Wednesday 6 January 2010

books at bedtime

i'm reasonably certain i came across a post at the fabulous sally evans's blog about books lying about at her bedside. it got me to thinking. so, currently, untidied, at the side of my bed are -

dr johnson and mr savage by richard holmes. one of those gems that oxfam shopping turns up. richard savage is a playwright. samuel johnson is, then, an unknown teacher. this is what happens next.

how to make a tornado
do polar bears get lonely
when the attention span lapses these q&a books from the new scientist are perfect pre sleep reading. somehow the question are almost more intriguing than the answers

the plums of p.g. wodehouse. some folio society wodehouse collection i picked up in sally's shop. because a life without wodehouse is plain uncivilised.

notebook. the purple one from sweden. hard covered. not my favourite, not least because it won't fit easily in a pocket. but fits the room.

scotland mountainbiking by phil mckane. because what's better than to relax into a book of maps and journeys, the perfect dream machines.

slate, sea and sky by norman bissell. with photography by oscar marzaroli who i also like. an unexpected christmas present and all the better for it. many landscapes i know and love.

dark matter : poems of space. among all the other to do stuff for the first quarter is lots of reading on poetry and science. this is in at the start and it is fabulous.

the faith healer of olive avenue by manuel munoz. for me short stories should either take you somehwre you don't know or shed light or somewhere you think you do. for me these do both, a place i've never been and old memories of hispanic interactions surfacing. enjoying it lots so far.

kinshu by teru miyamato. just started this, mainly because i haven't read an epistolary novel in an age. two folk were married. now they're not. they meet by chance and a correspondence ensues.

montale in english. multiple english translations of montale. you can't go wrong with it!

10 comments:

kate said...

eclectic to say the least. but i'm more curious as to the size of your bedside table ;)

swiss said...

my books are my bedside table! lol

follow the paul fournel link for a bike book to read while you're laid up. it's a bit blokey, but in a good way, very french and totally fabulous.

Roxana said...

wow how many posts, delightful :-) i'm starting to catch up :-)

swiss said...

i'm starting to reawaken after the new year!

Niamh B said...

Thanks for posting this, my hubby thinks I'm bad with the pile beside mine!! I'll show him this and all will be forgiven...

swiss said...

that's just the pile beside the bed! post christmas the whole house looked like it'd had some sort of library accident!

Bill said...

A great collection. I doubt if, armed with that, I'd ever go to sleep.

Anonymous said...

I have all of my books under my bed, but within easy reach. they are highly organized, in small piles of three and four... some i have read but want to keep, some i have read and want to give away, some i have started to read and intend on finishing, some i have started to read and am unsure if i can be bothered finishing, the 'must read' pile and the 'might read' pile. recent reads are Tess of The D'Ubervilles (awesome), The Nanny Diaries (meh), The Rise and Fall of The Welfare State (a good analysis of why the redistribution of wealth is a BAD IDEA) and now i'm getting stuck into The French Lieutenant's Woman... which i LOVE. Ha ha, the nanny diaries took me about 3 hours from front to back. I could only do 20 pages of the FLW before i had to put it down due to mental exhaustion! I don't know, it's so dense and the sentences sometimes a bit complicated, but i have guffawed three times and lol'd twice. that's pretty good for 20 pages.

Anonymous said...

I've ordered the Maurice Riordan. David Kinloch did some excellent versions of Montale in Scots.

swiss said...

you won't regret dark matter. haven't read any kinloch montale tho..