Winter good for one thing: reading
The winter blahs have set in.
I really dislike winter, other than for two reasons; one, I don’t feel obligated to go out to the garden and pull weeds and two, the cold weather lets me read and read to my heart’s content.
I don’t seem to have much time to read in the summer but the howling, blowing snow makes me tuck into a good book without so much as a whisper of guilt.
I have always been a reader, so easy to escape to another world, a world that you have created via the descriptions of the writer. Movies are just never as good as the book because by reading you are creating your own movies in your head.
I am so excited to start working at the Curiosity House Book Store at the end of February, just on Sundays. I can’t leave the doc or the plumber I work for.
So what do I read? Well, my most favourite author on the planet is Agatha Christie, for much more than just her works of fiction.
What a life this woman led. Here are a few titles that I have read lately: The whole Colin Cotterill series (thanks Basil); 13 Hours in Benghazi (because I wanted to know); No Milk Today (history and decline of the milkman in Britain); 33 Women in Science Who Changed The World (you’d be surprised at some of the names); The Alice Network (women spies in both wars), which led to Queen of Spies, the story of one of the bravest woman who has ever worked as a spy; An Address in Amsterdam (story of the Nazis first coming to Holland); Bad Rabbi (a collection of stories of Jews behaving badly, true stories from the Yiddish press – before you get your knickers in a knot, I have Jewish blood in my veins); 40 Years of Murder by Professor Keith Simpson (turns out he performed the autopsy on my grandfather in London, a great collection of real murder stories and how DNA and fingerprinting have come along in the art of “who-dunnit”); A Man called Ove, well, just because he reminded me of the CEO; and for comedic relief I just finished Fire and Fury (a real head shaker).
Right now I am reading a book club book about an ex-Japanese prisoner of war who goes on a quest to design a garden for her late sister, so far so good.
All this since last fall, there are other books that I have read too but unless I write down the names of them I tend to forget the titles, I will put that down to old age. I hope that you all enjoy a good read every now and again, a great way to get through the winter blahs.
