Month: December 2018

Sunday Bulletin – December 30

Published on by Anbolyn9 Comments

IMG_0273.JPGDid you all have a nice Christmas? Mine was a really good day spent with parents, brothers, sisters and many nieces and nephews. Then on Wednesday I was straight back to work for the rest of the week, but it was not very busy so felt like I was still enjoying the holiday!

I’ve spent the past few days thinking about things I want to do and accomplish and learn and undertake in 2019. And naturally that includes things I want to do in my reading life. I want 2019 to be a much better reading year than 2018 has been. I haven’t really loved very many books I read this year and I’ve spent lots of time feeling guilty for reading books that I want to read that are not library books. The guilt has nearly frozen my enjoyment and many times has stopped me from reading anything at all. So I’ve decided that 2019 is going to be my “Year of Reading Selfishly”. Of course, I’ll still read the books I am required to for work, but otherwise I am going to read whatever I want and I’m not going to feel guilty about it in the least. If I want to read Nancy Mitford or Elizabeth Jane Howard or Elizabeth Taylor or Elizabeth Von Arnim, then I am going to. And I am not going to mentally berate myself for reading them though my library doesn’t own any of their books. I’m hoping to return to the pleasure and pure delight of reading by whim.

Do you have any reading resolutions for 2019?

Books finished this week:

None, but I started The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers and am loving it so far.

Happy New Year to you all! Have a lovely week.

 

 

 

Sunday Bulletin – December 23

Published on by Anbolyn10 Comments

Village

I’ve been struggling to find a way to post here regularly because I want to post, I intend to post, but by the time I get home from work in the evenings I have no motivation to post. I rarely turn my computer on at home and am usually too tired and busy to think about blogging.

Then I remembered that about 4 or so years ago I used to post a Sunday Bulletin where I would talk about my week and give short reviews of any books I’d finished. Great idea! This is something I can do every Sunday that is low pressure and still keeps me blogging and talking about books like I used to here. I do so miss being a part of this community and I want to return. A weekly bulletin is just the way I’ve been looking for to be able to do that.

Some of you may be wondering about my trip to England in October. Well, I didn’t get to go. I had to have my gallbladder out instead. Not a very fun alternative. And then I had complications, was hospitalized for four days and had to have two additional surgeries. I was out of work for a month and spent lots of time at home (sadly, not reading) recuperating. But I am mostly all cured now and am going to reschedule my trip to late April/early May.

Books finished this week:

Village Christmas by Laurie Lee – I bought this book after I saw it was the December choice for Emily’s Walking Book Club. I always like to buy a few Christmas themed books every year and this looked like a great choice – and it was. However, only the first two essays are actually about Christmas. The rest of the essays discuss various themes, but the overriding theme is change – mostly change to the landscape. Lee is an easy companion and his writing is friendly and funny so I didn’t mind reading the entire collection. It was a joy to spend time in his company and I now look forward to reading Cider with Rosie sometime in the new year.

A Tudor Christmas by Alison Weir and Siobhan Clarke – This pretty little book uses the twelve days of Christmas as chapters and starting points to educate the modern reader on how the Tudors celebrated Christmas. The authors detail many traditions that I had heard of but didn’t really know the meaning of (like yule logs, the Lord of Misrule, mummers) using poetry and song lyrics to illustrate the short chapters. I enjoyed learning about the origins of some traditions we still follow today and was grateful that we have done away with others (like making a boar’s head the center of our Christmas dinners). I recommend this if you like microhistories.

 

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!