Catching up

 

- Thankyou to everyone who took part in our informal poll the other day - your comments were very much as I expected. According to your answers, blogs have a great influence on your book buying (or borrowing), far moreso than do print reviews, so let no-one say we don't sell books!

 

- Howard Jacobson was interviewed about his Booker win: "It’s not a prize for effort. It’s not a prize for youth, it’s not a consolation prize for me”, he says vehemently. “It’s a prize for bloody writing. We desperately need it because fewer and fewer people know what writing is. They are not taught it any more. They are not taught to read."

I agree.

 - There were so many lovely comments on cross-generational reading, and my thanks to all and especially to Diane Meier for her contribution. If you read Diane's novel The Season of Second Chances you'll meet the Henry James she refers to in her comment (poor chap!), what she says reminds me that I do like the American way of referring to a dog by both given name and surname; that gets the paw-print of approval from Mollie Howlett, too.