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University literature courses lack excitement?
It’s that time of the year again when seventeen year olds up and down the UK are trying to decide how to spend the next three of four years of their lives. Yes, university application season is upon...
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Sunday Salon: Seasonal Reading
Listening to one of the recent episodes of the Readers Book Based Banter podcast got me thinking about my own reading habits. The co-hosts for the show were chatting about whether the type of books...
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September reading wrap up
September 2013 will go down in history in the BookerTalk household. It’s the first time since I started reading the Booker Prize listed titles, that I read only Booker nominees. Nothing from my...
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Sunday Salon: To read or not to read on..
I wonder if you have conversations like this in your household. They’ve happened a few times recently because some of the books I’ve had on the go have been rather disappointing. Me : This book isn’t...
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Sunday Salon: my future is the past
I very rarely plan my reading far in advance. Maybe because I spend so much time at work having to think ahead and plan,that when it comes to reading, I prefer to take the serendipitous approach. The...
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Sunday Salon: Reading in parallel
I’ve built up a fair ability to multi-task certain things over the years. Ironing while watching TV (or more recently the Plagues, Witches and War video lecture on historical fiction) ? No problem....
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The Year so Far
Whoosh….. that’s the sound of October flying past. Where did the month go? Come to think of it, where did the last 10 months go? It feels like only an hour ago that I was bundling up against cold winds...
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The ideal travelling companion?
Suitcase is packed. Passport and currency checked and rechecked. Now all that remains is to decide what book will accompany me on my work trip to Michigan later today. It’s even more difficult a...
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Sunday Salon: A Yawn of a Day
Please excuse me while I yawn. It’s not that I am bored with writing this blog (though you may be excused feeling bored by reading it). It’s just jet lag and lack of sleep kicking in. Having flown back...
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Sunday Salon: Replenishing the book stock
When you have some time to spare and it’s a cold, dark November afternoon, then the warm interior of a really good book shop is the ideal place for any avid reader. Which was my excuse for popping into...
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Sunday Salon: Some unexpected delights
I think I’ve mentioned before that when I take a trip abroad, I like to read a book set in the country I am visiting or at least written by an author from that part of the world. When I bought Yukio...
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My secret Christmas wish
If there is any justice in this world, in a few days from now many of us will be unwrapping shiny new additions to our book collection. Like every other avid reader I’ve put in my request to Santa of...
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Sunday Salon: Looking for brighter horizons
I should have been writing this amid the aroma of my Christmas cake baking in the oven. But after a few hours amid the crush of festive shoppers, I decided that baking will need to wait until tomorrow....
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2013 Challenges: Wrap Up
As we’re fast approaching the end of 2013 and many bloggers are already looking ahead to 2014 challenges, it seems like a good time to reflect on the challenges I set for myself a year or so ago. I set...
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The Challenge of Challenges
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. That comment by Douglas Adams (the author of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) sums up my experience with book reading challenges...
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Sunday Salon: Taking Stock
The new year has been ushered in with the usual burst of activity on the personal effectiveness front. Whether you want 2014 to be the year you really do lose weight, or you’re aiming to get fit,...
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Sunday Salon: Sizing up the issue
Is there a pair of fat trousers in your wardrobe? Maybe it’s a skirt or dress instead. I’m talking about the garment that many of us have lurking in the cupboard somewhere. The garment that you take...
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Playing Catch Up
It’s hard to think creatively amid the din of hailstones smashing into the windows and the roof of the conservatory. At least I am at home this morning — there was a point last night where it didn’t...
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Sunday Salon Catch Up
A wonderful surprise awaited me on my return from an intense working week in snow-clad Eastern USA — a signed copy of Christos Tsiolkas’s newest novel Barracuda which I won via National Book Tokens. I...
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Sunday Salon: Spring Cleaning
There’s a little chink appearing in my bookshelves now that I’ve made a concerted effort to read what I already own rather than go buying yet more books. With those plus a few I decided I really wasn’t...
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