Three or four poems by Wordsworth, from a copy of The Major Works, purchased at the Wordsworth Museum shop in Grasmere, and mostly only so I could point at assorted crags and talk rot.
The Preface to The Works of P.B. Shelley (now completely out of print), in part at least while waiting for a free lavatory at Canons Ashby House, from whose second-hand book-shop I had just purchased it.
Several very amusing and far-too-short essays from The Single Helix by Steve Jones.
A great many questions and answers from Does Anything Eat Wasps? (Answer, yes, lots of things. It’s not easy, being a wasp). Actually, these were not so much read as read to me, by husband (who is getting very G. H. Lewes, what with the reading aloud, the obsession with natural history, and the beard [It is imperative that one of us should mention that he’s a lot better looking than G.H. - Ed]. Alas, all I can do of George Eliot is the headaches and the whining [How true]).
Quite a few ice-cream menus.
No, I’m not impressed either.
I recently re-read John Marston’s What You Will and actually paid attention this time. Great disillusioned stuff about the nature of satire.
Other than that, I’m now onto Tamburlaine II, and have got through a little anthology of Elizabethan verse as far as Chapman (not very far then).
Also, because the film impends, I am reading that BEAUTIFUL giant illustrated copy of Stardust you got me some years ago. Maybe many years ago, now.
First! OK, I’ll stop that now.
Left by Ed on September 13th, 2007
Once I lent somebody a book by George Eliot and when he returned it to me he said: “Wow! That was great! Who is this George Eliot guy and has he written anything new lately?” All I can do with George Eliot is still chuckle about that years later.
It just took me about three weeks to read 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, in fact, you have given me an idea, I’m going to go to bed right now and read. Propping myself in front of the computer and pretending to write (no, I’m not surfing the internet, honest!) is not working tonight.
Left by Helen on September 14th, 2007
Well, but ice cream menus! I could get into that sort of reading material. Sounds very worthwhile to me, even all-consuming?
Left by healingmagichands on September 15th, 2007