lunababymoonchild

Gathering Blue, Lois Lowry, part two of The Giver Quartet

A great idea!

I just signed up for a free trial of audible. My free book is Stephen Fry reading The Complete Sherlock Holmes. This is making me deliriously happy.

Telling Tales (Vera Stanhope 2) Ann Cleeves

Ooops! I have : To Kill a Mockingbird (to re-read), Great Expectations, The Tombs of Atuan, Quiet and I want : Silas Marner, On Solitude

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed – and gazed – but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils. I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, William Wordsworth

I thought that this might prove interesting : Books about solitude and isolation anybody reading something similar?

It's a weakness, it really is : The Crow Trap, Telling Tales, Hidden Depths, Silent Voices, The Glass Room, Harbour Street, The Moth Catcher, The Seagull, (all Vera Stanhope) by Ann Cleeves And The Rules of Thinking: A personal code to think yourself smarter, wiser and happier by Richard Templar

Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre by Walter Kaufmann and because I have the time, The Rules of Thinking, Richard Templar.

Apple is still in retail but only on contract work - i.e. no overtime - and the latest is that if she gets verbal abuse from a customer she is allowed to talk back and it's the customer who gets thrown out. My father insists on his daily constitutional and I accompany him, despite the cold. As you say something is better than nothing. He says that he also does some exercise in his chair, fortunately upstairs. It hasn't improved his mood, he's a grumpy old man. He has, however, accepted that me and my brother go out to do the grocery shopping - my brother insists on getting to the supermarket before 7am and there is no way my father can get up and out at that time. My father gets a dvd in the afternoon (I'm the one working the dvd player) and a possible one in the evening depending on my brother's activity. My brother is working from home and is still stationary biking every second night. I have plenty to read, plenty to crochet, plenty to watch on TV and weathering my father's petulant behaviour - he wants the police to try and force him to stay in the house *sigh*. I'm also avoiding the BBC's rather hysterical, imho, reporting of the current situation.

I found this useful : How to read more when you're social distancing. I found the paragraph on distraction particularly interesting

Now that we are confined to quarters I am glad that I have a large amount of books to read. I am also glad that Amazon are still delivering. Good health to everybody

Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this, The intelligence that moves, devotion is, And as the other Spheares, by being growne Subject to forraigne motion, lose their owne, And being by others hurried every day, Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey: Pleasure or businesse, so, our Soules admit For their first mover, and are whirld by it. Hence is’t, that I am carryed towards the West This day, when my Soules forme bends toward the East. There I should see a Sunne, by rising set, And by that setting endlesse day beget; But that Christ on this Crosse, did rise and fall, Sinne had eternally benighted all. Yet dare I’almost be glad, I do not see That spectacle of too much weight for mee. Who sees Gods face, that is selfe life, must dye; What a death were it then to see God dye? It made his owne Lieutenant Nature shrinke, It made his footstoole crack, and the Sunne winke. Could I behold those hands which span the Poles, And tune all spheares at once peirc’d with those holes? Could I behold that endlesse height which is Zenith to us, and our Antipodes, Humbled below us? or that blood which is The seat of all our Soules, if not of his, Made durt of dust, or that flesh which was worne By God, for his apparell, rag’d, and torne? If on these things I durst not looke, durst I Upon his miserable mother cast mine eye, Who was Gods partner here, and furnish’d thus Halfe of that Sacrifice, which ransom’d us? Though these things, as I ride, be from mine eye, They’are present yet unto my memory, For that looks towards them; and thou look’st towards mee, O Saviour, as thou hang’st upon the tree; I turne my backe to thee, but to receive Corrections, till thy mercies bid thee leave. O thinke mee worth thine anger, punish mee, Burne off my rusts, and my deformity, Restore thine Image, so much, by thy grace, That thou may’st know mee, and I’ll turne my face. Good Friday 1613. Riding Westward, John Donne

There are now 8 books in the Vera series and one due later this year : 1. The Crow Trap (1999) 2. Telling Tales (2005) 3. Hidden Depths (2007) 4. Silent Voices (2011) 5. The Glass Room (2012) 6. Harbour Street (2014) 7. The Moth Catcher (2015) 8. The Seagull (2017) 9. The Darkest Evening (2020) I have just finished the first book having been brought to it by the TV series which I thought was excellent. Since the series is fresh in my mind I do remember The Crow Trap and the TV episode is not like the book. Meg has summarised the book very well so I'm not going to repeat that but I didn't guess the killer and Vera's background was familiar form the TV. Highly reocmmended

Hello and welcome. I like all types of poetry, for me it depends on the poem. That said I do like and admire John Cooper Clarke who is a performance poet. Is there a particular poet or poem the you prefer ? Please feel free to join in the poetry thread (Poetic Wanderings)