Hopefully I’m going to see some crocodiles this weekend… I’ll keep you posted, either on here or, more likely, on Twitter – where I’m @stuck_inabook, donchaknow. I’m afraid I’m just as likely to talk about Neighbours or cats as I am books, but…
1.) The books – you know me, I love reprints – so it’s always exciting to unwrap an unsolicited publisher package and discover that it’s got reprints. Even better, they’re by an author I like, and they’re books I don’t own – soon I’ll be trying The Boat and A Perfect Woman by L.P. Hartley (best known for the very good The Go-Between), courtesy of John Murray. Click on the images for more info.
2.) The links – time for an update about OxfordWords blog posts, sneakily put in the ‘links’ section! I’ve been calling in favours from the blogosphere, and a couple of posts appeared over the past weeks from names you’ll recognise… here are some of my favourite recent articles:
Harriet wrote about Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Rachel wrote about Vita Sackville-West
Andrew Motion wrote about poetry and memory
My lovely boss Malie wrote about My Fair Lady
I wrote about pronunciations of ‘scone‘.
Our ‘baby names generator‘ proved very popular!
3.) The blog post – do check out Karyn’s posts about her travels – especially if piles of Penguins get you all tingly.
The Boat and A Perfect Woman sounds interesting! I may have to track it down.
I'm pretty intrigued about them! I will report back in due course…
I’ve read your 'scone' post few days ago and I really liked it. It’s interesting and very useful for non-native English speakers. I came across people (not many, thank God) who would interrupt me with: 'Well, you need to speak properly if you want to stay over here' or my favourite: 'Get rid of this horrible accent'. But on the other hand I spent so much time (and money) finding the right teacher and haven’t been very lucky so far. Well, at least I’m understood most of the times and (although I still avoid the word 'vehicle') I finally mastered the difference between 'bins' and 'beans' :)
How rude of those people! I am so far from being able to speak any language other than my own, I would never dream of criticising someone's accent.
It's intriguing that you bring up 'vehicle' because, although I can pronounce it, it was years before I could spell it…
Love the cover of 'A Perfect Woman'. A rather supercilious smirk, no?
Isn't it fabulous? I love her expression – I hope the book matches up…
Thanks for the mention Simon. It was a lovely holiday and I found loads of vintage Penguins, though I regret I was unable to revisit Oxford. Now that I have returned home, and escaped the unbearably cold weather, I'll have to get organised and write more than one post about the bookshops I visited.
Sorry not to see you this time, Karyn, but I look forward to more posts about your trip.