General Chat

Language is the light of the mind. (John Stuart Mill 1806-1873).

I couldn't imagine a life without books, I read everything and anything although I have favourites. Wednsday last week we had discovered we had no car so a friend lent me 2 boxes of books whilst she is away ...saying that will keep her quiet for a month ...wrong apart from the ones I have already read I've already read 3 books. So only a box to go lol

Sharron I couldn't imagine not being able to read and like many I am an armchair traveller.
I hav also learnt more about history, geography and economics by reading than I ever did in school ! :-D

I wonder what it must be like not to be able to read.

thanks for the warning!
most infuriating though.

I love reading too. Have been since a toodler just learning. But, I bought a book a few months ago, it was a mark down in price. Halfway through the story started again with the same pages. Never did find out the end. So if buying cheapy books check the pages first.
Phyll

I've made a note of the title Agatha,
It's a topical story for Genes!

I read a great book Pat called
EDWARD TRENCOM'S NOSE by Giles Milton
its about Edward Trencom who owns a cheese shop, and discovers he is being followed and as a result finds out about his ancestors.
Its really good

I've decided that I'm an armchair traveller. I find travelling quite tiring so reading about the places is the next best thing.

One thing I try to do is go to the place that's been mentioned int he book I read. I've just read a book based in West Bay Dorset and that's not too far away from me.

Wendy :D :D :D :D :D :D :D <3

Yes, I love reading too. I can't imagine my life without books! I don't read so much since I caught the familty history bug and got a computer, though. I come from a family of readers. It's finding the time for it all that's the problem!

Patricia,

Your local library should be able to get you a copy, E-Bay also have it for sale new/second hand.

Annx

Ann,
I'll look out for that book. It's sounds a good read.

Try this one ladies have just finished it a lovely read.



The Girl on the Wall is a unique, beguiling and very personal social history of one British life over the past 70 years, told through a hand-sewn tapestry.

As the clock struck midnight on 31 December 1999, Jean Baggott vowed that from that point on her life would be devoted to the happiness of ‘the girl on the wall’ – a 1948 photograph taken of Jean when she was eleven.

Reflecting on her hopes and dreams 60 years on from that photo, Jean – a talented needlewoman – has stitched a remarkable tapestry looking back on her life and the changing world around her.

Inspired by a ceiling in Lincolnshire’s Burghley House and by the history degree on which she embarked in her late sixties, the tapestry tells the moving story of an ordinary young girl from the Black Country, growing up in extraordinary times.

The tapestry, which took sixteen months to complete, consists of 73 interlocking circles, giving a unique portrait of everyday life for the working people of the industrialised West Midlands. Each chapter of her book relates to one circle in the tapestry as Jean explores the memories the circle evokes. Jean’s vivid recollections of growing up in a house where the bath hung on a nail in the yard, and children listened to Dick Barton on the radio while their mothers made rag rugs, conjure up a fascinating world now all but forgotten. Some circles explore world events such as the first moon landings and the Cuban missile crisis; others are filled with memories of washdays, childhood illnesses, wartime rationing and games played in the fields and streets beyond Jean’s two-up, two-down terraced home.

Jean Baggott’s entertaining, conversational style and the exquisitely appealing beauty of her tapestry, here recreated in full colour, are underpinned by a breadth of knowledge that brings the events of the past seven decades richly to life in a unique and unforgettable way.

Ahem!!! And from visitors!!

My mother read, I read and so do my children and their children and it pleases me a great deal that they all do love books.

I remember, as a child, reading under the blankets in bed with a torch and years later catching my own children doing the same thing. With todays technology my grandson was caught reading by the light of his mobile phone!

I like the feel of a real book but I also love my Kindle. Living abroad it is not always possible to get a book in English and the second hand ones are very expensive and of limited choice. With my Kindle I can choose what I want to read at a reasonable price. I still have real books as presents from my family......

Wendy x

EDIT**********EDIT***********EDIT***********EDIT***************EDIT*****

See post below lol
.....and nice kind visitors who always leave the books they bring with them when they come on holiday for a month at a time....No names mentioned!

Joined junior lbrary as soon as I was old enough, and was once banned for going back again in the afternoon to get another because i had read the book so quickly. I now read about 9 or 10 in three weeks, the time between the travelling library visits. Am great friends wit the driver, I help to keep him in work.

I love reading to..Have just finished a book and have bought 5 more..

Jules x

I was going to say Christine (as an owner of a Kindle) Surely if the children choose to read on the elctronic variety of books they are not 'nasty' but encouraging the love of reading. I read both, love actual books but it is so useful to be able to take any number of books on holiday without being loaded down by the weight.

I don't think they will take over but if it encourages people to read then that's the main thing. I think that a lot of people would always like the feel of a book in their hands. There's something about the smell of a book.

Sue