Moving Office

Interval House by Jessica Rae Gordon

I'll be in the throws of moving Office/House for the next couple of weeks so you'll have to excuse the slight disruption. Normal service will resume as soon as I can find my way out of the box fort I'll have no doubt made myself. I'm a sucker for a box fort :)

I'm tempted to buy this lovely Jessica Rae Gordon print for the new office wall. You can buy one too here <=

Check the Contact Me page for the new postal address. Wish me luck!

#peoplereadingactualbooks

From @clarapandy

As many of you know I do loves me some books,

an awful lot of books actually. 

From the smell, to the beautiful covers & of course the adventures inside, books set my heart aflutter. 

So you can imagine how I feel about eReaders *shudders* The damn things are everywhere! 

How am I supposed to see what people are reading now? 

So I'm taking a stand, a quiet one mind, and taking snaps of wonderful people I see out & about people reading actual books. And I've started the above hashtag on Twitter.

Here are some of the shots so far. And not just from me because, Twitter being the lovely place it is, people have started joining in.

Feel free to join in too and if you spot anyone you know in the pics (and can prove it) I'll send them a book token to encourage their papery love.

Thanks to @fabhat, @Tim_A_Roberts, @tomwatkinsphoto and @clarapandy for sending me your pictures. And special thanks to @cameraportraits for sending me a link to a great NYC book reading project. Glad to see I'm not alone :)

My finds so far

From @Tim_A_Roberts, @FabHat & @TomWatkinsPhoto

The Photographer's Gallery is back with us!

But you all knew that and no doubt rushed down at the weekend to sniff it's newly painted walls. Mmmm . . . lovely :)

And just to spoil us that little bit more they've just launched a new look website. A huge improvement and real feast for the eyes. Check it out here <==

Books, books & more books

Bit of a lazy post for me this one. But one full of bookish love.

BOOKS!
Recently I was asked to contribute to the wonderful Booklish Blog. A Tumblr dedicated to "Beautiful books and beautiful writing. Booklish is a blog devoted to bookish things. You'll find stuff here about authors, readers, book design and illustration and other book ephemera."
At the time I was falling deeply in love with these Vintage Lawrence covers by Carla van de Puttelaar.

You can read my Booklish post here. And make sure you add them to your RSS feed, the site is a constant stream of loveliness.

BOOKS!!
I was also asked by Twitter chum @sarahrajabalee to contribute to her equally delight blog. This post was about the three books that shaped my reading life.
The first of which was childhood favourite Fantastic Mr Fox. " I loved the adventure, the rebellious quality and all that talk of geese and stolen cider after hours just made me long for a midnight feast. Fantastic Mr Fox was my gateway into reading for escapism. Armed with my torch, I would sit up for hours forgetting the worries of the day. To be honest this probably explains my great love of cider, although oddly has no bearing as to why I ended up as @OandtheFoxes on Twitter."

MORE BOOKS!!!
Last month I also found myself thrusting free books into the hands of commuters in Victoria Station. I was one of the World Book Night volunteers, a merry band of book addicts determined to share the joy of paper bound adventures to the masses.
I choose to give out Maggie O'Farrell's The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox. Every copy of which I numbered and registered at Book Crossing, a great site that allows you to log in and share your experience of the book, before passing it along for another reader to do the same, Fab!

All 25 copies before they went to new homes.

Inspiration - Spoon River Anthology

Chatting in a coffee shop recently with a good friend prompted me to dig out this book.

Edgar Lee Masters' 'Spoon River Anthology' was given to me at Sixth Form and it's a book I visit time and again. It's a beautiful collection of free-verse monologues (I got that gem from the jacket) that heart-breakingly charts the loves and loses of a small town in America.

Each character is introduced to us by way of their beyond the grave confessions and sorrows. You end up feeling as though you've been brought into each of their trusts, and as you read on through the book links between the characters are revealed.

You can read extracts here but personally I think this is a must for your bookcase.

Just about to start reading . . .

Fred & Edie by Jill Dawson. And I am not at all ashamed to say I was initially attracted to this book by its cover. Beautifully drawn by Alice Tait.