I challenged you to ask me questions and you did … see the previous post for a variety of bookish and Oxfordian answers. Today it’s time to answer the science questions that you asked me – and I shall go in reverse order. Simon T (Stuck in a Book) asked: What is your favourite chemical Read More
Category: Doing & Done
A's HoB Q&A – The Answers – Part one!
Thank you for asking some great questions – some of which required a lot of thought to answer! I’m splitting my answers into two posts – the specific science questions will get their own treatment in a day or two, but here are my answers to all the rest – and do feel free to Read More
A's HoBks Q&A
I blame Simon for this! 😀 Just over a week ago, my pal and co-editor of Shiny New Books decided to ask his readers if there were any questions that they wanted to ask him in a post here. A few days later, he published his answers here. It was fascinating reading, and Simon’s answers Read More
Britten centenary – my memories of Noyes Fludde …
This weekend marks the centenary of the birth of composer Benjamin Britten. Radio 3 is celebrating with ‘Britten 100’, a weekend of programmes. I thought I’d celebrate too with some personal memories from my younger years of listening to and performing some of his works… In 1966, the Canadian conductor Arthur Davison, who had made his Read More
Return to the Dark Tower saga
Last year I took part in Teresa & Jenny’s Dark Tower readalong at Shelf Love, but I dropped out after book four in the series. I didn’t have the time to get through the increasing page-count then, but was definitely hooked by the genre-busting dystopian western cum SF & fantasy series. I always intended to Read More
Gaskella Archive – 2011 in Miscellany posts
As I did for 2010 (see here), I’ve put together many of the snippets I posted on my old blog, but were lost in the transfer here, into one collection for 2011. Enjoy… May-2011 – An appropriate address … I’m still sifting through the home library and TBR searching for books I can bear to part Read More
A Miscellany of Gaskella’s 2010 Midweek Miscellany posts
In 2010, I used to do a regular(ish) Midweek Miscellany post – full of bits and pieces. As I’ve been adding back all the reviews lost in the transfer process from old blog to new, what to do with posts like these has become a bit of a quandary, as some of these snippets are Read More
Boring Postcards redux
One of my favourite artbooks is Boring Postcards by Martin Parr. It elevates the worst examples of the humble picture postcard to art. You can see my 2009 post about the book here where I gave it five stars it was that good. Another of the things I brought back from my Mum’s was her postcard collection. Two Read More
More from my Mum’s house … Cutlery!
Just back from a visit to my Mum’s house to do some serious sorting out. It took my sister-in-law and I all afternoon just to go through the cupboards in her tiny kitchen! We found some absolute wonders which I’ll share with you over the coming weeks when I haven’t prepared a bookish post. Today, firstly, Read More
Round-up – Fireworks & Blog Stats
It was the fireworks evening at my daughter’s school last night. Yes, I know it’s not the usual timing, but by having our display a week later we are able to get one of the best firework companies in the country to do our little event. Kimbolton Fireworks are the biz – they’re doing the Read More
Mostly Bookbrains – My first literary quiznight!
It was the Mostly Bookbrains litquiznight last night. As questionmaster, if I say so myself, it went really well. We had a packed house and everyone seemed to have fun. Mark from Mostly Books was a brilliant help as scorer, Ali from the shop made a wonderful trophy – see it here. As any proceeds Read More
Feeding my inner geek
I’m still on my space kick, and this is one book I’d really like to have – Apollo 11 – Owner’s Workshop Manual. I’ve not actually seen it, but being a Haynes Manual, I would expect some detailed technical drawings, articles about the evolution of the design of the Lunar Module, and the Saturn V Read More
My Radio Oxford Experience!
I’ve just come off the phone to BBC Oxford having done my radio review for them as part of their monthly Book Club feature. Phew! For my part, I felt it went really well – although in reality I probably talked far too much! Sitting waiting for the phone to ring was nervewracking, especially as Read More
My first book reviewing gig!!!
I kid you not – I’m so excited! – I’ve managed to get a ‘book reviewing gig’ on Radio Oxford tomorrow afternoon. Actually I’m exaggerating, but after someone said they’d read in Oxfordshire Life magazine that Radio Oxford wanted people to review books. I sent an email and they said OK and gave me a Read More
