A book inside me

Inverted Commas 7: Call to Adventure

I opened a book and in I strode
Now nobody can find me.
I’ve left my chair, my house, my road,
My town and my world behind me.

Julia Donaldson’s 2004 poem ‘I Opened a Book’ — now a common meme on a social media site near you — is one that must appeal to bibliophiles everywhere. True booklovers well know that particular magic that comes from not only having hold of a book but of turning the door-like front cover and immersing oneself in the words (and maybe also the images) on each page.

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Reading about Wales

As I’ve previously posted here, Paula Bardell-Hedley of Book Jotter is introducing the first Wales Readathon, Dewithon19 for the month of March. The first day of March is of course the feast day of Wales’ patron St David, also familiarly known as Dewi. With just one month to go, I’ve been giving thought to how I shall approach the readathon.

Firstly, I’ve been drawing up a list of books to consider reading (and subsequently review); this include titles by Welsh authors and books set in or about Wales and about Welsh culture. Here is my initial shortlist, though I may add to or remove some of these works:

Coming attractions

On my occasional jaunts to the cinema my eye is inevitably drawn to the movie posters, particularly to those advertised as Coming Attractions. An art form in themselves—quite apart from their function of selling the films they advertise—I’m always struck by their individuality as well as how they sit with each other, rarely clashing but mostly complimentary.

In like manner I’d like to share with you this picture of some recent book acquisitions, perhaps the first in an occasional series (if I can be fashed). Now I shall blather on a bit about design and about content, and if you can bear it feel free to join me.

Angels and daemons

Angel memorial, Westbury-on-Trym churchyard, Bristol [own photo]

Congruences in recent and current reading always fascinate me, not least because I believe a workable definition of synchronicity is “a coincidence that has significance”.

Of course that significance doesn’t have to be universal, and the congruences that follow are therefore personal to me; but you might find that they also appeal to you — or at least entertain.

An end in sight

As we start to pass through the portals of the New Year you may have noticed I still haven’t fully reviewed 2018. But how can one truly review something that isn’t yet complete? Let one meal be finished before we can start digesting, I say, and then we can contemplate the next smorgasbord!

Here then — on the last day of the year — is my look back at the last year’s achievements, presented with a clean conscience that 2018 is indeed done and dusted, or will be by the time many of you read this …

Now, statistics can be boring unless one draws conclusions from them, so I’ll accentuate the conclusions but row back on the number crunching!

The Last Ten Books tag

This is a marvellous tag which I borrowed from Annabel at AnnaBookBel, after she borrowed it in her turn … and maybe you will be enthused enough to do the same!

Ten fictional books

Image credit: WordPress Free Media Library

I don’t think I’m the only person to be intrigued, even fascinated, by make-believe fictional books that appear in real fictional books. The kind of books that you could almost credit existed once, indeed heartily wish did exist in fact, whether or not you have any intention of reading them.

While reading Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising I recently did a little list of these works that I’d really like to imagine as existing and available, if not in our own then at least in some parallel universe. Various websites have selections of such fictional books — for example, Wikipedia’s is here — but I’ve deliberately not consulted these, relying instead on memories of novels I’ve read (all links are to my reviews or posts) or intend to read soon.

The sources for the fictional books are listed afterwards: the books themselves are in no particular order other than as they occurred to me.