dovegreyreading...

I have been disciplining myself to stop messing about and get out for a walk in all this glorious spring sunshine we've been having this week.
Grab a dog and go for a bimble along the lane, light on the back of the eyes...good.

It's been deceptively cold which was a good thing as I accidentally dropped the door key in the granite trough outside the front door as I was faffling around with my camera (better that way round)  and there it sat nicely on the ice ....

Did anyone else have a Troll all those years ago when they were the craze, and very expensive?
Then I've been out, not once, not twice but three evenings on the trot, including a planning meeting for this year's Village Show as I have been invited to join the organising committee, (think Vicar of Dibley and you won't be far wrong) so reading time has been at a premium. When that happens I want to be sure to be reading good books or I get crochety at fifty wasted pages of life and a book I am not enjoying and eventually have to give up on.
No time wasted this week though.
I finished Beautiful For Ever by Helen Rappaport, my thoughts on that on Monday and I'm delighted that Helen has agreed to hover around in comments during the day if anyone wants to chat with her, I certainly have my list of questions.
I hear the book bags are going from Long Barn like...well like hot bags, at the £6.99 buy one get one free offer, plus a whisper of 'dovegreyreader' also helps, and Helen's book currently also available there at the pre-publication special offer price of £10 inc. p&p.
One of the many joys of writing a blog is the unexpected arrival of a book you've been desperate to get your hands on, so when a signed proof copy of David Mitchell's new novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet arrived I just had to have a little look which turned into a big look.

1799 and Japan is visited by the representatives of the Dutch East India Company and I have been spellbound by it all, the setting, the dialogue, the repartee, it really is an 'extraordinary novel' and I think one of those I won't want to end.
I was in the 'I love Cloud Atlas' camp and the 'I'm not sure about Black Swan Green' camp so it's never a certainty that I'm going to love every thing David Mitchell writes, but so far so Booker, I feel sure this will be another for my longlist cometh July.
Talking of longlists, the Orange Prize for Fiction longlist will be revealed next Wednesday... so what's going to be there?
Any suggestions?
Back to my reading week and spoiled for choice I settled on So Long See You Tomorrow from the lovely box of William Maxwell books that arrived from Ellen in NY, and not realising that it's a sequel to They Came Like Swallows that's been an unexpected reading joy.

Talking of swallows and evicted wrens as I was on that post, I have exciting news to report...

...droppings on the wren nesting box, I'll bet that's made your day:-)
We think they may have taken up residence which is great news, it's heartbreaking to watch the swallows arrive, bully the wrens out of their winter squat and then find the tiny wren's eggs smashed outside the front door.
I also picked up The Concert Ticket by Olga Grushin 'just to see' , and seventy pages later I realised I was very late for everything else I was supposed to be doing.
A famous exiled composer is returning to Cold War Russia for one night only to conduct his final symphony and it becomes an obsession at the heart of Anna's family to get hold of a ticket. It's beautiful writing, every moment of leaden bleakness balanced with a joyful leap of the imagination interwoven with splashes of light and colour. I'm really loving this one.
So that's my booky-walky week, how about yours