not sure why, but it just isn’t. This is not a restful state of affairs I can assure you.

Strangely enough, a couple of books on the Bedside TBR pile have no right to be where they are, as I have actually read them. Why I have not re-homed them by now, I have absolutely no idea. Well, except for the small matter of running short of shelf space in the fiction section (AKA the bedroom bookshelves). An Instance of the Fingerpost (Iain Pears) and a Presumption of Death (Dorothy Sayers and Jill Paton Walsh) will definitely be heading for a charity shop soon. I brought them back this summer from another TBR Pile at my mum’s house. The Iain Pears novel had languished unread for years and I am glad that finally I managed to read it, as it was both gripping and atmospheric. As you might recall, I am fond of historical skulduggery and this was an excellent example of 17^th century political and religious machinations.

My guiltiest TBR confession is that Kevin Barry’s Beatlebone has been awaiting reading since I received it as a ‘Secret Santa’ gift last year. I did begin to read it a few months ago but I put it aside after becoming distracted by something else. I think I made it to page twenty-two before Mary Queen of Scots came between us. My only excuse is that I must have still been in a historical frame of mind at the time. I think this was after Arbella Stuart and Elizabeth I, but before An Instance of the Fingerpost. As it happens, I still haven’t finished My Heart is My Own (John Guy), having paused for breath round about the time of the Earl of Bothwell’s marriage to the queen. If anyone had poor judgment in husbands, it was Mary Stuart, though to be fair the first one (the French Dauphin) was not her decision.

The Other TBR Pile…

Even more reading here!

The recently instituted Desk TBR Pile is largely composed of library books and new additions (OK, I know there aren’t supposed to be any new additions, but it just sort of happens to me). I am looking forward to reading Chris Cleave’s Everyone Brave is Forgiven, passed on to me by a friend. I started reading it on the Luas on the way home and was immediately taken with the story, though I decided it could wait its turn while I finished something else. The library book of the moment is a collection of pieces, Mrs Griffin Sends her Love by Miss Read (Dora Saint) that I spotted recently and picked up in a fit of nostalgia. My mum first introduced me to Miss Read’s chronicles of the fictional English villages of Fairacre and Thrush Green, when I was a teenager, so I was pleased to discover this collection. Dora Saint’s daughter Jill has written the foreword to the book, published in 2013 to mark her mother’s centenary year. The onset of winter is an apt time to be reading these short pieces, as it reminds me how hard life would have been in rural England (and Ireland) a comparatively few years ago. Thank heavens for indoor plumbing!

I probably should return to one of my TBR Piles now… How is yours getting on these days?

Book Shelves on the Move: A Reading Renaissance?

Mar28

A Fresh Reading Start?

The Landing Book Shelves (the actual shelves that is, as opposed to the blog) have had a bit of a shake-up in recent weeks, because of some building work involving window replacement. The upshot is that one set of shelves is no longer on the landing, but in the hall. As other shelves have similarly moved around somewhat, many books are now in different locations and a certain amount of confusion and mixing of genres has arisen. On the other hand, this has been a great opportunity to re-discover overlooked titles and authors. It has also had the slightly depressing result of making me realise just how many books in the house (let alone on The Landing Book Shelves) remain un-read. I shy away from doing a serious count (as Cathy at 747 Books has bravely done) because I don’t want to lower my literary morale any further. Although I am now beginning to consider re-naming the blog ‘The Household Book Shelves’ since that is a more realistic picture of the challenge ahead. At this rate I may have to ban myself from going to the library.

Plenty of Penguins

In the spirit of a spring renaissance I have therefore decided to take a positive view of the un-read books and to try see them all as so much bookish potential, rather than as a task to be completed. I think that if I persist in treating them as items to be ticked off a list, then I might as well give up the whole enterprise, since it will no longer be any pleasure. With that in mind, I have been enjoying myself by making mental note of a few random titles that had previously slipped off my radar. So far, I have accumulated about half a dozen novels, belonging to either me or He Who Put The Shelves Up, that have been floating around for a while. Some of them, such as The Llangollen Ladies (Mary Gordon) and The Children of the Archbishop (Norman Collins) are Trinity Book Sale purchases from a couple of years ago. Perhaps it is no bad thing that we missed this year’s event due to a change in dates. The half-price Saturday could be a very tempting affair indeed and consequently, inestimably dangerous to the state of the TBR Pile.

Mainly Children’s Books

Therefore, the next few posts will I hope, feature some true examples unearthed from the TBR Pile because of the new shelf arrangements. It has been quite nice to discover books that have languished un-noticed for months (or even years). It has even been nice to do some very necessary dusting of books and shelves as everything was put back in place. Now, at least I have clean books to read! I have even been toying with the idea of creating a proper catalogue as an excuse to practice my very rusty data base skills. I have come as far as naming a file in this worthy enterprise and that’s about all.

I am not sure yet which title will feature in the next post, but I am leaning towards political skulduggery in the sixteenth century so I have a couple of options to consider. Drop by again soon if you want to see what pops up on The Landing Book Shelves.

New Year, Not So New Literary Challenge

Jan7

My literary blogging (and to some extent, the background reading also) has been somewhat sporadic of late, leading to a sad lack of posts in November and December. I am however, fighting shy of embarking upon any New Year resolutions to rectify this matter. The words ‘reading’, ‘blogging’ and ‘resolution’ just don’t seem to me to go together, making something that should be pleasurable into a mundane chore. Rather, I am hoping to put together a plan, a timetable, a routine (anything but make a resolution) to keep both the Landing Book Shelves and my reading challenge alive and kicking throughout 2016 and even beyond. Therefore, The Landing will remain a resolution free zone as I try to buck my ideas up (as my mum often told us to do we were kids) and get this blog firmly back on the literary road.

As part of this bucking my ideas up thingy, I thought that I would cast an eye over the blog as it approaches its fourth birthday on 2 February. As a starting point, I re-read my Prologue and the first blog post where I explained my aims for The Landing. I was supposed to be reading around the unread contents of the book shelves on the landing at home, rather than adding any more new books to the dreaded To Be Read Pile. Over the years however, one or two wee get out clauses have crept into my challenge (in cases of literary deprivation) that I have taken advantage of many a time. My main get out clause is the library, since I have set no limit on my borrowings. In practice, I do usually only pick up one or two books at a time. I may have mentioned before on The Landing, my particular library method, which is to scan the New Titles and Just Returned sections and take potluck with what I find. Serendipity is a splendid thing…

I have also included the occasional review copy and books that I received as gifts. This has been stretched to books bought with gift vouchers (including, but not necessarily only book tokens). As you can see, I have managed to get my hands on some fresh literary blood without too much effort. I know that reading new stuff was not really the point of the exercise, but at least I’m not going out and buying more books willy-nilly. That is unless you count my forays into second hand bookshops (particularly where I have discovered a new shop such as in Blessington) and the annual Trinity Book Fair, where I have spotted books simply begging to be purchased and loved. So that’s alright then, isn’t it?

Well perhaps not, but I think I’m stuck with my bookish urges, so I will just have to make the best of the situation and keep reading around the landing TBR pile, regardless. I believe that I did once ponder about the situation where at the same time as reading the existing landing books stock, I am relentlessly adding to it. The only thing I can say in my defence is that the rate of acquisition has slowed down enormously over the last few years, as I attempt to explore the wealth of books already here.

I will just close by mentioning that I had three books for Christmas (see photographic evidence), which naturally I will be forced to read…(watch this space).