Saturday, December 16/2017

Reading four books aloud, which is at least one more than optimal, but some things more pleasure when shared. The serious read is a biography of Guy Fawkes, interesting as much for bits of period information as for the main subject. Fawkes was a Yorkshire man and part of his childhood was spent in York, the oldest parts of which Elaine and Phil took us to - the Shambles, named for the benches that butchers displayed their meat on, with some fourteenth century buildings still standing. He was born in 1570, six years after Shakespeare, but pre deceased him by ten years with the aid of the executioner. 

The light read is an Ian Rankin mystery, set, as usual, in Edinburgh. Rankin's writing gets better with time, as writing should, though he's hitting the problem of a protagonist beginning to age past his role. In between serious and light there's BBC journalist John Simpson's A Mad World My Masters, described on the jacket as 'a celebration of some of the world's wilder places and the unusual characters that inhabit them' and as fascinating and funny as his first autobiographical book. 

These three are daytime books, relying as they do on daylight. Electric lights in the flat designed for decor and sufficient for eating but not reading. So evening read aloud is always an ebook - at the moment Hinterland, autobiography of Chris Mullin, author of the best political diaries of the Blair years. Happiness is knowing there's more than one good unread book still stored. 

Roll up unwanted carpet before going out and leave it in the corner near the door. Cowardice or language barrier preventing explaining that we don't want it? Still there when we return, but floor cleaned.