charles barrow's writing

I thought it time for a reading update, as I haven't done one of these for a while. Real Life by Brandon Taylor. If you've read my second December '23 post, you'll know that this is the library book that I'm reading. It lives in the library. I don't check it out. I have to go to the library to sit and read it. It's a challenge I set myself, late last year. Visit the library more often, and sit in there to actually read a book. I'm currently up to page 212 in Real Life. I'm, low key, enjoying it. Obviously spreading my reading of a book over such a long period, five months and counting, and only reading small chunks of it at a time, has affected how I consume it and retain details of the story. I'm not sure I'd do this again, unless it is with a non-fiction book. I think that would work better. Let Us Now Praise Famous Gardens by Vita Sackville-West. I recently read this small book that I'd owned for a while and hadn't got around to. I...

As reported in my last post, I am enduring a self-imposed book buying ban, while I take the opportunity to actually read some of the books I actually already own. It's been 38 days now since I last bought a book. It's been tough. I have been into a bookshop (looking for a calendar) and I've been into several charity shops (same) and I came out of all of them having not bought a book. Quite the victory for a book addict. But before you hand me a medal you should know that I have found a way to bend the rules of this challenge, my own rules. I did create a couple of caveats to this 'not buying books at the moment' challenge. It was that or get arrested for shoplifting a book from Waterstones in a moment of madness. I am in possession of a couple of book tokens at the moment, gifted to me a while back, and I reasoned that it wouldn't be breaking any rules if I acquired books using these vouchers. After all, someone else had parted with the money to buy them, and so...

I watch a lot of Youtube videos, or more accurately, BookTube videos - BT being the corner of YT where people discuss books (naturally); what they own, what they've read, what they intend to read. It's full of reviews, recommendations, warnings (sometimes), encouragement, and interesting, fun people that I enjoy spending time with. It also has a broad timetable of monthly events that viewers can choose to join. I've spoken previously about the short story theme in September, and the Victorian literature in October or, so called, Victober, both of which I chose to take part in this year. The upcoming event for December is Remember December, during which viewers/readers are encouraged to re-read a book they once read and can't recall anything about. I have a long list of those. I'm not sure I'll take part in this event, other than incidentally, firstly because I want to get festive and read some Christmas stories in December, as I also like to get festive by watch...