I joined the "Woolf for Dummies" class over on writer
Susan Hill's blog. I bought the books: two biographies and The Voyage Out to start with but of course, as we all know, having the coloured pens and a nice new ruler doesn't magically mean you can do Maths or Physics or whatever your worst nightmare is. Life is too short. Maybe I will go back to VW, in fact the postman dropped a second-hand copy of
Moments of Being through my door yesterday and a cursory glance promises that this will be very readable. So I have been searching around for something to read when I do read, which these days is very little. It's not that I don't WANT to read, in fact I gaze admiringly at the "big girls" who plough through piles of books AND manage to write something interesting, instructional and pleasurable about them.
Top of the list of big girls is
DoveGreyReader. Other people can't start the day without a cup of coffee or a cigarette but there is no way I can get on that train to work or do what I should be doing at the weekend without my daily dose of DGR. How she manages it I don't know although she has recently posted hints about her methodology, much of it involving the sensible use of her spouse's talents and her own skill of knowing when NOT to interfer (see her comments about staying well clear of the kitchen when the three men in her life are doing
manly breakfastly things).
Oh dear, typically me, I've wondered off the point. Where was I? Talking about what I am reading now, I think. I dipped into Kate Atkinson's
Behind the Scenes at the Museum. I haven't actually abandoned it because I am enjoying the way it is written. It alternates between the autobiography of a girl from the moment of her conception, mentions trivial objects in the narrator's life and then procedes to give the backstory of the object. I have a penchant for books that are mainly about women, especially those written in the first person and preferably with nothing TOO nasty in the woodpile. So far An Experiment in Love (see
review by Margaret Atwood) is fitting the spec exactly with the added bonus of a touch of convent schools and nuns. Oh my goodness, I'd forgotten about nuns. There are quite a few of us who have a thing about them. What a wonderful blog subject. I feel like going off at a tangent but I must save that for tomorrow or whenever this dilatory blogger gets round to blogging again...
I'm feeling a little like Ronnie Corbett when he sits in his chair at the end of his show and rambles on then gets back to his original point by saying, "anyway, I said to my director..."
I started writing this blog entry because I am so enjoying An Experiment in Love that I thought I would have a look for a review to see what others thought. Up popped Margaret Atwood's review and that's what made me realise that... if you can write you can write!
Saturday morning brought ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ from DGR in deepest darkest Devon so you can guess what I did next. Yes, large mug of tea in hand, and a refill a bit later, I sat down and read SKELLIG by David Almond, cover to cover. By the end my T-shirt was dripping wet and the box of tissues empty. I must be getting soft in my old age. I don't think I want to read any other books by DA for fear of them not living up to this.
