Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

It's that time again - c'est le weekend! And so, of course, I have a book, a blog post, and a link for your delectation. Come in, sit down, have a cup of tea and a slice of cake. I even made a cake yesterday - coconut and orange sponge (like the chocolate and orange, but with a sizeable amount of coconut instead of cocoa powder.) I haven't tried any yet, but I'm looking forward to having some tonight... mmm. Anybody got any baking photos to share? I'd love to post a link to them.

1) Let's start off with the book. Beautiful Books published Angela Young's Speaking of Love, which I loved, and then they did me the kindness of putting my name on the back of the paperback - so I consider them little less than heroes. And respect their judgement, of course - so I'm looking forward to starting Lanterns on their Horns by Radhika Jha. A very striking cover, I think you'll agree. Read more about it here. Apparently it involves the artificial insemination of cows to end poverty in an Indian village, and is compared (admittedly by the publishers) to Charles Dickens (great) and Naguib Mahfouz (who? I'm sure he/she is famous, but my knowledge of non-British writers is shamefully low. Unless Mahfouz is British, of course, in which case I don't even have that excuse.) There's a review on (the aptly named) Farm Lane Books here.

2.) The link - my e-friend Sherry, from the dovegreybooks reading group, sent me a link to an article from the Telegraph which is likely to strike a chord with Stuck-in-a-Book readers. Click here to read it. It's called 'There's no smell on the shelves of cyberspace' by Simon Heffer, and is about the pleasure of browsing real life bookshelves, as opposed to clicking a link and getting the book delivered. The internet has done wonderful things for book-lovers - and dire things for their bank accounts - but there will always be room for the surprises and serendipities of bookshops. Call it the thrill of the chase for those who prefer a more leisurely pace. To whet you appetite, and show that Simon Heffer is One Of Us, here's a quotation:

"I realised at an early age that hours passed in shops full of old books constituted one of the greatest joys of civilised existence."

Yes, Mr. Heffer, we can but agree.


3) And the blog post - it's Paperback Reader again. Over the past fortnight or so she has been sporadically putting up photos of colour-themed bookshelves. Some are kept like that all the time, some were done for the photo-op. Here's the link, which cleverly shows you all three relevant posts (white, orange, and silver) because she knows what she's doing with tagging. (Something I manifestly failed with the only time I tried to do it.) Harriet did the same thing with her shelves a while ago - but I don't know if she's kept them like that. Harriet? I've toyed, occasionally, with putting all my books in colour order... but while I love to look at other people's photographs, I know I'd never be able to find anything. Plus all my bookcases are double-stacked (and now books are in piles on the floor) so it might not have the same effect. The picture above isn't from Paperback Reader, but one which did the rounds on the blogosphere a couple of years ago.