Edinburgh Book Festival 2010: A Work In Progress

The jazz festival is in full swing and so I had the first of many summer days out in Edinburgh today. While music is king for the next 10 days, I took time to check out Charlotte Square. As you can see,  the building of the book festival village is coming along rather nicely ….. [...]

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Look who’s come to stay!

(Picture taken and posted from my mobile phone …..)

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Testing

Testing a new interface.

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Even The Dogs – Jon McGregor

My first outing with John McGregor was not a success.  Despite the almost universal praise for If Noone Speaks of Remarkable Things, I stopped listening to the audio book somewhere in the middle of CD2.  It was slow and sleep-inducing - never good, but potentially lethal when you’re driving.  Besides that I really didn’t like the [...]

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Fantasy Booker 2010

The challenge of predicting the Booker longlist is that there’s no knowing if your choices have even been entered in the first place.  But I can’t resist taking a pop at this, if only to heighten my anticipation for tomorrow’s announcement. Assembled with an expertise derived mainly from my TBRs – both real (10 titles)  and virtual (3). [...]

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A Wonderful Surprise

Hot from my inbox: Dear Lizzy, Congratulations! Emma Lee here, and your blog, Lizzy’s Literary Life, has received our 2010 Top 50 Book Blogs award! Winners were chosen through a scoring system led by internet nominations, which came from your reader base! Congratulations, Emma Lee www.awardingtheweb.com I was completely unaware of this initiative but here [...]

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Tearjerker – Daniel Hayes

I’m a reader, not a writer, although I do believe there is a book in me somewhere.  I’m not convinced anyone would want to read it but I am convinced someone has already written it!  Perhaps that’s why I’m an avid reader – I’m trying to find it and spare myself the job? The protagonist of [...]

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Edinburgh Book Festival 2010: 3.5 weeks and counting

A quick update on progress through the EIBF 2010 TBR. In 1.5 weeks, I’ve read 1.25 books. Clearly I need to get a move on – but real life is hectic too! Charlotte Square Gardens look  remarkably graceful and peaceful. No sign of the book festival village in sight. My Spy in Edinburgh has agreed to keep [...]

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Literary Pics: Is this an Ent?

Maybe I spent too much time wandering through the Dalzell Country Estate in Motherwell during the recent take a picture a day challenge. But when I came across this tree, I was sure that I’d met, if not Tolkien’s Treebeard himself, then a near relative. I could swear that this tree is striding through the [...]

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Book Group: Suite Francaise – Irene Nemirovsky

Why have I taken so long to discover Suite Francaise? Three reasons. 1) It’s unfinished. 2) I simply didn’t believe the hype it received on publication. 3)  I have friends whose relatives died because of religious and racial persecution in Nazi Germany and there is only so much holocaust related literature I can take as a result. [...]

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