The Book Tower

Sometimes people come up with ideas so good that you just wish you’d thought of them yourself. The Christmas Blogswap is the brainwave of Jack Pickard, where bloggers can have a little fun and exchange posts.

This is a Christmas guest post by Dan Champion. Dan can usually be found at Blether, and sometime in the new year you’ll also find him at the new book-related Revish.

Continue reading Blogswap: Alternative Christmas Message [2]

• The Guardian report today that Doctor Who has nudged The Beano aside as this year’s top-selling annual in the UK. I’ve noticed more annuals in the shops this year and, although my annual reading days are over, they are a welcome alternative to biographies of celebrities I have barely heard of. I remember as I child rushing into department stores to check if the year’s batch of annuals were on the shelves. My favourites were Whizzer and Chips, Buster and Lion. Later I moved onto Marvel annuals and later still 2000 AD. But I still have my Beano Book 1975 somewhere.
• Staying nostalgic, Julian Barnes writes a fantastic account of family life in the Christmas New Yorker. This doesn’t appear to be available in the online edition so, like me, you may have to buy a copy. But it’s worth it, and there’s some excellent fiction in this issue too. In fact I’ve spent most of today reading it.
• Bought a second hand copy of Goldfinger this afternoon. Ian Fleming’s opening reads:

James Bond, with two double bourbons inside him, sat in the final departure lounge of Miami Airport and thought about life and death.

• What a guy! After downing two double bourbons I’d probably forget where I was and miss my flight.
• Seasonal footnote: to my surprise, I make a mean pot of mulled wine, with our Christmas guests last night waiting in line, drinking and rejoining the queue in an endless loop. I even made a second batch, perhaps with a little less care, but by then our friends formed a merry bunch.

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After overdosing on Golding and Dickens in the last two weeks, I decided to find myself a comfortable read in the run up to Christmas. Tidying up the spare room for our seasonal guests, I discovered a copy of The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon which met my requirements exactly.

Continue reading Comfortable Reading [1]