Saturday 23 March 2013

Stuck-in-a-Book's Weekend Miscellany

Hopefully I'm going to see some crocodiles this weekend... I'll keep you posted, either on here or, more likely, on Twitter - where I'm @stuck_inabook, donchaknow.  I'm afraid I'm just as likely to talk about Neighbours or cats as I am books, but...

1.) The books - you know me, I love reprints - so it's always exciting to unwrap an unsolicited publisher package and discover that it's got reprints.  Even better, they're by an author I like, and they're books I don't own - soon I'll be trying The Boat and A Perfect Woman by L.P. Hartley (best known for the very good The Go-Between), courtesy of John Murray.  Click on the images for more info.




2.) The links - time for an update about OxfordWords blog posts, sneakily put in the 'links' section!  I've been calling in favours from the blogosphere, and a couple of posts appeared over the past weeks from names you'll recognise... here are some of my favourite recent articles:

Harriet wrote about Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Rachel wrote about Vita Sackville-West
Andrew Motion wrote about poetry and memory
My lovely boss Malie wrote about My Fair Lady
I wrote about pronunciations of 'scone'.
Our 'baby names generator' proved very popular!

3.) The blog post - do check out Karyn's posts about her travels - especially if piles of Penguins get you all tingly.

8 comments:

  1. The Boat and A Perfect Woman sounds interesting! I may have to track it down.

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    1. I'm pretty intrigued about them! I will report back in due course...

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  2. I’ve read your 'scone' post few days ago and I really liked it. It’s interesting and very useful for non-native English speakers. I came across people (not many, thank God) who would interrupt me with: 'Well, you need to speak properly if you want to stay over here' or my favourite: 'Get rid of this horrible accent'. But on the other hand I spent so much time (and money) finding the right teacher and haven’t been very lucky so far. Well, at least I’m understood most of the times and (although I still avoid the word 'vehicle') I finally mastered the difference between 'bins' and 'beans' :)

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    1. How rude of those people! I am so far from being able to speak any language other than my own, I would never dream of criticising someone's accent.

      It's intriguing that you bring up 'vehicle' because, although I can pronounce it, it was years before I could spell it...

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  3. Love the cover of 'A Perfect Woman'. A rather supercilious smirk, no?

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    1. Isn't it fabulous? I love her expression - I hope the book matches up...

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  4. Thanks for the mention Simon. It was a lovely holiday and I found loads of vintage Penguins, though I regret I was unable to revisit Oxford. Now that I have returned home, and escaped the unbearably cold weather, I'll have to get organised and write more than one post about the bookshops I visited.

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    1. Sorry not to see you this time, Karyn, but I look forward to more posts about your trip.

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