Reading is something that has taken quite a hit of late, mainly because I'm struggling to hold a book and just generally find sitting or lying in one position really uncomfortable. I've therefore been falling behind a bit in my reading challenge for the first half of 2010. In particular I've missed the last two NTTVBG discussions online.    I really did try with The Boys in the Trees by Mary Swan and was seriously hoping to join in the chat about this one, but to be honest the book just got the better of me! I struggled so much to get into this and ... read more

  Over the last week or so I've been dipping into several different books rather than just concentrating on one of two. One book that falls into this category is the excellent Speaking for Themselves: The Personal Letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill which I managed to pick up the US version of very cheaply when I visited Chartwell last month.Compiled by their daughter, Mary Soames, this book is a collection of the letters between Winston and his wife Clementine which they both wrote from the early days of their relationship, whenever they were parted. They ... read more

 I wasn't too sure what to expect of Skin Lane mainly as the cover doesn't give much away. The picture of some sort of animal skin and a knife didn't really register with me and the back only contains the briefest summary of the story the book contains.What I certainly didn't expect was to be so completely drawn into Mr F's life that I felt like I just couldn't put the book down. In a way I didn't like what I was reading, but I felt compelled to continue. The precision of Mr F's life was in itself both fascinating and completely alien to my own. At ... read more

 Before I can get on to telling you all about my travels there's a NTTVBG read to catch up with as today we are busy discussing The Illusionist by Jennifer Johnston over on Reading Matters' blog.Having initially read the back cover of this book I admit that it is the sort of thing that I may well pick up myself so I was quite looking forward to this read, especially after many of the others that had been chosen so far have taken me out of my comfort zone a bit.Stella initially meets Martyn on a train. A chance meeting that eventually leads to marriage and ... read more

It seems somewhat ironic that the post I wrote yesterday about just how tedious The Tenderness of Wolves is has vanished so that I have to spend more time today thinking back about just how bad a read it was!There are very few books that I struggle to finish, but this was one that fell into that category without any doubt. Set in Canada in 1867 the book tells of the various journeys across the Canadian wilderness that some of the residents of Dove River have to go on to try to find out who killed one of the settlement's residents.By about two thirds of the way through the book I started to ... read more

Another author that I seem to have completely overlooked so far in my reading is Virginia Woolf. She's one of those people that I've always heard of and thought that I ought to get round to reading, but never managed it. I think I even have one of her books somewhere up in the piles in the attic, but it's just never reached the top of the pile. It was only when I started reading Susan Sellers' Vanessa and Virginia that I realised just how little I knew about her. Having been at University just around the corner I was familiar with the fact that she lived ... read more

I've been quite good lately in trying to keep up with the various bits of planned reading for both the NTTVBG and the Waterstone's 50 of the decade reading lists. I also have to admit though to a guilty secret of going into Waterstone's and making lists in my little notebook of recent releases that I want to read. You know, those books that they have laid out on tables just inside the door which make it so difficult to leave without purchasing anything.  I normally save my book buying until I'm in one of the local charity shops, or online if it's something I simply ... read more