What are you reading? What excites you and what keeps you sane? Join in

TBH, I really enjoy the ritual of shaving.. after not being able to during treatment, it just feels so good to feel like a human again.. I'm still pretty bald below the jawline on the treatment side, but that just makes the shave easier on that side..  

Beau Chapeau said:

I really enjoy the ritual of shaving

Simple pleasures. 
Then you need this 

or maybe even this 

Going on holiday, I  thought it was a thing of the past, just back from Greece, swimming, beachcombing with my wife, reading Jack Reacher novels and just chilling.

I’m currently reading Ghosts of Spain ,it centres in the period 1931-1939 encompassing the Spanish civil war and how villages and families were divided and in many cases still are. Nighttime kindle reading Death in Cornwall by Daniel Silva read all 23 books in series and next one  out in July so always refresh the last one so the story’s fresh in my mind. 

What i enjoy is gardening when in UK today’s small pleasures was hoeing the onions p, its the simple thing allotment life and tomatoes,nothing better than taking the side shoots off   I grow almost everything from seed  

In Spain that’s easy riding my bike  

Hazel x

I've almost finished Billy Liar, Keith Waterhouse, for the trillionth time!  I find it hilarious and I've cried with laughter many times.

A Kestrel for a Knave, Barry Hines.  A firm favourite and I've read it over and again.  

Horror faves include James Herbert, Dean R Koontz, Clive Barker, etc.

Non fiction - serial killers. (Got loads of these.)                    Anyone here read Helter Skelter, by Vincent Bugliosi, about Charles Manson?  A crazed lunatic but the book is a scintillating read. 

Books on WW2, especially The Royal Artillery.

One I used to take out regularly from our local library is The Serpent by David Wiltze, an American writer so probably not well read over here.                Years ago, the library held a book sale and I was lucky enough to buy it for 10p.  It's pretty gruesome in parts but has a cracking storyline, the main madman being in possession of multiple personalities as he goes on his increasingly disturbing persuit of victims.

The above makes me sound like a crackpot!  I'm not, honestly...

Gill xx 

First Blood...by David Morrell was brilliant...John Rambo was killed at the end....film makers resurrected him!

What a fantastic idea to start this thread. 

I would say that my insanity is what keeps me sane....

My partner took me to Malta in February on a surprise Valentine's trip. I fell in love with this country, so beautiful, so fascinating  and so full of history. When I came back I found an amazing book: Malta : A Childhood Under Siege. A true story. The author used the diary her mum kept whilst living in Malta during WWII . It takes you back in time. A genuine and beautiful story of resilience . My partner's dad was in the army during that gruelling siege and my mum almost went to Malta just before the war as her stepdad's parents were Maltese and thought that my mum and her sisters would be safer in Malta than in France, at the last minute my grandmother refused to let her daughters go. Reading this book was a very emotional journey. Purely amazing. 

Fab1

Micky, your post reminded me of books I've read versus films I've watched.

The Shining - Film = 8/10. Book =  10.  Different ending.

The Exorcist - Film = 4/10.  Book = 10.

To Kill A Mockingbird - Film = 7.  Book = 10.

Dulcima (adapted from a short story by H E Bates - Film = 10.  Book = 5/10.

I like a good whodunnit. Nothing gruesome though. I like reading Kate Ellis and even going over the old Agatha Christie's and trying to work out who did it. I also like watching a whodunnit on a streaming channel. Am looking forward to 'The Chelsea Detective' Season 3 coming out in July. 

My garden and pottering in it is one of my favourite things to do when the weather is good. I have attached a picture of an area in our back garden that I re-designed using built up garden beds last year. I love sitting out there in the nice weather. It all keeps me sane and takes my mind off any troubles. 

Lyn 

Your garden is beautiful, Lyn x

This thread inspired me to root through the bookcase and I found what I was looking for, a book I'd won as a prize at school.  I would have been around 9 (olden days) and it's called A Shropshire Lad by A E Houseman.  This one has always been my favourite, but for melancholic reasons.

Into my heart an air that kills 

From yon far country blows:

What are those blue remembered hills,

What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,

I see it shining plain,

The happy highways where I went 

And cannot come again.

We went to my Austrian auntie and uncle's farm that summer (1968) for the very last time, due to a massive family fall out.  Snow capped mountains in the distance, playing with my cousins on the farm and all the animals - it was idyllic but I never returned.

The poem kind of summed it all up and every time I read it afterwards, my lip would start wobbling but eventually I put it away and forgot all about it.  

Many years later, I watched Walkabout starring Jenny Argutter and at the end, the poem was quoted - my lip wobbled again, with accompanying tears.  Oh, crikey...

Gill xx