Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

Hey folks! Hope you've had a good week. Mine involved making the ridiculous cake below, with my lovely friend Lorna. I'm off on holiday tonight, cat-sitting at home for a week, then off to Shropshire and Wales with my bro for a bit. I was going to have proper posts ready to pop up, and who knows, maybe I still will - but... Well, something will appear, but it might be on a somewhat rationed basis. Still time for a Weekend Miscellany before I board the train, though...


1.) The blog post - is a lovely photo post by Diana, being Part 1 of a multipart series documenting her recent trip to the UK. I'll come into it somewhere towards the end, but the first part is delightful - more general, about her 29 trips to these shores, with a great group of photos taken over the years. I swear, she knows Britain much better than I do.

2.) The link - so, the Man Booker longlist is out. I have read none; I own the Julian Barnes. This is the last time I shall mention anything to do with it...
3.) The book - had gone into a pile to go home: interesting enough to keep, but not to read for a while. It's Let Not The Waves of the Sea by Simon Stephenson, and I kept my review copy from John Murray mostly because I love the cover. And then I read this article from the Guardian, wept over it, and want to read it. Let Not The Waves of the Sea is non-fiction, about Stephenson's relationship with his brother Dominic, who died in the 2004 tsunami. My brother is the most important person in my life, and I love any book which cherishes the importance of siblings - even if this has a terribly tragic element, the blurb writes that it is 'more than a book about what it means to lose a brother: it is a book about what it means to have one in the first place.'