Three Interesting Books

 A Christmas present book that I read while waiting for the library van day last week.  I've read a couple of his other books and 'Deep Country' about his 5 years in a remote Welsh cottage is a favourite. I've reserved it to re-read.

Neil has been gradually losing his hearing for many years and this  book is about his attempt to listen to all the birds in this country that he's never heard, before his hearing goes completely. It's fascinating how he has to plan to be in the right place at the right time and his travels to many remote places.

This is a podcast where Neil talks about the book.  

It was sad to hear that he had Lyme Disease which triggered Rheumatoid Arthritus and was unwell when this recording was made.

Completely different was this little book by Rumer Godden published in 1969. 

It's difficult to explain the story but  the definition of Fugue is about music 'in different voices' and  the book is written in many different voices through the time that the family lived in a London house. 

 Grizel Dane, a servicewoman in the US army arrives during the war to stay with her elderly Great Uncle, Sir Rollo Dane, but that doesn't happen until the last part of the book. Through Rollo's memories and voices of the others who lived there we hear the history of the Dane family and Lark Ingoldsby. Lark was adopted after being orphaned in a train crash and finds herself in the middle of sibling rivalry, loved by Rollo and his older brother Pelham but hated by sister Selina.

It only a small book and was read in an evening, once I'd got used to the way it is written in different voices and times, often overlapping and going backwards and forwards.

Maybe the earliest written book I've read for a while is this - originally published in 1898. Another very small book quickly read.

A fictionalised  account of her garden and family and how making the garden is her sanctuary from the Man of Wrath (husband), children, servants and unwanted house guests. She is a witty writer and the book doesn't seem dated at all.

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