BOOKS,BOOKS,BOOKS

My favourite time of year, not just for the cooler nights but finding the new crime writer titles and settling down to read by the fire. Or curled up in bed and staying up late as I can't put down the latest mystery/thriller of choice.

Summer went all too fast and my reading was limited as I prepared for a trip to the Netherlands and the UK to visit family.

While at my sister's place outside Amsterdam I met an author who is her neighbour. Claudia van der Sluis
 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13404135-het-grote-boek-van-de-maan

My sister has a translating business. Dutch into English, so, Caroline, get busy as I'd like to read Claudia's book.

In London, I checked out a few bookstores looking for Canadian authors. Quite well represented. Snapped pictures of a bronze Agatha Christie and strolled by a Sherlock Holmes restaurant. Not enough time to do everything so off to Edinburgh where the International Book Festival was held in Charlotte Square.  

Be still my heart! The book tent was huge. 800 authors were represented at this festival and readers and writers were there from all over the world. After wandering about the tents with Joan Blanch and generally having a good time doing what bibliophiles do, we went for lunch and talked books over a very nice Merlot. In the evening, my nephew and his son escorted me to a reading by two crime writers. I was in my element.


Love this painting of The Writers Museum.

This place is situated in Lady Stairs Close just off the Royal Mile. It has such a sense of history as much of Edinburgh does. Tiny doors and steep and narrow steps. They were much shorter in those days.

The Writers Museum

Lady Stairs Close

The Writers Museum celebrates the lives of three of Scotland's finest writers.


Too many writings to quote but you may be familiar with;




                            Robert Burns 1759-1796

'Auld Lang Syne'  'A Man's a Man for a' That' 'Tae a Mouse'  'Ae fond kiss'  

                        

                              Sir Walter Scott 1771-1832

'Ivanhoe' ' Rob Roy' 'Lady of the Lake' 'The Waverley Novels'

        Robert Louis Stevenson 1850-1894

'Treasure Island'  'A Child's Garden of Verses'   'Kidnapped'  'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' 





Many of these works are still in print. 

I enjoyed my visit and if you haven't read any of these authors you will find them still very readable after 200 years and more.

My next writerly visit was the evening before I left to come home. After dinner with my brother and sister- in- law at the Spylaw Tavern, we took a walk on a path that Robert Louis Stevenson  meandered  when he visited his grandfather at the manse in Colinton. 

It was a long way down.

One of my favourite finds.



Vacation is over and it's back to work. Jamie Tremain is back in session. We've been brainstorming, plotting and planning and have made some headway with the sequel to " The Silk Shroud." Check back for some new reviews.
Talk soon,
Slainte,
Pam

"Sweet Afton"

I’m sorry, but I can’t avoid talking about the weather. That is what we are all about in Canada. Extremes. The summers are hot and humid and in winter we freeze. Today, being January it is freezing.But everything is relative as there are many places in Canada that would be laughing at my description of cold weather.

I am sitting in my small office that is in a cut-off section in our bedroom. My desk is placed so that I can look out the bay window into woods and a pond. It is cold...(-17 with the wind chill of -20) When the pond freezes it is nice to watch the kids skate and play hockey. But like the birds and squirrels they have sense to stay home today and cosy up somewhere warm. However, the sun is shining and the sky blue, but it still does not tempt me to don snowshoes or skis.

Liz and I had a most enjoyable day yesterday revising three more chapters of Body Perfect. Cutting and adding but mostly cutting. We both feel that this is the real writing. Following the voices of the book’s characters they take on a life of their own once we read them out loud. We also made lots of notes for a new novel that we will start when BP is finished. After numerous pots of tea and a stop for lunch we finished the third chapter before Liz left for a snowy journey home to Guelph.

As you know I am on a nostalgia trip at the moment and when I was looking up some info on Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796) Scotland’s national poet, known throughout the world as the person who wrote “Auld Lang Syne” and A Red, Red Rose.

O my Luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June:
O my Luve's like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

This is just a few among many poems and songs that he wrote. My favourite was “Sweet Afton” When I was eight or nine I won an award for singing Sweet Afton from the Robert Burns Society and I still like to sing the words to this day.

Flow gently, sweet Afton! amang thy green braes,
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise;
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream,
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.
This was written in 1791.

So on Tuesday, Jan the 25th around the world, there will be Burns suppers as they are called, where they eat Haggis and (neeps) turnip and mashed potatoes and of course have a dram or two of good Scots whiskey to toast the bard. Oh, and of course the bagpipes. What Scottish event can you have without the bagpipes?

So,from a dead poet to a lunch of Thai food. How the world has changed. Son #2 has arrived to take his Mum for a birthday lunch. Yeah! Who needs to dust anyway!!
Talk soon
Slainte,
Pam