"The time has come" the Walrus said, "to talk of many things..." Showing 251-300 of 1,194

[[deleted user]]

Well, Mrs Pepys has been suffering from boils in the "old place", Laurel is eating digestive biscuits and reading Mist Over Pendle, Hilary has been reminiscing about old horror films and I've just been cleaning the bathroom. Oh and our next Quarterly read is Stranger in a Strange Land followed by The Idiot (in May) as the vote resulted in a draw.
Isn't the weather revolting?

[Ellie]

Wow, I've a lot to catch up on!! Poor Mrs Pepys :( Lucky Laurel!! I can't watch horror films, I get nightmares

[[deleted user]]

Me too and and I develop a fear of going upstairs after dark and of looking in the bathroom mirror. Still keep watching them though!

[Ellie]

Interesting to read this at the back of The Testament of Mary: "[founder of Penguin Books Allen] Lane was adamant that his Penguins should appear in chain stores and tobacconists, and should cost no more than a packet of cigarettes. Reading habits (and cigarette prices) have changed since 1935"

Yep - and the price of Penguin books has increased exponentially compared to cigarettes. Their Kindle prices are shocking!

[[deleted user]]

True - at least you can buy 2nd hand books though :0)

[[deleted user]]

Just downloaded my first e- library book! I'm so excited!

[Tracey]

E-library books sound good. I'll look into that.

[Joy]

What device do you download them to Lee? My local library has them but says they can't be downloaded to Kindle.

[Laurel]

Aaargh what a pain! Because of spam and naughty people trying to hack into my email I have had to change my email address :(

[[deleted user]]

@Laurel what a bother - horrible people!

@ Tracey - I downloaded this programme called Overdrive on to my IPad and read the books using that. Here's a link to their site. http://www.overdrive.com

[[deleted user]]

Did anyone see the little boy stealing the pope's chair - very cute:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europ...

[Hilary]

I want into the oxfam shop hoping to pick up a cheap cream wool sweater to boil(it's a long story) and came out instead with 5 more books to add to the already groaning TBR shelves. What I found unusual was that they had organised the books into typical subjects, fiction, history, biography etc but had an additional two shelves labelled literature. Obviously meant to attract a different intellectual class of customer!

[[deleted user]]

I wonder how they decide which is fiction and which is literature?

[Hilary]

Well, there were classics like Dickens and Austen and Nobel and Booker prize winners. Then there were books by famous authors like Rushdie and intellectuals like Germaine Greer. There were also some poetry books which obviously didn't deserve their own label. It was interesting and actually quite useful to a browser to have them separate from the main run of contemporary fiction so you could decide what you were in the mood for!

[Laurel]

Sounds good Hilary, what did you get? I love the Oxfam bookshop in Durham, last time I went on a spree there I came out with 11 books (oops). Have to walk past very quickly and not look in the window :(

Oh, and Happy Hallowe'en everyone!!!!

[Hilary]

I was surprised at how many books there were there I got from the fiction shelves

Brother and Sister - Joanna Trollope
A Most Wanted Man - John le Carre

And from the literature shelves

The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
The Good Earth - Pearl Buck
Face the World: An Anthology of Poetry for Humanists - Bet Cherrington

I've just realised that's 6!!! I've already had a good look through the poetry and come across some surprises. I'm putting one of them I particularly admired on the poetry thread tomorrow and hope it doesn't offend anyone!

Hope you had a good halloween

[[deleted user]]

Ooh I love The English Patient the book just as much as the film (mmmmmm. Ralph Fiennes - do you think he'd be so attractive if he didn't pronounce it Rafe?)

Isn't a lovely feeling , coming home with a large pile of books (especially if they're a bargain).

I think I might start a thread for people to confess to their new acquisitions - though I think I may be the chief offender!

[Hilary]

I've never seen the film of the English patient but I know it's supposed to be very good. I do like "Rafe", it sounds like rake or rave and I think the meanings of those two enter your mind when when you see his name. Do you think?

A new acquisitions thread would be interesting, although I'm buying several books for a textile course I've started so they would probably not be for most people, I'd have to be selective!

[[deleted user]]

Yes Rafe is a groovy name. What course are you doing? You won't be weaving your own clothes like Tom and Barbara in the Good Life will you? :0)

[Tracey]

I can't believe that I've just got an email from Newcastle library to tell me about the Books on the Tyne festival, and got myself really excited about a talk by Kate Adie on women in the First World War, only to find it's been sold out! Now feeling incredibly deflated. http://www.booksontyne.co.uk/events/i...

[Hilary]

I should hope not! It's the first module of a distance learning degree in textiles by the Open college of the Arts. At the moment there's lots of drawing which I'm absolutely useless at but the textile design and stitching starts on the next block. Unfortunately I now understand that you are expected to keep up the drawing throughout the course as it is the foundation of design. Perhaps I should have realised that before I signed up but I didn't so I'm just practising and trying to improve.

[Hilary]

That's a shame Tracey. Someone obviously had some sort of prior notification

[Laurel]

That's a shame Tracey - hate it when things like that happen!

@Hilary - sounds interesting, you will have to post some photo's of anything you make!

[[deleted user]]

Thats a pity Tracey - but at least you can read the book http://www.hodder.co.uk/books/detail....

@ Laurel and Hilary - yes we definitely need photos - especially if you do weave your own clothes

[Tracey]

Thanks Lee. That's useful.

[[deleted user]]

Just saw the most amazing thing on an old David Attenborough program - the lyre bird not only copies other bird songs but also camera shutters , car alarms and chainsaws - it's marvellous

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kd...

[[deleted user]]

I've just come across a fascinating website "Hillmans Hyperlinked and Searchable Chambers Book of Days - A Miscellany of Popular Antiquities in Connection With the Calendar , Including Anecdote, Biography, History, Curiosities of Literature and Oddities of Human Life and Character" first published in 1869"
It's set up so that you can read an entry a day - I've saved it to my IPad home page.

http://www.thebookofdays.com/about_bo...

[[deleted user]]

My ipad is broken - :0( -I'm back on my non-touch kindle - it feels very old :o(

[Tracey]

Lee wrote: "My ipad is broken - :0( -I'm back on my non-touch kindle - it feels very old :o("

Sounds positively antique! Honestly though, I really feel for you as I don't know what I'd do without my ipad.

[Ellie]

I would be unable to function without my iPad! It's bad enough that the volume control has broken, if it stopped working I would be lost! My life is on it!

[[deleted user]]

I love my ipad (sob)

[Hilary]

I've only had mine since January but I've gone from thinking I wouldn't use it to using it constantly. Poor you, Lee. Hope you're not disappointed of money at the moment and you can get a new one as I don't know if they can be mended.

[[deleted user]]

It's still in warranty so hopefully I should be sorted soon - I'll just have to withstand the withdrawal symptoms until then - it's very hard, being disappointed of ipad :0(

[Tracey]

I hope you've got everything backed up in iCloud? I've never heard of an ipad or iPhone failing before, they seem pretty well constructed. I think you've been very unlucky.

[[deleted user]]

Not everything sadly - looking at the apple support pages it might be something do do with a recent update to IOS7. It just will not charge.

[Hilary]

Good grief Lee, don't say that I've just done the same and although I can just about live without my iPad, my phone (just updated to ios7 on that last night) I can't live without, it's my link with civilisation.

[[deleted user]]

Just don't let the battery run down too far before you try and recharge it - here's a website I came accross when trying to mend my ipad - it's a list of common IOS7 problems and how to fix them - hopefully you won't be needing it:0)
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&...

[Ellie]

I've always had a policy of waiting a while before I update my iOS, so that may bugs are sorted before I take the plunge. So far, everything I've heard about iOS 7 has made me truly glad I adopted that policy!! I'm still on iOS 6, in blissful ignorance ;)

[Hilary]

Very wise Ellie, I think ios7 is awful!

[[deleted user]]

needless to say, I agree - I shall be following Ellie's wise example from now on.

[Tracey]

I converted to ios7 a few weeks ago on my ipad and phone and haven't had any problems with it, although the developers of all my apps seem to be making endless bug fixes. From what I've heard of other peoples' problems, it looks like I've been a lucky one. Fingers crossed I've no problems in the future!

[Joy]

Just checking in to say I haven't abandoned the group but I'm finding it really hard to do any proper reading lately - new puppy is turning my brain to mush! All I'm managing is re-reading some old favourites (such as ones by Peter Lovesey) where I can pick up the thread of the story again easily.
I hope by the new year to be reading more normally again...

[[deleted user]]

Glad to hear from you again Joy - ca

[Ellie]

Hope it all quietness down for you again, Joy.

I'd actually just popped in to give my apologies for being fairly quiet this week. It has been the busiest week I've had for a long time, with a two day business trip taking me from Gloucester to Preston, which then meant the rest of my normal 5-day working week had to be crammed into the remaining three days, and being an accountant, the first week of the month is busy anyway so it's all just piled up :(, so my reading time has been squeezed heavily :(

[[deleted user]]

Just realised that my comment was cut off - meant to say that caring for a puppy sounds rather liking looking after a baby!

Hope work calms down soon Ellie .

[Laurel]

Hope it's a easier week for you next week Ellie! I'm working in a restaurant so it's going to get crazy busy from now on with the run up to Christmas - but I love this time of year so it's ok ;)
Enjoying spending time with the puppy Joy!

[[deleted user]]

Hope things don't get too crazy Laurel - I love Christmas too :0)

[Ellie]

Thanks, Laurel, it will be easier but never easy! Though I don't envy you your job, I couldn't do restaurant work at all!

[Ellie]

So far this morning, my right big toe had an argument with a shopping trolley and lost, and now I've dropped a dance panel on to the same toe :(

[[deleted user]]

Owwww!