Brought to book........

I hope you all had a happy Christmas or at least got through it in one piece. I spent most of it on the sofa with Rupert Everett. Having enjoyed his first biography, Red Carpets And Other Banana Skins, I'd requested his second, Vanished Years, from Santa this year. As it was a presi it was perfectly acceptable to read continuously through meals and movies, thus avoiding all opportunities for fighting and fretting. It helped that it was very funny and poignant and most enjoyable.

Having made read Dickens one of my New Year resolutions last year, and having successfully enjoyed Great Expectations, this year I've decided to extend my literary pursuits to George Eliot. No, I've never read him, or her, but when I checked my library....... the shelf of books that circumnavigates my hallway........ I discovered I had copies of Mill On The Floss, Middlemarch and Silas Marner, I'm spoilt for choice it would seem. So it's back to the sofa for 2013......Happy New Year!!

Top tip: festive food goes on sale now....go fill the freezer!!

Brought to book.........

It's taken me a year to read a book. Over a year. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen; it's a great brick of a hardback book but a year is a long time.
"You must read this," a friend had said, giving it to me, "I couldn't put it down."
So I did, despite not being able to pick it up. Or rather I didn't. The thing is I could only read it when tucked up in bed, propping it up against my knees. It was way too big to fit into my already over-flowing handbag or be secreted amongst my I'm-not-paying-to-put-it-in-the-hold luggage and come with on holidays and mini-breaks. And so it sat in the bedroom while others took the bus. Yes I did read other books over the year. Slighter volumes that travelled better. In the end I decided to just push on through and finish the book but it just wouldn't end. It went on and on. And when I did finally finish it....... I was a tad disappointed. Some of it was good, some of it was great, some of it was boring but to be honest I didn't really like any of the characters.

My new year's resolution was to actually read..... not watch..... something by Charles Dickens and as luck would have it, there was upon the shelf high up in the hallway, a copy of Great Expectations. I do hope it is with a happier heart that I can report upon the enjoyment I hope to find betwixt its yellowing pages.

Top tip: Nurse Jackie is back on Sky Atlantic....... top telly. If you don't have it put the boxset on your Christmas list.