A book lover with a difference

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The shy one

Sasha making a rare appearance, and displaying her sole interest!

Interesting definition...just for Beth

It's published!

Jeffrey Archer's third book in his pentalogy/quintology/quintet (you choose), the Clifton Chronicles, will be released in March.  It's titled "Best Kept Secret", and the CD will be available the following month.


According to The Bookseller, in the first ten days, the second book "The Sins of the Father" sold 170% more than the first in the series "Only Time Will Tell" sold in its first six weeks. According to Jeffrey "When you're actually writing the third book, news like this is both inspiring and demanding - in equal measure."

We wait...

Too hot for fur coats

 

Far too hot for cats today, so decided to stay inside and copy humans who seem to enjoy this book thing...reading.  They talk about "getting your teeth" into something, so that's what I did.  I wouldn't say it was particularly productive, but it certainly helped sharpen the canines (terrible to have that word associated with us felines).

Then they say they've "got their nose" in a good book,
so I tried that too.  Marginally more interesting,
but a lot of fuss about nothing in my opinion.
Now it's off to the land of dreams, full of mice, catnip and other catty delights.

 

Love him or hate him

Dan Brown's new book "Inferno" due on May 14th in Canada and the US, so we'll see it the next day in SA. This is a new Robert Langdon novel.

There's no available jacket as yet, but the following is from Dan Brown's website :

Inferno, featuring the return of renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, is set in Italy and centers on one of history’s most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces, Dante’s Inferno. The book will have a first printing of four million copies.

“Although I studied Dante’s Inferno as a student, it wasn’t until recently, while researching in Florence, that I came to appreciate the enduring influence of Dante’s work on the modern world,” said Brown. “With this new novel, I am excited to take readers on a journey deep into this mysterious realm…a landscape of codes, symbols, and more than a few secret passageways.”

“Dan Brown is a masterful storyteller” said Mehta (Chairman and Editor in Chief of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group), “his ability to fuse codes with well-researched history has helped to make his novels some of the most popular works of all time. With Inferno, Dan has taken a literary classic and animated it in a way that only he can.”

Our breaths are bated.

Back in stock soon

Excellent photography in this coffee table book, a MUST for cat lovers.

I couldn't resist this.

History of LADYBIRD books

In 1867 Henry Wills opened a bookshop in Loughborough and moved into printing in 1873. Henry and William Hepworth, his business partner and friend, published "pure and healthy" literature for children and registered the Ladybird trademark in 1915.

The first Ladybird book, "Bunnykins Picnic Party" was published in 1940. The books were pocket sized and had 56 pages which came from just one sheet of paper, 30" x 40". This kept the price down which was very important for parents.

The global market started with a translation of "Child of the Temple" into Swedish - Stieg Larssen followed in some fine footprints! Now the books are available in over 60 languages. Arabic sales are a large part of the market.

The "LEARN ABOUT" books appeared in the '60s eg "How it works -the motor car" was used by the Thames Valley police driving school. 200 copies of "How it works - the computer" were used by university professors to make sure students started at the same level. 200 copies of the same book were bought by the Ministry of Defence and bound in plain brown covers to save embarrassing their trainees! This series was so popular that one noted politician asked Parliament "Has the Right Honourable Member read 'The Ladybird Book on Politics?" This might not go amiss today!

In 1971 Wills & Hepworth became Ladybird Books, and the following year were taken over by the Pearson group, then owners of Longmans, The Financial Times and the Westminster Press.

For Charles and Diana's wedding, Ladybird produced a book in 5 days and sold
1.5 million copies. Apparently Prince William learned to read using Ladybird books.
 
In 1991 a publishing partnership was forged between Ladybird and Disney with triumphs such as Tarzan, Lion King, Toy Story and Winnie-the-Pooh.

Ladybird books are synonymous with quality and value for money and are trusted the world over by parents.

 

 





 

Reading update

Just finished Rebus. Verdict?  4 cats out of 5.

What I'm reading by Tabby Lloyd

Rebus has returned! Ian Rankin has brought back the Detective Inspector Rebus character after a gap of five years. Of course, in real life, the retirement age for police in Scotland has changed and this allows Rebus to return to work.

When Rankin was asked about television adaptations, he said: “It’s good that so much crime fiction is being written, though I sense people are getting a bit tired of the Scandinavian model.
Maybe we could turn to the Indian subcontinent, or just somewhere that isn’t bleak and windswept and snowy and full of psychopathic serial killers running amok. Like every crime writer in Britain, I’m very jealous of Scandinavian crime writers whose work gets 20 hours on TV.
Rebus gets 45 minutes per book – one hour on the television with 15 minutes of adverts. Everything got dropped apart from the title!"

Test your knowledge of Rebus with this quiz from Rankin's website :

1.  What was the first Rebus book to be published. 
2.  What is the name of Rebus’ ex-wife?

3.  Name the deadly internet role playing game contact in The Falls?
4.  Under what does DC Siobhan Clarke find her first clue in the Restaurant Bleu in The Falls?
5.  Who is Rebus’ nemesis?
6.  In which pub does Rebus regularly drink and on what street is it?
7.  In which book does the serial killer the Wolfman appear?
8.  In which book does MP Gregor Jack get caught in an Edinburgh brothel?
9.  Rebus’s daughter Samantha is injured in a hit and run accident. In which book does this incident occur? 
10. In which book does the Lord Provost’s daughter disappear?

None of this "the answers are on page 9" or "the answers are at the foot of the page" (easy for those of us who are experts at reading upside down)...happy puzzling!



Tabby Lloyd's (I'll explain again -' tabloid'...feline journalist), slow start to the new year

It's difficult to rush anything through the holidays, shopping, parking, driving, visiting etc, but now things are slightly easier.  At least blood pressures are lower in Woolies.  I gather it was quite unpleasant at times with queues around the store and people being rather impatient.  So glad I was home reading and waiting for my food to be delivered  and my water to be topped up.

I was perusing "Pedant in the Kitchen" by Julian Barnes, who was the winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize for "Sense of an Ending".  His new book is about his search for gastronomic precision.  He is not a Nigel Slater fan, but loves Jane Grigson (mother of Sophie Grigson who knew her marriage was doomed when her future husband, William, asked before their wedding: "Do we have to live together?").  Many other chefs are critiqued as he writes.

His style is delightfully dry and his observations may be obvious, but which of you could have written 2 pages on owning cookery books?

1. "Never buy a book because of its pictures.  Never, ever, point at a photo in a cookbook and say 'I'm going to make that.'  You can't."

2. "Never buy the chef's recipe book on pointed display as you leave the restaurant.  Remember : that's why you went there in the first place - to eat their cooking, not your own feebler version of it."

3. "Remember that cookery writers are no different from other writers : many have only one book in them (and some shouldn't have let it out in the first place)."

There is great pleasure  to be had from reading about the pedant, and a dictionary will prove an invaluable accompaniment for many....'raillery', 'obeisance', 'relict', 'uxorious', 'cavils' and 'voluptuaries' might be understood better!

2013

Wind and straw hats don't really go together, but I tried...much better to be at home and wind free (still attached to the hat, or is it..the hat attached to me?). 

 

Cassie slept through New Year (see picture).  I s'ppose she was dreaming of what to write in her new column.  Today I saw her having a browse through the Collins dictionary as she was reading a book by Julian Barnes.  No doubt all will be made clear tomorrow.