I'm reading something new for me- a John Grisham book. Decided a diet of literary fiction alone is a bit unhealthy, like too much fibre or something...Anyone else? And did you dress up as a character, or did your children and if so, who? |Mine went as Alice, complete with white rabbit with home made specs and waistcoat, Dinah the cat, Eat Me and Drink me customised accessories.

Is the John Grisham any good? I like an intelligent thriller even if the prose is only so-so, but I've never tried him.

Well I have just read  though KM Peyton's Flambards series for the gazillionth time -I don't have kids but if I am flying into a fence on a horse chasing the sunset down then I am Christina!

China Melville's Un Lun Dun. A bit disappointing. World building is very good, but it's repetitive and there are moments when you're wondering when the author is going to catch up with what the reader has already guessed. Plotting is a let down too.
Neil Gaimen's Neverwhere is far superior. 

I didn't know the Flambards books as a child, but I did read them all recently, MC. Did you read Ruby Ferguson's Jill books? I loved those ... um, still do, actually.

Unfortunately, on World Book Day I have to confess that I am reading absolutely nothing. A couple of days ago I started Gone Girl, as I've heard so much about it. After a couple of chapters I concluded that it was utter junk and threw it in the charity shop bag.

I am just about to start reading We Had it So Good by Linda Grant, only not tonight, because I haven't put in enough writing hours today.

I did read the some Jill stories Catkin- Jane Badger who specialises in horse and pony book sales has been doing some fan fiction on those lines on her site she is very good  but I think the Phantom Horse series, Flambards and dear old Stig' were mostly knocking about the school bag! I loved the 4th Flambards book- astonishingly astute social history writing..
I down loaded Cuckoo Calling and I meant to get into that tonight but Flambards got me instead- probably as I need to find courage to ride tomorrow and neither write nor read! Good luck with your words tonight my eyes are on stalks I need Zzzds! MC
Edited by Alex29 at 22:54:00 on 06 March 2014

my son went as Aragorn from 'Lord of the Rings'.
I've just finished reading 'A Land More Kind Than Home' by Wiley Cash, and also SusieL's book 'The Bone Collector's Boy' (get back to you with comments next week, Susie!). 
Going to read 'Longbourn' by Jo Baker next, since I'm going to hear her talk about it tonight!!

Jane Badger who specialises in horse and pony book sales

Coincidence! I discovered her site for the first time about a fortnight ago. It's very good, isn't it? God knows why I was looking up pony-books-I-have-loved; must have been a particularly time-wasting day.

I have had to stop following her on FB as the reminders of things I had read and loved kept putting me off my own attempts and filled me with doubts so now I have to search for her to check out what is going on! She did highlight a few other KM Peytons I hadn't read - which is a curse in a way as rather like the 'Worlds End' books Amazon is tooooooo easy to go book/kindle shopping on - I have realised of course that my stories won't be like that because I fancy we have lost those innocent country days forever and my writing reflects it quite harshly  - but then KM Peyton never shys away from reality and if I could write prose like that I would be a happy chappy! Having been read Primrose Cummings Silver Snaffles so often I can repeat it verbatim- and frequently do at any one I have to teach to ride because it just covers the basics better than I can - I can't really hide the fact that these books influenced my life and I still sit in the evenings in the manger and watch the ponies here go through the dark corner when I can! But then I am no diff' than any of us here- I can't imagine many of us not needing to devour books as we breathe air what ever genre speaks to our souls!
Edited by Alex29 at 12:38:00 on 07 March 2014
Edited by Alex29 at 12:42:00 on 07 March 2014

Oh, I loved the Jill books! (Anyone my sort of age might remember the W H Smith win-a-pony competition...)

Actually, I spent World Book Day reading the pieces for my writer's circle meeting this moring, which was pure joy - being reminded that all the books in World Book Day were books-in-the-making once...

Yep and I filled in the bit of paper every year.... Someone had to win! (Was it you?) I am so glad it wasn't me now though as I would never have been given my wonderful mare Jabina on loan when our local stables shut when I was about 13. She was the first thing that I packed in the trailer to come here and she died here at the farm the year we were both 30 bless her- cantankerous old Tart! What she would have made of the 17 or so codgers and dodgers that have made their marks on me since I have no idea - speaking of which I can't hide in here I am supposed to be bathing them and what not.  - I know who is going to get wetter- I shall be looking like Penelope washing Kipper any min!
Catkin is right Jane's website is a terrible distraction- I feel so sorry for kids today trying to learn to ride strapped into their back protectors and never allowed out of sight- all those matching out fits- if some one had given me purple johds then I would have cried and hidden! Now I want to be seen from outer space in nuclear day glo incase some one drives into me! MC

I feel so sorry for kids today trying to learn to ride strapped into their back protectors and never allowed out of sight-

Yes, me too. I'm not much of a rider but at least I learnt to ride as part of the general hack on roads and across fields and the occasional lurch down to splash through a stream, with any old hat jammed on my head and a chewed-up bit of elastic sloshing around under my chin. Learnt to canter (sort-of) by being tanked off with when the horses all sighted home...

I was astonished when I took it up again in a mild way in my 40s, and the first thing they'd ask was "Have you ever ridden outside a school?" to which my answer had to be, "I've never ridden inside a school".

And no, I never won the pony. Just as well, really: he wouldn't have enjoyed 30ft of sooty, north-facing Earls Court garden...

Jane had some pictures up the other day of some horses kept in high rise stables- 1950's ish London I should think- very well kept with washing out on the higher balconies presumably ramps and lifts to get up and down? I well remember that elastic to keep the hat on too- with knots! I still have a small handful of rosettes I won at the stable gymkanas for things like egg and spoon and sack race- my proudest was a yellow one 3rd in the Chase me Charlie- where the one jump goes up a notch each time- when on a very small roan welsh pony called Squirrel she cleared 3ft 6 - apparently I was chuffed because I only fell off when we landed! Oh God I am off again down memory lane pulling plug now hoovering calls!

The high-rise stables sound interesting. Oh dear - I will have to go back to the site and have a look.

I used to be absolutely tortured by that Win a Pony competition, every year (for those who don't remember, it was a writing contest). I always wanted to enter it but I thought that there was absolutely no point, because in order to win anything as incredible as a pony, the story would have to be world-class, and it was therefore totally beyond me.

Stephen King's "Doctor Sleep"
I like it, one of his better recent efforts.