Bits and Pieces

Claire from Paperback Reader has reminded me that Persephone Reading Week kicks off on Monday 24th. Hosted by Claire and Verity, the week is a chance to read any number of Persephone Books - anything from one to all 83 if you have superhuman reading abilities. Oh, and there will be giveaways on their sites, I believe. My plan (which will probably come to nothing) is to read six of the shorter Persephones which have languished unread on my shelves. The ones I've picked, in no particular order, are:

Minnie's Room - Mollie Panter-Downes
The Runaway - Elizabeth Anna Hart
The Casino - Margaret Bonham
Lettice Delmer - Susan Miles
Princes in the Land - Joanna Cannan
Julian Grenfell - Nicholas Mosley (not short, but my online reading group are discussing this in September)

That's just 1351 pages in a week. Divided by 7... that's under 200 pages a day! Easy! (Oh dear... well, I'll go with the flow and see what I manage).

Are you getting involved? Reading just one is absolutely fine, of course, and it should be good fun. If you are thinking of joining in, what will you be reading? I'm excited about it now.

But not quite as excited as I am about this:


Yes, my copy of Miss Hargreaves has arrived! One of my very favourite books, reprinted by Bloomsbury, complete with my own words quoted on the back, available in early September. And what a lovely colour they've chosen for it. I shan't rest until everybody who visits this site has got and read a copy... well, maybe I'll leave it up to you, but I encourage you to preorder now! More about this book soon, but if you can't wait til then, you can read about it at one of my earliest posts here. I'm like a giggly child on Christmas Day about this reprint, and will be reading it for the fifth time soooon. Especially since one of my book groups in Oxford is reading it in October, and another one is currently voting on whether or not to read it... fingers crossed!

Finally... after posting about colourful bookshelves last weekend, I decided to have a go at putting my books in colour order. Except for the Persephones, which stayed on their shelf. You can only see half of my Persephones in this picture... The books have been rearranged a little bit since this photo was taken, but it still looks quite pleasing in the picture, don't you think? As Harriet said, it *is* surprisingly easy to find books... but only if I know that they're there. My problem is remembering which are in Oxford and which are in Somerset (most of 'em) - and a little more browsing is required than usual. But that is no bad thing, is it?