Typecast

Imagine searching for something for twenty-odd years and never finding it. Imagine blogging about it twelve years ago and still no leads. Imagine randomly mentioning it on a Facebook group in 2021 and someone saying "I can help"... In the early 1990s I signed up to a book club. You would receive a selection of books each month and you could choose to keep them and pay for them, or send them back in a pre-paid envelope. One of the bundles I bought was three 'chick lit' style novels and the storylines gave me a bit of light relief when the kids were in bed. I always kept books. I love to dip in and out of old favourites and used some as starting points for my creative writing. Nowadays, my Kindle is always nearby and I never have to worry about storage or books getting lost or damaged. Which is where this story starts... One of the books disappeard in a house-move. It had become a bit battered and dog-eared but, to me, that is the sign of a much-loved tome. I d...

In my role as "Stationery Blogger Of The Year", I often indulge in my habit of going round all the local stationery stores and stroking notebooks checking out the most recent stock. I wandered into The Works to take see if I could take advantage of their summer sale  and grab some bargains to pass on to the grandchildren for when they go back to school and also to see if there was anything I could put away ready for (dare I say it... ) Christmas. The Works is always a great place to pick up a few books - and there's a huge collection of  non-fiction books  - my favourites are always a good biography and a new recipe book - although I'm definitely thinking about picking up the " How To Brew Your Own Beer " book and take myself back to the 1980s when there was always a demijohn or two in the airing cupboard from Dad's experiments! "...a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge." Game of Thrones is ...

June has been much of a muchness. We've had extreme weather from glorious, almost tropical, sunshine to rain that falls so hard from the sky that it bounces off the pavement. I can go to work wearing a summery outfit and come home wearing galoshes and a snorkel!  It's been the worst ever month for my hayfever . In fact, hayfever can fuck off right to the back and then fuck off a little bit more. I usually suffer from March to the beginning of May and then a little bit in September but this year there's no respite and I'm unsure why - maybe it's because of the aforementioned mixed up weather? I'm in the process of trying a different type of antihistamine and the use of an acupressure point on my hand to try and curb it. But it still shit.  Once you start thinking about it , there's no natural place for  your tongue to rest in your mouth. The Egyptians were way ahead of their time with hieroglyphics.    Most of the communication I read on social...

I've known Clare Mackintosh since she was "More Than Just A Mother" blogger, Emily Carlisle. We've blogged alongside each other, attended conferences together and both written about vibrators ( although  her story  is much funnier  than mine ). About three years ago, Clare left her job with the police force and announced that she was writing her first novel. I've been hanging on ever since for the book to be launched. I wasn't disappointed, and neither will you be. I downloaded I Let You Go  to my Kindle and devoured it in a few days. This is a rarity for me as I tend not to have a lot of time to read these days but the book was unputdownable (yes, it's a real word, even if it does have a red wiggly line under it on my text editor!). Here is my review, on Twitter, in 140 characters... #ILetYouGo by @claremackint0sh is bloody brilliant! In the words of Melchett (Blackadder) : it twists and turns like a twisty turny thing. — Nickie (@nickieo...

Emily Organ is a long-time blogging friend of mine and it's wonderful to see her producing such engaging and interesting fiction. The Outsider is Emily's second novel.   Yasmin and Daniel meet by chance at a business conference in New York. Both are looking for a reason to move in a new direction in their lives but didn't expect it to be with each other. The only problem is that Daniel is a recent widower and his wife's death is shrouded in mystery.  Back in the UK, the story continues with the growth of their relationship, how Yasmin feels living in Daniel's wife's shadow and the fact that she doesn't really know the full story of how or why Lisa died. To complicate matters, Richard, one of the villagers, was slightly obsessed with Lisa and believes that her death wasn't an accident, even though the inquest ruled otherwise. He is determined to find out what really happened and conducts his own investigation, upsetting and unnerving almost eve...

I caught up with a few of my favourite blogs this week and saw that a couple of people had been listing which books they had read out of a supposed ( according to whom? ) "Top 100 Classics".  I will be totally honest and say that I have probably read less than a third of any "Top 100" list and a few of those - like The Bible and Of Mice and Men and Far From The Madding Crowd and Macbeth (ok, I'm stopping now) is only because I was forced to at school! I have a special bookshelf in my house which houses all my favourite books and when I counted them there was 101.  These books will never be swapped, sold or donated and have been kept for many different reasons.  These reasons don't really matter, but you can ask about specific books in the comments section if you like.  Yes, there will be some crossover between my list and the "classic" list, but not many.  There are a few 'extra's on the shelf but they are not as important as the o...

Did you know... a full Kindle weighs a billionth of a billionth of a gram more than a brand-new one? That's one of my favourite facts from the book 1227 Facts To Blow Your Socks Off  whch I've had on my Kindle for a couple of years now.  But what are you actually supposed to DO with the e-books once you've read them?  You can't (as yet in the UK) lend them to anyone, you can't donate them to charity, they aren't sitting on a shelf collecting dust and even though you can store approximately 3500 books on one (and even if you read one a day that would take over 9-and-a-half years) they aren't much use sitting on your Kindle. I love my Kindle.   I have the Kindle 4 and it was a surprise present a few years ago. I've never upgraded because there's no real need - it does the job it's supposed to. I've got a couple of hunddred books on my Kindle and that's the beauty of it - there's always something to read whether it be a new book fr...

Moving away from the Scottish scenery of her last two novels, Rachael Lucas has set Coming Up Roses in rural Buckinghamshire but it feels like it could be set in any traditional village anywhere in the UK (observed by one who comes from a very small village in Lancashire) with its large houses, beautiful gardens, the village fete, various committees and obligatory cricket pitch. Coming Up Roses is what I call a 'comfortable' (or 'comforting') read. You quickly find out the role of the main character, Daisy, and sympathise with her plight. You also are introduced gently to the other main players and their presence feels just right; not written to pad out a story line and not overpowering from the main thread of storytelling.  I do feel as though sections of the story could have been expanded on. For instance, the story is set over a period of a few months and the blossoming friendship between Daisy and her two new female friends, Elaine and Jo, seems to tak...

When I went on holiday recently I chose five books from my recent downloads to read (a lot of my random e-book reading are from  the "free" section of Amazon  with paid downloads being true recommendations from friends).   Two of them were never started, the other three were a glorious surprise. The first book I completed was 48 Hours : A City Of London Thriller by J Jackson Bentley. It was free when I downloaded it (and, at the time of writing, still is free).  The plot was unpredictable and kept me glued to the book.  When you thought it was concluding you realised there was loads more of the book left and another twist happened.  My only criticism is that one of the characters is literally Bob Geldof with a name change - there should have been more originality with this character because it still would have worked. I'm glad to have discovered this author and will probably be downloading more from him. Next was The Last Day which ha...

It's 24th March 2014 and I'm updating this post so that I can join in with another of Kate's Listography posts . She's allowed me poetic licence on this one seeing as though it was originally written in March 2012. Ever since I learnt to read at the age of three I have been a book addict but after Kev suprised me with a Kindle one Christmas I've hardly picked up a real book.  I've read loads more though, tending to lean more towards recommendations and free Kindle downloads, expanding my reading genre.  I've also created a small-but-perfectly-formed  Kindle group on Facebook  full of reading suggestions, freebie alerts and writer/self-publishing information. A couple of years ago I got a bit hooked on the " My Life in Books " programme hidden away on BBC2. Well-known faces were invited to share the books they love, explain why they had chosen them and read passages from them.  So I have decided to share some of my life in books with you. ...

I dabble in finding ways to organise my thoughts and motivate myself.  I download inspirational podcasts to listen to whilst I am relaxing, I read self-help books and, in more recent times, I have taken opportunities as they have arisen because you're only here once, aren't you?  So when presented with the book set " ...and then you're dead " along with its complement " ...and then you're alive " and saw how they worked in tandem, I was quietly excited. I'm a lover of lists and notes and jotting down ideas and this is the ethos behind these books, written and created by Jim Rai .   Jim says:  " I wrote the book after experiencing a major setback in life - which we all experience from time to time.  As I prepared to write my thoughts and feelings, the words came pouring out and it had a therapeutic effect on me, giving me not only a sense of control and determination but also a feeling of hope and desire.  I felt compelled to share t...