Books: Old, New. Borrowed.........but not Blue!

I want to start today by thanking you lovely ladies for all your encouraging words and compliments in my comments.  It's largly because of your interest that I've made what I have, and I realise now I must stop comparing what I've done to other crafty bloggers and celebrate my own achivements.  I'm going to concentrate on my crafting and only look at other crafty blogs for inspiration, ideas and to 'oooh and ahhh' over all their goodies!!  (If you comment on this post, please don't mention this bit - I'm not fishing for compliments but wanted to thank you and let you know how you've helped me).

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The Christmas holidays saw quite a few books appear in our house from various directions. (Time now to sort through and get rid of few, one way or another - what do you do with your old books, do you take them to the charity shop, sell them on, give them as gifts or put in the bin?)

Below are a couple of new books I treated myself to for Christmas.  A Slice of the Goodlife is one I saw back in the summer at the Centre for Alternative Technology and kept in mind.  I've just finished reading The Handmade Marketplace (so it will be No 1 on my reading list for 2011!) and found it packed with useful information for when I start seriously selling my wares......ahem, ahem!  (I will one day, honestly!).  I'd heard about many of the crafty bloggers mentioned in it already which made it seem familiar.  A lot of the information in it was new to me and will be really useful to have on hand to refer to in the future.

This is another new book that I got my DS for Christmas.  It's also one we saw at the CAT Centre and which he showed an interest in. 

The book, The Great Explorers, below is also new and was a present to my OH from his boss.  He has quite an illustrious family and this book was edited by his uncle, the explorer Robin Hanbury-Tenison. 

These 4 books fall into the old category since I bought them from charity shops over the holidays.  Quite a mixture here:  a bit of light reading, a humorous history and a look at green fashion.

Now to the borrowed. At various times during the last year there were film crews filming at an old farmhouse on the estate where my OH works.  He was told it was for a film called 'Resistance' about what it would have been like if the Nazis had invaded Britain in WW2.  Eventually the TV news showed an article about it, interviewing the author of the book on which the film was based.  He was Owen Sheers, (who I don't know but) who grew up in a nearby town and whose grandparents lived at the end of our road for a while before they passed away a few years ago.   Owen started out as a poet and my mother collected his works, continuing to do so when he began writing novels as well.  So here we have the book 'Resistance' and his previous work, 'The Dust Diaries' borrowed from my mother.

Looking at piles of books makes me happy!  It's the same feeling when I look at my baskets of knitting yarn or shelves of fabric - The Potential!  My BIG problem now is which one to read next!!  I think it may have to be The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (first brought to my attention by Leslie) which I got from a charity shop and want to read before I watch the TV version I've recorded.

Ooh, I'm going for a lie down now!  It was tiring posting all those links :-)

Bye for now

Teresa x