Pondering

Now, I'm a massive fan of public libraries. I feel it's an amazing privilege to have a service whereby we can borrow books for free. We can educate ourselves for free. We can entertain ourselves for free. We can try before we buy. What's not to like?

TO the end of furthering the cause of public libraries I decided not to put an online seller link in under any of the books we mention as I'd much rather people borrowed the books from their library. If we don't use these services then Councils will take them away - so use your public libraries people, they're great. And free. And warm. And did I mention they're free?

Now, if I love libraries so much then why, you may ask, do we have so many unread books on our shelves? That is a valid question my friend, and one which I believe I can answer. We (well, definitely me) are idiots. We buy new books, second hand books, we are given books, books multiply under our very eyes. And I still have the maximum number of books i can from the library each week. So, if you don't buy loads of new books at once, then hopefully you won't have to follow in our footsteps and be forced to write a blog about your reading habits in order to force yourself to read everything you own!

That is all.

Love TAC x

The Grass is Singing - Doris Lessing

Ta-da! The first book of the blog - I was determined to beat Madrigal Boy to it - is by Nov(b)elist Doris Lessing and was her first novel. I enjoyed it very much. The heat, the dust, the conflicting emotions of the characters were all evocatively described and it was a great read. By chance I was reading it at the time of Pierre Terreblanche's murder, and it was interesting to see how racial tensions were portrayed in fiction compared to the stark reporting of the recent killing.

The miscommunication in the book was heartbreaking, and I couldn't help but feel for the main characters who seemed to sink deeper into inevitable disaster when a simple word of comfort from the other could potentially have saved them. Background characters were also interesting, and by the end the social and institutional divides were so blurred a tragic ending seemed inevitable. It was certainly a great read, even better would be to read it in the scorching sunshine, and I look forward to reading more of her work soon (considering we have about 6 of her novels, unread, on the shelves I'm sure they'll be mentioned in this blog).

Au revoir ma petite bibliophiles TAC x

Premise

One day, Allotment Cat and Madrigal Boy were looking at all the books they owned. They realised they were shameful bibliophiles and hadn't read half of the books they owned. To remedy this they set up some rules:
1) They will catalogue all the books they own
2) They will read all the unread books they own
3) They may buy books in the meantime, but cannot read newly purchased books until the existing ones have been read by at least one of them
4) Library books and book club books are allowed, but must be read along with an existing book, and are not to be mentioned on the blog.

Let the cataloguing commence!
TAC