Christmas Reading

December 26, 2018December 27, 2018 / Eleanor Jane / 2 Comments

For me, reading at Christmas is all about comfort. Most years I read Little Women and quite often something like Arthur Ransome’s Winter Holiday as well. Last year I exclusively read all of my favourite wintry childhood books throughout December – things like The Box of Delights and The Rat-a-Tat Mystery. It was wonderful.

Part of every Christmas is reading Lucy and Tom’s Christmas. I love Shirley Hughes’ illustrations and I always look forward to this one. This year, I treated myself to her new Christmas book – Snow in the Garden – and I am very much looking forward to reading it!

I started my Christmas reading a little late this year but my first book was brand new (to me). I found this on the book stall in our local market and I couldn’t resist it!

Christmas Book Club

December 20, 2018December 20, 2018 / Eleanor Jane / Leave a comment

My book club doesn’t have a proper meeting in December as the book shop is just too busy to cope. Instead, we had a trip to the pub for a bookish chat.

It was lovely to spend an evening with a group of book lovers without having the pressure of focusing on one book in particular. We did nominally have a book to read but only two people had actually done so – it was much more of a social evening than a proper book club meeting.

We had a great time talking about our books of the year, our all time favourite books and the books on our Christmas lists. We had a brief excursion into politics but in the main we kept strictly to books and it was wonderful. I would highly recommend it!

Winning Through

December 12, 2018December 12, 2018 / Eleanor Jane / Leave a comment

I’ve mentioned before that I have recently been struggling somewhat to find the motivation to read. It has been the strangest feeling for me – I have never had such a serious reading slump before. The mental energy and concentration required simply to pick up a book was beyond me and I really didn’t know what to do with myself.

Of course, it has been a bit of a vicious cycle – the less I read the more stressed and wound up I felt and so the less I was able to read.

This week however I am finally feeling a bit more rested and less stressed. On the train yesterday I was actually able to read my book – even though I couldn’t read I was still unable to go out without one! It turns out that Anthony Trollope is a wonderful balm to the soul.

Over these two days I have read more than I have managed in the past two weeks. I am even looking forward to settling down by the fire this evening with a cup of tea and my book. It is a wonderful feeling.

Rivers of London

December 5, 2018 / Eleanor Jane / Leave a comment

For years my friend has been telling me how much she loves Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series. Every time she mentioned it I would nod and say I must try it (she did make it sound brilliant) but my TBR is huge and somehow it never made it to the top.

Then a couple of months ago my book club chose to read the first book. I was finally able to say I had taken the advice and read it – and also that I now understood all the fuss because I enjoyed it so much. Having taken at least five years to start the series, I have read the first three books over the past two months and I will shortly be starting the fourth.