Reading Quote of the day

Of all the diversions of life, there is none so proper to fill up its empty spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining authors. Joseph Addison Surely this is good advice, and Addison himself provided some excellent material for the reader. The Taler and The Spectator magazines are still worth reading after hundreds of years.

Reading Advice

"Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence. If you gain fifteen minutes a day, it will make itself felt at the end of the year". Horace Mann Absolutely good advice, but I would recommend 15 hours a day, if you can spare it. A day without reading is like a day without love. I get all shaky if I can't find anything to read - I think I must be addicted. Keep well DK

They Write and I Read

Thank God for authors and writers. They write and my job is to read and enjoy. On the way back from a fantastic meal in an English Pub (The Feathers, Hedley on the Hill) I was discussing favourite authors with a friend of mine. Some of our faves were: Dickens, Koontz, Hardy, Keneally, Carey, Gee and Courtney. Books transport you to another time, another place, sometimes to a different sex, race or religion. Reading + Good eating and drinking coupled with travel are the things that give me the most pleasure in life (family and friends notwithstanding). Keep Well DK

A Note from the Bard

My library was Dukedom large enough. Willian Shakespeare I agree with WS on this one. I rule by library as a benign dictator. I am a well contented man within the walls of my library.

Reading Quote Four

A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors.

Charles Baudelaire

Writing Quote One

There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are

W. Somerset Maugham

So there you go, make up your own rules and stop procrastinating...

Half the month has gone

I can't believe that I have not posted for 2 weeks. Must be post Xmas langour or laziness. I'm reading two interesting biographies at the moment, one on Josef Stalin and the other on Mao Tse Tung. Both dictators and murderers exceeding Hitler. The banality of evil comes out in both books as does the overarching theory of Communism and the party line. Makes for sobering reading in a new century. DK