Bits and Pieces

A few bits and pieces today, all or a more or less bookish nature... something for all the family, I daresay. First off, I may have misled you in saying I'd handed my thesis in - it's only actually my 'transferal of status' essay, so they can decide whether or not to keep me on...

Read on for: Meet-up, Quiz Results, and the chance to be in a Postal Book Group.

---The UK Book Bloggers' Meet-Up (I keep changing my mind about the apostrophe... does it need to be there or not?) is taking place on Saturday 8th May in the evening. I *had* thought we were at capacity, but we've had a few cancellations, so if you want to be proud owner of a badge (oh, and meet other UK bloggers!) then email me at simondavidthomas@yahoo.co.uk for details and we'll see if we can fit you in...


---Peter/Dark Puss gave us a cat-themed quiz the other day - congratulations Mary, who has been contacted to arrange her prize - for those scratching your head, here are the answers (and click here for the questions):

1. Harry Cat from The Cricket in Times Square by George Seldon
2. Peter in Jennie by Paul Gallico
3. Saha in The Cat by Colette
4. Behemoth in Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
5. Yan in Yan and the Christmas Tree by Jun Machida

If you got more than none, then you did better than me!


---And finally, I have mentioned in the past that I'm part of a postal book group. There's a circle of readers from across the world; we post on a book every two months to the next person in the circle, and thus each book makes its way around the group. You get your own book after a year (or however long) with a notebook full of comments - and have read lots of interesting books, of course.

Well, Shannon wants to set her own up, and she's hoping you'll join her! Since Stuck-in-a-Book readers have, by and large, quite similar reading tastes, it seemed a good place to try and find readers to join in a worldwide postal book group.

Although I'm sure Shannon is happy to be a bit flexible, here is what she writes about her own reading tastes. If yours are fairly similar, and you fancy giving a postal reading group a try (and it's great fun!) then get in touch with her on dogindogout@gmail.com [not @hotmail.com as I typed earlier, sorry!] :

"I'm interested mainly in pre-1960 books or books that could have been written then. I like books about everyday life, relationships, humour, the way in which we do or don't make connections. I'm also okay with books that are haunting, such as Victorian ghost stories. I'm not interested in books about terrible childhoods or abuse...

Some favorite authors include W. Somerset Maugham, Carol Shields, Penelope Lively, Barbara Pym, Saki, P. G. Wodehouse, A. A. Milne, Joanna Trollope (bit of a guilty pleasure, that), Carson McCullers, Willa Cather, Dorothy Parker, Edith Wharton, Harriett Doerr, Muriel Spark, Jane Austen, Henry James, Anthony Trollope."