Busy doing nothing

 

A week away

After the dodgy summer that we've had Mr Norfolkbookworm and I decided that we needed a week away doing nothing except eating, drinking, reading, and relaxing - our only restriction was that we wanted to fly from Norwich.

We're just back from our first visit to Menorca and I don't think that it will be our last.

Menorca also had the advantage that it is the setting for some of the books Mr Norfolkbookworm really enjoys - the Master and Commander books by Patrick O'Brian  - and we made a point of visiting Mao/Mahon one day just to see these settings, it was nice to do a literary pilgrimage for him as he is so patient when I do these!  I've read the first book and it was really good to see the locations and to work out just how small the ships of that time really were!

Anyhow apart from the day we spent sightseeing the rest of the time we did fulfil out goals of doing very little (although as the pool and sea were both very inviting we did add swimming to our to do list) and I read 9 books while we were away - catching up on my NetGalley back log.

All were good but nothing really stood out for me - they were perfect holiday reads! The exception is Le Fay - I loved My Name is Morgan last summer and was worried that the 2nd book wouldn't be as good but if anything it was better!

• Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller
• The Voyage Home by Pat Barker
• Sandwich by Catherine Newman
• The Life Impossible by Matt Haig
• The Days I Loved You Most by Amy Neff
• The Boy I Love by William Hussey
• Meet Me When My Heart Stops by Becky Hunter
• Le Fay by Sophie Keetch
• Moon Road by Sarah Leipciger

A bit quiet

I almost read myself to a standstill during February and March and so consequently don't have a lot of books to blog about at the moment.

In addition to this I was reading a lot of more academic books about All Quiet on the Western Front in preparation for the April meeting of the International Fiction group. It was a great meeting and I discovered that some of my reactions to All Quiet when I read it for World Book Night might have been because when I read the book before it was actually a different translation...
I'd purposely saved a few copies of my WBN version of the book to give to group members and they went down really well. The main consensus of the meeting was that you can't call the book 'good' per se but it really is one that everybody should read.

The main reason for not having a lot to write about is that I am reading in preparation for this year's Writer's Centre Norwich Summer Read campaign. The WCN kindly let me have the six books in advance and I am reading them ready to be able to talk/blog about them as soon as the promotion starts on May 3rd. Details for now can be found here but there is so much more to announce. 3 whole months dedicated to good books and authors - I can't wait.

And I'm even reading another poetry book!