PhotoHunt: book(s)

I've posted about books so many times before.  I can't avoid it - they are part of my life and a large part.  I've been trying hard to think of a different way of illustrating what books mean to me.

So I started off by an attempt to show that it was the content of the books that was so important - the pages rather than the spine.

But that made me think.  Dangerous, I know.  It isn't only the content of a book that is important to me, otherwise I'd invest in an e-book reader and at the moment I can't think of anything worse.

Who wouldn't like to run their hands over some beautiful books like that?  Looking along a shelf full of old friends?

Who doesn't enjoy riffling through pages until some beautiful words catch the attention?

I love all those things and can't imagine a time when an electronic device will take precedence over the sheer joy of owning books.

Disclaimer:  some people's opinions may differ.  My sister has always been even more possessive of her books than I am, and has been totally won over by an e-book reader.

Join in and find other other players at TNchick's site.

Alternative libraries

I can't imagine life without easy access to books, and libraries have always been part of my life, as a child, as a student, and as a parent. Whenever I go into one, I look around at all the shelves, all those books, and feel a sense of delight and wonder at all of them there waiting for me.

Ideally everyone should have the same opportunity of access to books, to widen their horizons, to learn, to be entertained while learning. But many live in remote areas where it's just not possible. In most western countries we have mobile libraries and the internet to fill the gap, but what of developing countries? The gap has been filled ingeniously.

Today my friend janeway sent me a link to an article in the International Herald Tribune telling about Biblioburros. Every weekend for the last 10 years, a mobile library looking remarkably like two donkeys sets out for remote villages in Colombia. This particular project is run single-handed by a primary school teacher , Luis Sorian, in La Gloria Columbia.

A very similar project is running in Venezuela, there called Bibliomulas. In this case it is run by a Venezuelan univerisity, the University of Momboy, and it's being extended to carry laptops and projectors. Miles and donkeys are essential when it comes to the steep slopes that need to be climbed in order to bring reading material to the more remote communities.

In Kenya a different approach is needed to bring books to nomadic communities.  A static library would be of no use, so instead the library follows them. Ships of the desert are the best way to travel in the Garissa area, 400km from the capital, Nairobi.

Books are important to the people in the area but they can't afford them.  There is a very high rate of illiteracy, partly because of the nomadic way of life and partly because of poverty.  Any spare money has to be spent on food.

BookAid has had a programme in Kenya since 1965 and providing books for the Kenya Camel Library is just one of the areas they support.

Help me with my reading block

I have an Amazon token that needs to be used up and I can't think what to buy. It was a gift, so I'd like something "lasting", something with substance and yet readable, not a tome that reminds me of a school textbook.

I did consider buying this year's Booker Prize short list but on refection I'm not too sure about them. I've been disappointed in the past. Non-fiction might be better. I'm interested in virtually anything with the possible exception of sport, so I'm open to almost any suggestions.

Help me out here. Tell me please, what books you think I should be buying with my token. Persuade me that yours is the right choice. Please?

Updated to add that I am trying to broaden my interests so don't worry about what my interests are. Tell me about a book you have enjoyed. I'm prepared to try anything.

Beatrix Potter's birthday

By coincidence I was in Gloucester over the weekend, just returning today, Beatrix Potter's birthday.

I particularly wanted to see the cathedral which was signposted down this alley.

As I went along I realised the shop at the archway was called Beatrix Potter shop. I assumed it was a shop selling souvenirs based on the children's book "The Tailor of Gloucester".

because there was the sign hanging outside.

Later on during the weekend I was browsing various bookshops, when I noticed in one this display of Beatrix Potter books.

Although I had the books as a child, and even read them to my own sons when they were little, there were several titles I didn't know at all. I'm pleased to see the original versions because I had heard they had been "modernised". I imagine the owners of the shop will have known about the upcoming birthday but at the time I didn't and thought they were using the Gloucester connection. Considering they were 80 odd miles away, the connection was tenuous.

I looked up The Tailor of Gloucester, having thought it was just a story, and it seems that it's based on a folk tale about a tailor who had to make a suit of clothes for the Mayor of Gloucester. Beatrix Potter became fascinated by the tale and wrote her story based on it.

On investigating the story I find that the shop is not merely a souvenir shop, but also has a museum dedicated to Beatrix Potter, so that was an opportunity I missed. All the same I was delighted to find that today is her birthday, and that at least I had noted the place. And I don't have to do my "Dr Foster went to Gloucester" rhyme again.

World Book Day

Two stories for World Book Day.

Doris Lessing

Last December, Doris Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In her acceptance speech she described a childhood in Africa which was not totally unlike mine, living in a house without electricity but full of books. She describes life in Zimbabwe today where children clamour for books and knowledge. "Please send us books, please send us books," while we in the developed world don't make the most of what we have and libraries are underused.**

As a result of her very moving speech, and in recognition of her prize, HarperCollins, the publishing house, has announced the donation of 10,000 books to Book Aid International for schools in Zimbabwe.

BookAid helping to make poverty history

Channel Four recently listed BookAid as the top way to help Make Poverty History on their website. As they say education whether formal or informal, can help people out of poverty, but nearly a million cannot read a book. In Africa few people own books and school text books are often shared between six pupils.

Providing books, information and so knowledge, to people in need helps them realise their potential and contribute to their communities.

**One disagreement with Doris Lessing

She said: "How will our lives, our way of thinking, be changed by this internet, which has seduced a whole generation with its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging etc."

I'm afraid I can't agree with that. The internet has opened up horizons we never knew existed a handful of years ago. We are communicating in ways that once couldn't have been understood, and where there is communication and exchange of ideas, there is education and understanding as we learn about each other.

Like anything, the internet may not be used to its full potential, or in trivial ways, or it may be used in unpleasant and disturbing ways, but on the whole, on balance, I will have to agree to differ with Doris Lessing.

PhotoHunt: red

Thanks to a fall which resulted in a bruised foot, I haven't had a chance to get out to take pictures of what I had intended - red berries. Instead I've had to content myself with books, not just any red books (and they have all been read), but each of these has a special meaning for me.

The first is one we gave some years ago to my mother-in-law, before we realised she had Alzheimers. She always loved it, both the contents and the cover.

I won the second book, The Riddle of the Sands, in a competition, though not this copy. The original was lost during one of our moves so I replaced it. I can remember my grandmother in Dublin one day pointing out Erskine Childers, the son of the author, to me.

The book of poetry was a present from my elder son, another book lover.

The Rottweiler is one I had autographed by Ruth Rendell when I went to a talk she gave on the history of crime writing. The talk was held in Chawton, where Jane Austen once lived.

And of course I couldn't resist including The Psychology of Pain, because of the circumstances :)

Find other players: PhotoHunt

How to talk about books you have never read

It's the title of a book by Pierre Bayard, a professor of French Literature in Paris, who suggests that the two most common forms of reading are skimming and sampling. He maintains that it is perfectly possible to have a passionate conversation about a book without having read it. His aim is to stop people feeling guilty that they don't read.

His top tips, taken from an article in The Times

How to talk about a book you have never read:
Avoid precise details. Put aside rational thought. Let your sub-conscience express your personal relationship with the work.
How to review a book :
Put it in front of you, close your eyes and try to perceive what may interest you about it. Then write about yourself.
How to discuss a book with its author:
Stick to generalities, remain ambiguous and say how much you like the work.

Another idea is to have a set of abbreviations - UB: book unknown to me; SB: book I have skimmed; HB: book I have heard about; and FB: book I have forgotten, to be included when citing books.

I love the whole concept. Skimming and sampling got me through almost every exam I ever did....

It's particularly refreshing that this comes from a French person. I cannot for one minute imagine that this method would go down well in the French education system which is (or used to be) very keen on the rote system of learning.

NB I haven't read his book.

Alexander McCall Smith

Three weeks ago I went to a "Meet the Author" held nearby. The author in question was Alexander McCall Smith, author of The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series amongst others.

I was delighted to be going, thoroughly enjoyed the talk, and took a number of photos on my phone. I have spent the best part of the three weeks trying to get them off. And before anyone cracks any jokes about IT, technical support or any other such things, it took the combined efforts of all the staff in the shop I took it into to sort it out.

I shouldn't have bothered. The photos are nearly useless. How's this for a triumph of modern technology?

This is what he really looks like, scanned from a magazine.

He is a very fluent speaker as you might expect from a Professor of Medical Law, a very jolly person, and a prolific writer. He started off as a children's author, then in 1998 wrote The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, published by the same publisher, Polygon, as the academic texts he has written. It sold slowly, but at one point, a number of copies were included with a shipment of text books to the USA. These copies were "hand sold" by booksellers and quickly became very popular. It wasn't until after this initial success in the US that his books became popular in the UK.

He has four different series of books on the go, and can tell which time of year it is according to which one he is writing. If that weren't enough, he writes the 44 Scotland Street series as a daily serial in The Scotsman, trying to keep well ahead with the episodes but often finding that by the end he has barely more than a couple of instalments in hand. Apparently he often offers to include people he meets in the series.

I felt I really had to buy a copy of his latest in The Sunday Philosophy Club Series, and duly had it signed.

Finally I was presented with a "goody bag" with, amongst other things, a packet of Redbush tea and a book, Blood in the Water, by Gillian Galbraith.

I gather the book is a detective novel set in Edinburgh, so I'll give it to my husband to test run.

Four books

Late again - the story of my life. Or early, I suppose I could be early, depending on your point of view.

I've been tagged by Françoise of Des infos sur les femmes en France et dans le monde, in French, but the answers inevitably will be mainly in English because it's all about books.

Les 4 livres de mon enfance
Four childhood books

Difficult one. I used to read avidly, everything that had writing on it, but ones that I remember are:

• The Tale of Two Bad Mice - Beatrix Potter - and many others of her stories. I also enjoyed them again when reading to my sons.


• The Kon-Tiki Expedition - Thor Heyerdal. I thought this was the most exciting thing ever.


• The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett. I wrote a whole post about it here.


• Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome. Another exciting book. I suspect this would seem terribly dated now.

And I won't go into all the many Enid Blyton books.... I know they aren't considered good books but I don't believe they do any harm. I'm a firm believer in any reading being good reading.

Les 4 écrivains que je lirai et relirai encore
Four authors I will read again and again

• Jon McGregor. Since I read If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, I have vowed to follow him to the ends of the earth :) Whether or not he wants me there remains to be seen.
• Kazuo Ishiguro. Something like the Jonathan McGregor experience after Never Let Me Go.
• Fred Vargas. I enjoy the French atmosphere and the stories are good page turners.
• Ruth Rendell. Excellent psychological thrillers, often set in London. I went to a meeting where she was talking about the history of the crime novel and was fascinated, slightly to my surprise.

Les 4 auteurs que je ne lirai plus jamais
Four authors I will never read again

I do wonder how fair it is to make a judgement not to read an author again after only one book, but I frequently do.

• Victoria Hislop. You can read my reasons here.
• Katherine Neville. I read The Eight and found it, hmm, not good. It just did not engage my attention at all. I didn't finish it - that never happens!
• Douglas Kennedy. My impression was formed after reading "State of the Union". In one review I wrote I said, "I would particularly like to give Dan and Jeff each a good slap!" I have no idea why but I did decide not to read his books again.
• Nicholas Sparks. I read Message in a Bottle and thought it was much too far-fetched. I read The Notebook and thought that poor. So he got two readings, but now he's off the list.
  

Les 4 premiers livres de ma liste à lire
The first four books on my to-be-read list

• The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell. Janeway told me it had influenced her. I read a review that said "This is a book about apartheid, about the cruelty of politics and about redemption. There are shades of Nadine Gordimer in The Sparrow, shades of Isaac Singer, but the book this reminds me of most is Jill Paton Walsh's novel Knowledge of Angels, a historical novel that wasn't." Hooked.


• On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan. I've had this waiting a while now.


• Amélie Nothomb - Mercure.


• John Banville - The Sea.

Les 4 livres que j'emporterai sur une île déserte
The four books I would take to a desert island

• The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Are several volumes allowed? I find I am increasingly enjoying Shakespeare now that I have finally got over the damage done at school when I was force fed so much of it (sorry Mrs Heyworth).


• Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen. Studied for my last English exam but unlike the Shakespeare experience, I loved it.


• The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver. A substantial book which I very much enjoyed and which I intend to re-read.


• Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert. In French, because I should.

Les dernières lignes d'un de mes livres préférés
The last lines of one of my favourite books.

This is tricky because I tend to give away my books once read, but I do have a copy of The Poisonwood Bible:

"Slide the weight from your shoulders and move forward. You are afraid you might forget, but you never will. You will forgive and remember. Think of the vine that curls from the small square plot that used to be my heart. That is the only marker you need. Move on. Walk forward into the night."

In turn then, and really only if you feel like doing it, I tag Tanabata of In Spring it is the Dawn, Elaine of Old Age is a Bitch, YTSL of Webs of Significance, Pablo of La solitude du coureur, là au fond. I will not be in the least offended if you don't.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

One of the best books I have read in a long time – and I’m offering it to one lucky person in a lottery draw!

Written in 1958, it tells the story of a man called Okonkwo, who lived in what is now known as Nigeria. Apart from being a fascinating account of how the Ibo people lived, it is not so much about the man or his family, as about the way the first missionaries and other colonials imposed their views on Africa, and written entirely from an African point of view. At the same time it didn’t try to idealise life in Africa at that time: the brutality resulting from some of their beliefs isn’t hidden.

It’s a short book at 176 pages and I found it easy to read. You can see some Amazon reviews here.

It was BAFAB week last week (Buy a Friend a Book), so, all right I’m a little late but does it really matter? If you are interested in reading it (and are OK with emailing me your address) just leave a comment below. If more than one person comments, I'll pick names out of a hat. I'm happy to post it to you wherever you live. Closing date a week from now.

The Face of Paris

Some friends of ours have recently moved house and found a box of old English books in their cellar. Knowing I can't say no to a book, they have passed them on to me.

There's a great mixture but they all seem to date roughly from the thirties and forties, and include copies of Othello, various ones by Dickens, and one called The Face of Paris which was published in 1933.

It consists of 14 walks in Paris and five drives in the outskirts. I am delighted with it because I spent a lot of time walking around Paris when we lived there, and it has some lovely illustrations. The one above fascinates me - almost no women. Was it not acceptable for women to go to cafés?

So I'll be spending a few happy hours looking through them. I'm hoping there may be some interesting snippets about pre-war Paris, though some things have barely changed.

Women's Reading Clubs in Malawi

I've had the BookAid logo in my sidebar for a long time now. BookAid promotes literacy in developing countries by creating reading and learning opportunities, working mainly in sub-Saharan Africa.

Malawi is one of the 10 poorest countries and it is estimated that 54% of women there cannot read. Additionally 14% of 15-49 year olds have HIV/AIDS.

The Malawi National Library Service runs the groups to encourage newly literate women. Through the clubs women can access information on health, education, family welfare and training.

Books are provided in Chichewa, Tumbuka and English. Cash is provided for the purchase of books in Chichewa and Tumbuka while BookAid provides reading matter in English from their stocks of donated books.

The benefits to women are:

• they read and learn about managing small businesses, income generating activities as well as cooking and sewing
• some pick up their education again
• they learn about HIV/AIDS, both its prevention and the care of people who are infected
• they gain some measure of independence
• they gain confidence and camaraderie

A slideshow is available here, which should be embedable but every time I try, the window closes and I have to start all over again!

Plan de Fomento de la Lectura

On our arrival in the hotel in Amsterdam, I found this little book on the bedside table.

It would appear that the chain of hotels, NH Hoteles, are sponsors for the NH Vargas Llosa Prize for Short Stories and that they offer these complimentary copies of some of the stories (translated into English) for their guests.

This attractive logo on the back of the book is for the Plan de Fomento de la Lectura.

It's a government funded programme designed by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport to promote reading. It seems to be an excellent idea all round, both to have a book to read in a hotel room, and the sentiment behind it.

PhotoHunter: Row

I thought about a lot of different types of rows: rows of books, rows of vegetables or other crops, but in the end as I was sorting through old photos, I came across these from Venice. Venice is especially close to my heart because my grandfather came from there.

There are rows everywhere in the architecture: arches, pillars, columns, windows.

This is a detail from the Palazzo Santa Sofia, or Ca' d'Oro, which was being renovated when we saw it, and so it was unfortunately partially covered by tarpaulins. Built in 1428, it's hardly surprising that it needs renovation.

Above are arches and columns in the Doge's Palace

From the top of the Campanile, you have a very good view, not only of the rows of columns and arches in the Piazza San Marco, but also the rows of tables set out in the square, if you want to buy a refreshment at an extortionate price!

And here's another sort of row in Venice. It's a scan of an older picture we took about 15 years ago. Two rows of gondolas, one in each direction along a fairly narrow canal. Traffic congestion, Venetian style!

PhotoHunt

Le Gone du Chaâba by Azouz Begag

I picked this one up because I rather like the little boy on the front, and also because someone told me it was her favourite book.

It’s the semi-autobiographical story of Azouz Begag who was the son of Algerian immigrants living in a shanty town, the Chaâba, near Lyon. Set in the sixties, it’s fairly horrifying to read of the conditions they lived in but it’s a fascinating insight into immigrant life and culture. No electricity, a single source of water, very questionable sanitation. The highlight of the week was the arrival of the dustbin lorry – when it emptied its contents there was an opportunity to find treasure.

Azouz worked hard at primary school and succeeded in rising to the top of the class but it brought him into conflict with his friends from the Chaâba. They were all at the bottom and accused him of betraying them by working so hard and becoming French. When he went on to the “big school”, he pretended to be Jewish in an attempt to fit in.

In the meantime his parents had moved, like all the other immigrant families around them, into a flat in town. The book ends with another move imminent, clearly signalling a sequel, which I’d like to find.

It’s written with quite a sense of humour. The French was not too difficult but some of the words were distortions of French used by the immigrants such as l’bomba for la pompe, and tababrisi for tabac à priser, and interspersed with a little Arabic. That did complicate things for a while until I got used to it. Still, it’s worth a read, and at 240 pages it’s fairly rapid.

Seven Types of Ambiguity by Elliot Perlman

My reading has become a lot slower recently, ever since I decided it would be good for me if every alternate book was in French. By reading Seven Types of Ambiguity I haven’t increased my rate at all: it has 607 pages. I bought the book ages ago and it has been sitting sadly on my shelf waiting its turn, so what could I do?

The title is taken directly from a book of the same name by William Empson. It tells of the events leading up to and the consequences of the main character's abduction of the son of an ex-girlfriend. It describes it using seven different narrators, seven people with slightly different views on what happened, and on their relationships with each other.

Although the seven characters were very different, it was their views on the events that underlined their difference. Barbara Kingsolver uses the same technique of using multiple narrators in The Poisonwood Bible but the difference between characters there is more evident in the style of writing. Here the style is fairly consistent throughout and lends yet another aspect of ambiguity because each time the narrator is changed, it takes a while to work out who it is.

Perlman is apparently a lawyer, or has been one, which may explain the rather lengthy courtroom passages. The discussions of legal points leave me cold and remind me of other lawyers turned novelist. The only other disappointing aspect was the slight preachiness in attitude to politics in healthcare, and to Joe, his stockbroker lifestyle, and the culture of greed. For me these sections give the impression having been added in later to make sure we get the message, and seem unnecessary (described in the Guardian review "Seven Types of Moralising"). I felt Joe himslef was something of a caricature but perhaps not. I don’t think I know any stockbrokers.

The ambiguity does continue right up to the end. Normally this would bother my literal mind which likes everything to be tied up carefully, but in this case I feel I was more interested in the characters and their relationships than in the plot. There are too some passages which will remain with me for a long time:

“there is a definite warning sign for people living by themselves - the salad dressing stops appearing in the salad, then the tomatoes, then the salad itself. Then you're just left with a bowl which, sooner or later, you fill with cereal and milk and then - for the hell of it - you start to add a little scotch to the milk.”

"is it mad to love in spite of the evidence... or just necessary?"

Describing the children Simon taught: “the noisy ones, the naughty ones, the scraggly ones with one jumper and two shirts, the fast ones in runners, the pretty ones with skinny legs who followed him everywhere and the very quiet ones who still were not used to having been born”

"There is an ambiguity of human relationships, for instance. A relationship between two people, just like a sequence of words, is ambiguous if it is open to different interpretations. And if two people do have differing views about their relationship - I don't just mean about its state, I mean about its very nature - then that difference can affect the entire course of their lives."

It’s a very readable and even compulsive book. I recommend it.

Fear and Trembling by Amélie Nothomb

I’m not quite sure when I became aware of Amélie Nothomb. I’ve noticed her books for sale for several years, and I knew they weren’t new because they are readily available in French supermarkets, but why I should have noticed them above others, I don’t know.

Fear and Trembling, as many if not all of her books, is at least semi-autobiographical so as much as anything, I learnt about the author, and it rapidly became obvious that she is Belgian and not French. She was born in Japan to a family in the diplomatic service and lived there until she was five. She speaks fluent Japanese and did return to work in a Japanese company for a year.

Although for some reason I thought it was going to be a “difficult” book, it wasn’t at all: it’s entertaining and very easy to read. My usual caution about reading books in translation was totally swept away because at no point was I aware of its having been originally in French.

I don’t know whether the fairly dreadful portrayal of Japanese corporate life is accurate or not, but the most fascinating part of the book I found was the section about Japanese women, “if the Japanese woman is to be admired – and she is – it is because she doesn’t commit suicide”. Japan apparently has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, but in spite of the pressures put on them by society, the rate is very much lower in women than men. How much that holds true now I’m not sure.

Something I heard quite a while ago was also mentioned in the book. When people were starting to become aware of water conservation, a hotel said it would be very difficult to put effective measures in to reduce water consumption because a large portion of their clientele was Japanese. Apparently Japanese women become terminally embarrassed if they feel they can be overheard in the bathroom and will turn taps on full in order to prevent this. I never really knew if this was true, but Amélie Nothomb says the same thing.

I’d be happy to read any more of her books and I may even try one in French. I gather it was made into a film and released in 2004, so I must try to find it on DVD. According to the reports I’ve read, it is equally good.

How Proust Can Change Your Life - Alain de Botton

Please remind me not to read any more non-fiction books, at least not random, spur of the moment, purchases.

I can read all sorts of fiction, some I can hardly remember and others leave an imprint which I'll remember for ever. But non-fiction leaves me with a feeling that I should be taking notes and fixing something in my memory. Too many years of text-books I suppose. Reading them without worrying whether they do or do not leave an impression doen't seem to be an option.

I had the same struggle with this one. I found it in an Oxfam shop (so at least it was in a good cause) and I'd been offered another Alain de Botton title by Amazon for some reason known only to Amazon, so it was obviously meant for me.

It's easy enough to read, taking a light-hearted but informative look at Marcel Proust's "A la Recherche du temps perdu". I know now that you shouldn't sleep with anyone on a first date, you should learn from your suffering, and be a good friend. Oh, and you shouldn't use clichés. But the very last chapter was "How to Put Books Down". I think it ought to have been the first.

I don't think I'll be trying to plough my way through "A la Recherche du temps perdu" in French or in English any time soon.

Yoruba Girl Dancing by Simi Bedford

It isn’t quite the book I had expected, but I did enjoy it all the same. I understand it’s a partly autobiographical novel as Simi Bedford too was sent to boarding school in England at a very young age.

Remi, a Nigerian girl from Lagos, comes from a wealthy and educated family, with a large house and lots of servants. It is a lively household, with plenty of people coming and going. She is sent to boarding school in England at the unbelievably young age of six. What is even more amazing is that she is left in there for six years without once seeing her parents. In England, in total contrast to her home, she has to experience the loneliness of boarding school where it takes a while to become accepted by the other girls. These girls too come from privileged backgrounds but Remi spends the school holidays with the relatives of her step-grandmother, and they live in a much less affluent world.

She finds herself moving first from her familiar background in Lagos, and then between two different social classes in England, but an outsider in both. She learns to fit in with both settings by adapting her behaviour, in both cases involving fabricating stories about her life in Africa to fit in with her friends’ preconceived ideas, but she doesn’t lose her Nigerian identity completely. She encounters racism, but apparently a racism born of ignorance rather than outright hostility.

Although it is a book written with considerable humour, I found it a somewhat sad story. I can relate very much to the feeling of not quite fitting in anywhere. I’ve had a roaming life but I wouldn’t change it for the world. It’s given me a roaming mind and I’d prefer to have expanded horizons than static roots.

Simi Bedford has a new book to be published in July 2007, Not With Silver, about a warrior sold into slavery. It sounds worth reading.

PhotoHunter: Hobby

"I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library."
-Jorge Luis Borges

Just one section of one bookshelf, and some of the books which reflect my interests. Pride of place is given to the tall olive green book near the centre, which is "Insects of Medical Importance". I don't have a particular interest in insects but my father had it when he was a student at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and he gave it to me on the day I left home to become a student at Liverpool University.

"A room without books is like a body without a soul."

-GK Chesterton