Too many books, too little time

Dear Diary,

You can never have too much garlic, too much chocolate or too much sleep but can you have too many books? (No!).

I wrote very recently about the wonderful book that is Home by Marilynne Robinson and since then several kind people have recommended her other book Gilead which kind of goes with it as the subject matter is written alongside Home. I wouldn’t say you had to read Home first, it wouldn’t matter which you began with. I have almost finished Gilead and it is also a great a book in fact Robinson won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction with it.

I have also got her first novel Housekeeping which was very highly recommended by the book group member who suggested Home. This is a short novel written a good many years ago and l can’t wait to read it. But which book shall I read first?

It’s like buses, they all come at once. I have suddenly been inundated with new books to read - all requests from the excellent library service of course. What have I got?

John Banville’s The Infinities
William Trevor’s Love and Summer
Martin Sixsmith’s The Lost Child of Philomena Lee (the subject of which is too close to my heart).
Penelope Lively’s Family Album

In non-fiction I know I shall drool over Monty Don’s The Ivington Diaries. (M has an ancestor from Ivington which is a coincidence).
I also have Virginia Ironside’s The Virginia Monologues about the joys of ageing - I think I could write my own though!

And another joy to look forward to - I have treated myself and ordered a new book from Ireland - it has contributions from many well known poets - see below for details.

The Great Irish Book Week takes place from Saturday the 24th to Saturday the 31st October 2009. Poetry: Reading it, Writing it, Publishing it, edited and compiled by Salmon Poetry managing editor Jessie Lendennie and published by Salmon earlier this year, has been selected as one of the 30 Great Irish Books featured during Great Irish Book Week.

So let it rain, I won’t mind as I can curl up with a book.

Blessings?

We drink a lot of Yorkshire tea in this house.

A carpet of pink rose petals greeted me on the path this morning as I went out to feed the rose bushes with my old teabags - I read somewhere that as well as coffee grounds, roses like tea and they certainly seem to be doing well on it. I am still deadheading and they are rewarding me with lots of blooms.

Autumn and all it means. I have blogged about this many times and every year it is always the same so I won’t repeat myself but I have to say that these last few weeks have been perfect weather for me - I am not a summer sun worshipper - and I have appreciated the October frosts, the sunny days and of course the mists in the valleys. Sometimes I think I prefer autumn to summer, it seems that way after the miserable July and August we had this year here in Wales.

I had a message left on my answer phone yesterday by a dear friend that I have never met, it was a real surprise and so lovely to hear her voice. (We met up on Purplecoo).

Weekends. Don’t they come round quickly? I don’t mind though as they are special aren’t they and even if I have to work for half of every Saturday I always love Sundays. I hope you have a good one.

Before I leave you I would like to share a poem written by Dorothy Molloy, a great Irish poet who sadly died this year after a short illness.

The golden retriever grieves for her mate


The hooded crows roost early now,
November trees are black.
The sun goes down at 4 p.m.
and leaves a blood-stained track.

My antelope, my darling, my gazelle.

We calm her with valerian
and drops of chamomile,
infuse the roots of heliotrope
to soothe her for a while.

My antelope, my darling, my gazelle.

His last night was a rasping breath
that laboured up the stairs
and filled the house, and lodged behind
her sleepless eyes and ears.

My antelope, my darling, my gazelle.

She leans her head against our knees,
she follows us to bed
and lies stretched out upon the floor
as if she, too, were dead.

My antelope, my darling, my gazelle.
Copyright © The estate of Dorothy Molloy, 2009


Dorothy Molloy was born in Ballina, Co. Mayo in 1942. She studied languages at University College Dublin, after which she went to live in Madrid and Barcelona. During her time in Spain, she worked as a researcher, as a journalist and as an arts administrator. She also had considerable success as a painter, winning several prizes and exhibiting widely. After her return to Ireland in 1979, she continued painting but also began writing poetry.

Her first collection, Hare Soup, was accepted by Faber and Faber, but Dorothy contracted cancer and died ten days before its publication. The papers she left after her death contained enough unpublished poems for two further books, which have been assembled by her husband, Andrew Carpenter. The first of these posthumous collections, Gethsemane Day, was published by Faber and Faber in 2007. This volume, Long-distance Swimmer, is the final collection of her work.
Salmon Poetry, Knockeven,
Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland
www.salmonpoetry.com



Bye for now,
Go mbeannai Dia duit,
Cait