There’s a reasonably long back-story to this, so feel free to scroll straight to the pictures!

I’ve sort of lost track of the days and weeks but some time ago in March we had to self-isolate, then my work closed. We were asked to work from home, if we could. I’ve done what I can – mostly responding to social media enquiries and comments and supplying people with their PIN to access the online services. There’s not much else I can do, though.

One evening about eleven o’clock I looked over and noticed that a Jaws movie poster was propped up on a book stand. (I have two book stands I borrowed to lend to my sister who needed to prop her iPad up for teaching a fitness class, and then couldn’t return). I thought that looks like the start of a book display. I had, not too long before, borrowed Jaws the book and hadn’t been able to return that either… and Brodie has some toy boats. And toy sharks.

So I did my first display and in a fit of foolish enthusiasm declared I would do a book display every day of the lockdown, using whatever I could find around the house. I’m now about a month in and still have quite a lot of ideas, but I don’t know if I have enough depending on how long this goes on.

Anyway; here are the first seven days of book displays. There are a couple of Blyton ones, of course!

Day #1

Jaws by Peter Benchley

I started with just the poster, boat and book, then my sister said ‘doesn’t Brodie have a bath shark?’ I found the hand puppet first, then kept adding sharks (we have a few as Brodie is named after Chief Brody from Jaws). The film has several sequels so there are two photos representing Jaws (book and film) then Jaws 2 and Jaws 3d.

Day #2

Thomas the Tank Engine

Brodie loves his Thomas books and toys so I had quite a lot to work with.

Day #3

The Famous Five

I couldn’t wait any longer to do this!

I couldn’t fit my whole collection on the table, so I went for the Fives I have in decent dustjackets, the 90s annual, one of the recent annuals, my Sindy dog who represents Timmy on my bookshelf, a few of the postcards, and my 70s Pepys cards and the 50s Pepys cards.

Close ups below;

Day #4

The Mystery of the Strange Messages

None of my Five Find-Outer books have dustjackets so I decided just to feature one with some props. Buster, obviously, enough macaroons to feed the gang for around thirty seconds and some of the strange messages received by Goon.

Day #5

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

I’ve always loved the films and I read the books for the first time recently, both on my Kindle. I happen to have two Kindles so I used them plus some of Brodie’s toys to try to recreate the scene in the book/film when the visitors take the jeeps past the tyrannosaur paddock and get stuck…

Day #6

The Organised Mum Method by Gemma Bray

If you read my monthly round ups you’ll have seen me mention the Organised Mum Method before. It’s free to follow online but I have the book as well, which I’ve put with some of my favourite cleaning products as recommended by the TOMM community.

Day #7

Nursing

Some of my favourite nursing memoirs on the left and nursing fiction on the right. Along with a vintage first aid kit.

From the back left;

• Call the Midwife (book #1) – Jennifer Worth
• The Nightingale Girls (book #1) – Donna Douglas
• Yes Sister, No Sister – Jennifer Craig
• A Nurse in Time (book #1) – Evelyn Prentis
• Florence Nightingale – Cecil Woodham-Smith (I admit I haven’t read this but you can’t do a nursing display without the Lady with the Lamp!)
• A Nurse at War – Maggie Holt
• Call Nurse Millie (book #1) – Jean Fullerton

So that was my first 7 with plenty more to come!