Wednesday Wednesday

Shan’t be collecting any awards for my title originality today, but it does exactly what it says on the tin. Though, for many of you, it may be Thursday by the time you read this. If it is indeed Thursday, then you’re reading Stuck-in-a-Book on the day that The Carbon Copy leaves home for good, off to Bristol to be a/work in actuary. One of these days I’ll discover what sort of noun ‘actuary’ is, but not any day soon. It beats the first time I heard the word, when I believed it was something to do with morgues.

Sorry that there has been nothing particularly bookish recently, it’s largely because I haven’t read much of late. Started Angelica Garnett’s earlier this week, but haven’t got very far, owing to packing and a cold. Does anyone else suffer this? As soon as the faintest tinge of illness comes near me, my eyes pack in and go on holiday, and merely glancing at the back of a cereal packet gives me a headache. Always seemed a cruel irony that, when I had a day of school with nothing to do, indulging in reading was impossible. Anyway, back to Garnett’s book – she is Virginia Woolf’s niece (daughter of Vanessa Bell) who married a man who had previously had an affair with her father. Oh, that man was the one who wrote Lady Into Fox, one of my 50 Books… (see the side column). Weren’t they a normal bunch. So far, Deceived With Kindness seems like a less scholarly version of Hermione Lee’s biography of Virginia Woolf, and I mean that in the very best way for Garnett. Lee’s book, while interesting and very, very erudite, was exhaustive in more than one way.

Packing *almost* done, and has been performed with the accompaniment of Dame Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer, or rather Jean and Lionel Hardcastle, in one of my DVDs of As Time Goes By. One of these days I’ll devote a post to this fine series, which seems to be popular among many of my fellow bloggers. I know Elaine over at Random Jottings loves them.

To make up for lack of bookish musings lately, here is a nice picture of some of my many overcrowded bookshelves. Spot the Persephone Books mug. And tomorrow I’m hopefully going to the enormous Book Barn, so look out for Simon’s Shopping Basket…