Firstly – if you fancy a mosey around my bookshelves, Danielle has very kindly asked me to take part in her wonderful ongoing series of Lost in the Stacks: Home Edition. It’s a mix of my bookcases in Oxford and Somerset, and some fun questions to answer.
Happy weekend! My brother will be here, which will make my weekend fun. There might even be cake. You’ll just have to make do with a weekend miscellany…
1.) The blog post – is another great review of Guard Your Daughters, this time from Ali. And she loved it!
2.) The book – I’m excited about A.L. Kennedy’s On Writing, which Jonathan Cape sent me recently – it’s going to be published on 7th March, so consider this early warning. It’s chiefly a collection of articles about writing that Kennedy wrote for the Guardian, but there are also lots of other essays about writing, character, voice, being a writer etc. Which one of us isn’t interested in this sort of thing, regardless of whether or not we intend to write ourselves?
3.) The link – I’m quite passionate about trying to get people (especially Americans) to watch the sitcom Happy Endings. It’s on in the UK at some odd hour in the morning, but it’s on ABC in the US. It looks like it might be cancelled after this third series. But it’s so, so good. Quickfire wit, the right amount of silliness… just brilliant. This link gives 36 Reasons Happy Endings Is The Best Show on Television. I’m not sure how accurate a depiction it is of the show, but… well, have a gander. And watch the show! It’s on a break (sigh) til Fri March 29, so watch it then, 8pm… and catch up on DVDs of earlier episodes!
4.) OxfordWords – whilst I’m working as the editor of Oxford Dictionaries’ OxfordWords blog, I’ll also post weekly highlights from it in my Weekend Miscellany. I thought “hmm, will this get awkward, mixing my job with my personal blog”, but then I thought no, you’ll want to read some of the fantastic stuff that we publish there. It’s all fantastic, obvs, but my personal highlight this week is the post about words which have newly entered Oxford Dictionaries Online – more here. And I wrote a couple of pieces this week, too – What the Nobel Laureates did for us, and a (hopefully witty) article about horses in expressions and idioms. Oh, and I got drawing in Paint again…
: ) Yes Guard your daughters was a joy, thanks for that recommendation, I am currently reading Helen Thomas – in the collection called Under Storm's wing. I remember seeing several bloggers talk about her memoirs towards the end of last year – were you one of them Simon? I recently read The Old Ways by Robert Macfarlane who pays tribute to Edward Thomas all through the book – and it reminded me of the memoirs I had read about – … and so off to my internet shopping basket I did trot : ) – it is wonderful though.
Oh, I love her memoirs! I might have mentioned them last year – they've been on my 50 Books You Must Read list for years now, and I gave Darlene and Rachel copies, both of whom wrote about the book (As It Was) so maybe it was via me, directly or indirectly!
Simon, I am loving your articles for the Oxford Words blog. Well done! (I love your author tags at the bottom too).
Thanks so much, Annabel! And I do enjoy coming up with the taglines :)
Nice to see you on Lost in the Stacks. And "bear feet" is certainly groan-worthy. :)
haha! Yes, definitely deserves a groan…
I bought Guard Your Daughters after reading here about it, it's great & been lent to 2 others who both loved it! Thanks!
That's so, so lovely to hear! I'm so delighted about the number of people who followed up that recommendation – it's a book which deserves to be a classic.
"Happy Endings" is the greatest show on TV??? I think not …
Glad you love it and it was indeed interesting to see your collection of bookshelves and comments upon them in "Lost in the Stacks" too.
Is your thesis submitted yet? :-)
Haha! Er, no… but the job came up and was too perfect not to apply for.
And I might call Happy Endings the greatest show on TV at the moment, simply because I only regularly watch about four…
I know you wrote about Oxford Words blog before but I haven’t had a chance to have a proper look until now… and I absolutely love it. Your post about idioms with horses is brilliant, very enjoyable and very educational (especially from a foreigner point of view). And I love the post about new words that enter the dictionary. When I was a child I used to entertain myself for hours reading different dictionaries (I still do but I don’t brag about it).
Braggadocious – what a brilliant word!
And your bookshelves look fantastic, Simon!
Thanks Agnieszka! I don't get to write a huge amount for it (I've written more in the past week than usual) but there are lots of wonderful writers who contribute.
I am one of the hoard who rushed to purchase Guard Your Daughters after your glowing review :). I have yet to read it however :(.
I have only seen one episode of Happy Endings, but it did not knock my socks off. I can watch it on demand, maybe I will give it another shot. But I hope for your sake, it makes it to a 4th season!
Glad you got your mitts on a copy of GYD, Ruthiella! Now read it ;)
Comedy is so subjective that I can see why some people wouldn't like Happy Endings (or any other programme), but I relish it and *really* don't want it to be axed!