I have decided to try something new this month, having seen it on some of the other blogs that I read. A round up of what we’ve been reading, watching and doing. Naturally not all of it will be Blyton related, but I think it can be interesting to know what else Blyton fans read and do.
WHAT I READ IN AUGUST
- Ghost Roads (The Gatekeeper Trilogy #2) – Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV tie-in
- The Dark Compass (His Dark Materials #1) – Philip Pullman
- Harry Potter and The Cursed Child – J. K. Rowling
- Sons of Entropy (The Gatekeeper Trilogy #3) – Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV tie-in
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – audio book narrated by Stephen Fry
- The Ragamuffin Mystery – reviewed here
- Shakespeare’s Landlord (Lily Bard #1) – Charlaine Harris
- Ships, Stings and Wedding Rings (Chronicles of St Mary’s #6.5) – Jodi Taylor
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – audio book narrated by Stephen Fry
- Mystery in White – audio book written by J. Jefferson Farjeon
- Shakespeare’s Champion (Lily Bard #2) – Charlaine Harris
- Lies, Damned Lies and History (Chronicles of St Mary’s #7) – Jodi Taylor
- Shakespeare’s Christmas (Lily Bard #3) – Charlaine Harris
- The Demon Headmaster Takes Over (Demon Headmaster #5) – Gillian Cross
- Return to Chaos – Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV tie-in
- Real Fairies – reviewed here
- Visitors – Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV tie-in
There are also a couple of things I haven’t finished yet
- The Mystery of the Burnt Cottage which I’m blogging about
- The Fellowship of the Ring – J.R.R. Tolkien
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – audio book narrated by Stephen Fry
WHAT I’VE WATCHED
- Hollyoaks (I watch this religiously)
- The Good Wife starring Julianna Margulies, on Netflix
- The Originals (spin off from the Vampire Diaries) also on Netflix
- Only Connect – the quiz show on BBC2
- The Olympics – I loved seeing how well team GB did and I’m looking forward to the paralympics next week.
- The Adventure Series – I reviewed Island of Adventure here
WHAT I’VE DONE IN AUGUST
- Started my new library job (which is going well so far)
- Browsed the library catalogue a lot, looking for even more things to read
- Worked on making blog posts better looking (let us know what you think!)
- Continually put off the excercise the Olympics inspired me to do
WHAT STEF HAS READ
- Harry Potter and The Cursed Child – J. K. Rowling, John Tiffany & Jack Thorne (This just made me even more determined to get tickets to see the show. A friend and I got some for August… 2017)
- The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat – reviewed here
- Kindred Spirits – Rainbow Rowell – I love Rainbow Rowell, she is one of my favourite American authors and gets that perfect balance between real life, fantasy and hilarity.
- Private Lives – Tasmina Perry
And her current reads:
- Raising Steam – Terry Pratchett – Because who doesn’t love a bit of Discworld and Terry Pratchett?
- Crash Into You – Katie McGarry – My ‘easy trashy’ read of the month, easy to read, dip in and out of.
- After Alice – Gregory Maguire
- A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled – Ruby Wax – As my mind is fairly frazzled anyway I thought it was worth a go.
- Career of Evil – Robert Galbraith aka J.K. Rowling
WHAT STEF HAS WATCHED
- Five Get Into Trouble from the 70s series – part one and part two
- Five Go Off to Camp from the 70s series – part one and part two
- Various Episodes of QI, Mock the Week and Who Do You Think You Are? – I’m not very good at watching the TV at the moment, the most I’ve watched is the Olympics so reruns, easy watching is my go to.
WHAT STEF HAS DONE
- Been to Derby for her goddaughter’s christening – Someone trusts me with their CHILD! Plus, she’s so adorable!
- Reconnected with old friends – thats what christenings will do for you!
- Been invited to TWO weddings
- Had a some successful dates – we went bowling. He won!
- Been forced to adopt the ‘new look’ for blog posts – She’s killing me here! Send help!;) Kidding Fiona!
- Has ventured forth for blackberry picking in a hope of making some jam – My Blytonite is showing!
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Fiona and Stef, it’s always good to try something new.
Many years ago when I still lived in Hamburg, Germany, there was a beautiful store owned by a Japanese man and his son. They sold all kinds of beautiful notebooks, diaries etc covered in silk with Japanese patterns/letters. I bought two of the more voluminous kind and at home sat down and created two book journals. Since 1967 I’m writing a diary where I also mention every movie I watch and every book I read. More than 4.000 books by now. There were months and years in my life when I was in my twenties and thirties and still was able to read very fast. During those years I read between 20 and 30 books per month (some of them children’s books and of course EB almost every month).
I left some space in the beginning of the first of the two book journals, because I expected later on to run into people and possibly exchange with them what they read when they were little and maybe that way get reminded of more children’s books which I read as a child.
But those 10+ empty pages did not last long, because I added more and more children’s books which I had read before 1967, especially after 1998 with the start of my Internet years and joining forums where we talked about such stuff.
A few years ago when I discovered a beautiful chain of stores called Papyrus in the Natick Mall here in Massachusetts, I bought two new Japanese journals to replace my old shabby ones and copied all books since 1967 plus the ones I read from 1961 on when I started to read from my two old journals into the new journals in a more neat way. This time I left 20 pages empty at the beginning of the very first book journal. Who knows maybe I’ll recognize a few more children’s books titles from way back then?
A few years ago I read a biography on Daphne DuMaurier’s life and it stated that she wrote down every book she read when she was a child.
Around 1967/1968 my father gave me a small blue booklet, smaller than the usual note book that fits in a small purse. So I started making notes of every movie that I had watched at the movie theater from the time before 1967 and then started writing down every movie from that time on.
When I worked for the movie archives in Hamburg between 1990 and 2002, there were months when I went to the movies 8 to 10 times (our employer paid for 3 free movie theater tickets per month for every employee), so on average I went more than 70 times per year to the movies.
Movies like “Firelight” (Sophie Marceau, Stephen Dillane) and “While you were sleeping” (Sandra Bullock, Bill Pullman) I enjoyed so much that I watched them 3 times as long as they were running at the movie theater.
I still have that little blue booklet and another one (vol. 2) and André and I still love to go to the movie theater, but it seems they make less and less appealing movies these days…
Sorry, this has gotten way too long!
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