"I shall be on guard for my future" #1962Club #KirklandRevels #VictoriaHolt

For my second #1962Club read I’m once more taking a trip back into my past reading, albeit with the slight difference that today’s book is not a re-read! Back in my early teens we didn’t have a lot of money to buy books, and so I tended to grab just about anything I could get my hands on. We also didn’t have Young Adult books as such, so as I grew up was drawn to my father’s crime books and my…

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Winding Up the Week #347

An end of week recap “The north wind roaring down in October is cruel and cold and reminds you again — as the sea has a way of doing — that nature does not care for man. And somehow that makes the red and yellow leaves and the blue, deceptive noons all the sweeter and more precious because living is so dangerous and so short and can be so bitter.” – Elliott Merrick This is a post in which I…

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"...somewhere to the west Moominpappa was wandering along..." #1962Club #Moomins

Back in 2017, on a trip to London to meet up with my old friend J and visit an exhibition of Tove Jansson art, I picked up a copy of “Tales from Moominvalley” (translated by Thomas Warburton). J and I had realised that neither of us owned this slim collection of Moomin stories, and so we snaffled the only two copies in Foyles! It has sat waiting patiently on Mount TBR for its moment, and as the…

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October reading - and travelling! 📚🚂

October has been an interesting month – both in terms of reading and also real life (though sometimes a bit troublesome in the case of the latter…) However, I read a wonderful selection of books, and here they are: Not shown is “The Unknown Kerouac” which I read as a rare e-book version… As you’ll see, some of these titles were for the #1962Club but I have been reading a variety of other books,…

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#1962Club - some final thoughts, plus where next???

As I often say at the end of one of our reading events, phew! what a week that was! 😀 I had high hopes for 1962 as there were so many interesting possibilites for reading, as well as a lot of titles I’d already loved and could revisit. In the end, I stuck pretty much to the books I’d initially planned, although one book I wanted to read went by the wayside and that’s “Silent Spring” by Rachel…

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#1962Club - "...best thing to do is not be false" - returning to an early favourite! #Kerouac #bigsur

My final read for the #1962Club is by an author who’s meant an awful lot to me over the years – Jack Kerouac. I’ve talked before about how I first discovered the Beat writers in my teens, devouring all of their books, and although I’ve drifted away from their work for periods I still love their writing and get much out of it when I come back to the texts. So when I found that his novel “Big Sur”…

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"...much closer together under this sky!" #1962Club #RedCats

Times for some poetry to feature again on the Ramblings! I’ve enjoyed a bit of a resurgence of my reading of verse over recent months, and I’m determined to keep this up – even if, as in today’s case, it’s once again a very slim collection. They certainly seem to have been a good way to get back into poetry reading, as those large complete volumes can be so intimidating… Today’s title is a…

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An atypical Bond - a guest post for the #1962Club! :D

As has become a regular part of our Club weeks, Mr. Kaggsy is today providing a guest post!  His review does reveal elements of the novel’s events and outcome, although he says the conclusion is fairly predictable, given the relatively short story and the action taking place in a static setting, with very few characters. Quotations and content from the book appearing below are the copyright of…

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#1962Club - some previous reads!

As is my habit during our Reading Weeks, I always like to pick out some previous reads from the year in question; and when I made my list of potential 1962 books, it turned out to be one from which I’d actually read quite a bit! Some of these titles are from pre-blog times, and I’ll pick out a few which have featured on the Ramblings. All of which goes to show just what a great year we chose this…

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"Times change. That is a thing which has to be accepted." #1962Club #agathachristie

Once again I find myself starting off one of our Club Reading weeks with the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie! Yet it’s irresistible – she so often has a book published in the years we choose, and I love her mysteries, so it’s wonderful having the perfect excuse to ignore the TBR and re-read her! Her book in 1962 was “The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side”, a Miss Marple story, and it’s one I…

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Coming up on Monday - the #1962Club launches! 😊📚

Just popping in for a quick reminder that the 1962 Club starts on Monday! In case you’re new to these, the Club Reading weeks were devised by my co-host, Simon at Stuck in a Book. We choose a year, usually between 1920 and 1980, and read, enjoy, share and comment on books published in that year. You can do this on your own blog, Twitter (as I still call it), Instagram, BlueSky, Goodreads,…

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A busy and bookish April! 😊📚 #1940Club

A busy and bookish April! 😊📚 #1940Club

I can’t believe we’re already at the end of another month – at this rate, it will be summer before we know it, although the weather is not doing much to convince me that we’re even in spring… However, April was a bumper month for books, and I once more read some great titles. Here’s my stack for the month, and although there are less in number than usual, there are some fascinating chunksters;…

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Winding Up the Week #329

An end of week recap “The habit of reading is the only enjoyment in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade.” – Anthony Trollope (born 24th April 1815) Next Friday, I will be setting off with my partner and friends for a short break in Sorrento – a southern Italian town on the Bay of Naples, reposing in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. Consequently, there will be an…

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Rounding up the #1940Club - plus where will we go next????

Well, what a week that was!! 😀 I don’t know about you, but I’ve absolutely loved reading and sharing books from 1940, and there were some cracking titles to choose from! I’m very happy with the range of books I was able to read, and the variety, though I could have done with more days available to get to all the titles I was interested in! I’ve also really loved reading all of your thoughts and…

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