Today has been a general success. Sat outside and read The Outcast by Sadie Jones this morning, as recommended to me by Julian (who is going to become a professional book-recommender), which is really good. Went into town and bought new guitar strings and pondered over potential book purchases in Waterstones, but managed to restrain myself. 

Came home and cleaned and restrung my guitar so it looks all shiny now :) and sounds better.

I also took some photos! For the first time in ages! But I need to find the camera software so I can upload them onto this computer.

Bad points of today: having a nose bleed as I was getting off the bus, and having to run to my car trying not to bleed on myself (not successful), and forgetting to get the plectrum out of my guitar that I dropped in there about a year ago.

This evening I am going to make another summer fruit cake (only this time the only fruit in it will be the raspberries I hand-picked on Weds), and then read even more of The Outcast which I am anticipating finishing by the end of the weekend. This will make a change from my slow pace reading for everything else I’m reading. Although I’m starting to think that maybe I should more frequently go for books that are easy to just read, rather than ones that are heavy and serious and take effort. 

That said, my current pile is as follows:

The Glass Room - Simon Mawer (which fits the above criteria, and I’m also currently reading and is super good)

All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy (still)

The Pale King - DFW

Parrot and Olivier in America - Peter Carey

Venice - Peter Ackroyd  

Venice - Jan Morris

The Puttermesser Papers - Cynthia Ozick

Bliss - Peter Carey

Such a Long Journey - Rohinton Mistry

The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy

Eclipse - John Banville

Tender is the Night - F. Scott Fitzgerald (which as I was typing I realised is also the title of a Tellison song - link? possibly…)

The Memoirs of a Survivor - Doris Lessing

The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood

as well as a bunch of other books I had previously said I’d read and haven’t yet. One book that I will also be reading is The Little Friend by Donna Tartt. I read the Secret History, and it was brilliant, but I kept hearing bad things about her second book, The Little Friend, people saying it was nowhere near as good as The Secret History, or that they waited 10 years for her to write another book and it turned out to be a bit crap. But then Jordi came into work one day and I was like ‘hey what are you reading?’ and she was like ‘The Little Friend by Donna Tartt - it is AMAZING’ and I was like ‘really, cos I’ve heard it’s rubbish’. Apparently it’s not though, which just goes to show that you shouldn’t take other peoples opinions as your own. So now I’m definitely going to read it, because now Jordi’s reading The Secret History and loves it as well, so I’m like, hey, I could love all of her work too. All of her work is a bit of a lame way of saying ‘both her books’.

I am planning my first proper visit to the University Library, trying to get over my fear of the general huge-ness of it. They gave me a voucher for a free hot drink in the Tea Room though, so I have literally no choice but to suck it up and go in there and prepare myself to be overawed/get lost. Also I really need some of the books in there to write my essay - but FREE TEA COMES FIRST.

(I ordered some really adorable cards for the shop with a vintage print that says ‘Tea Revives You’ - I am going to buy them and send them to people)

Finally, I love this blog right now. And also have Taylor Swift songs stuck in my head.