In two weeks time, Fig Jam and Lime Cordial will be two years old.
To celebrate the occasion, I had some custom labels made for these tins of Book Darts. Each contains 75 darts in a mix of metals – brass, bronze and stainless steel. I’m a big fan of these brilliant little linemarkers, having waxed lyrical about them in several posts.
I have two tins to g1ve away!
To make this fun, please enter by telling us in a comment what you like to read. Please be really specific – if you’re a fan of romance novels, please let us know if you enjoy Regency bodice-busters, or time travel romances (astonishingly, Amazon list this as a genre), or vampire tales.
Similarly, if the only thing you read is cookbooks, what style or cuisine do you enjoy the most? Are you a crime fiction buff, and if so, which author or detective do you follow?
I am a huge fan of old Ellery Queen detective novels, set in the 1940s – 60s. I’m also a collector of comic books – Peanuts, Doonesbury, Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side and Footrot Flats. What about you, what do you like to read?
I’ll leave this open until 25th February 2011, which is our anniversary date, and I’ll happily ship the darts anywhere. And if you’d like custom labels for your book darts, please contact Aaron via the Book Darts website. They provide free bespoke labels with any order of ten tins or more!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
I work in a library, so this was a hard question to narrow down to just one genre! I will read pretty well anything in print, given the opportunity.
I do have a soft spot for historical fiction, specifically books by authors like Wayne Johnston. Books about North America’s Atlantic coast really have a hold on me.
Thank you for having this contest/prize snag. Love the site, and look forward to the posts each day.
I’m an avid reader of all sorts of fiction from Anthony Trollope to Cormack McCarthy and everything in between. When life gets tough I reach for the Mapp and Lucia series of novels by E F Benson. They are a satirical and brilliantly observed look at English village life in the 1920s centred around the characters of arch-snob Lucia Lucas and the determined and infuriating Elizabeth Mapp. Reading these books for me is like getting into a warm bath – soothing and comforting.
Happy anniversary – your blog has become part of my daily life.
What a cool idea! So often, I resort to using bits of paper torn off the edge of the newspaper or something to mark my place. I’m an omnivore when it comes to reading, and enjoy almost anything from Stephen King to Paul Auster. Right now I’m working my way through the Jasper Fforde “Thursday Next” series and am just loving the humorous, unexpected look at “serious” literature. The books I checked out of the library this time are mostly about Maine lore and I have a lot of fun browsing through those. My latest cookbook find is vegetarian meals for the slow cooker – we had cabbage and white bean soup last night from it that was pretty delicious. :)
I’m a big fan of Calvin and Hobbes too(who isn’t). I’ve collected C&H, Peanuts, Far Side, Asterix(all of them!), Dilbert, Baby Blues, PhD- piled higher and deeper, Bevity and Get Fuzzy.
I enjoy reading English(and other) classics- Jane Austen, Bronte sisters, George Eliot and DH Lawrence. My favorites are Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and The Age of Innocence, War and Peace.
I read non-fiction. Mostly politics, history, economics, issues and causes, biographies, spiritual works and travelogues. I’m in love with Australia after Bill Bryson’s In a Sunburned Country(Down Under) and Colleen Mccullough’s Thorn Birds.
Rumi, Tagore and Neruda’s poetry
And American classics- all John Steinbeck, all Ernest Hemingway, Gone with the Wind, To Kill a Mocking Bird, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Catcher in the Rye.
And powerful motivational stuff- Three Cups of Tea, Angela’s Ashes, Life of Pi, Glass Castle, etc.
You shouldn’t have asked. I can’t stop now. :)
I’m a big fan of 3 different books:
The vampire ones — *Team Edward*
The romance ones — Anything by Judith McNaught or Catherine Anderson
The classics — like Pride and Prejudice or Jane Eyre
:)
I love reading crime novels – the scarier and gorier the better. I like the crime novels that border on being a thriller, but I don’t like all thriller novels. I have a particular fondness for Scandinavian crime fiction – I think I like the contrasts in the landscapes and lifestyles. Scandinavian crime fiction is often cold and dark, like the countries it comes from.
I really liked the Scobie Malone series by Jon Cleary (and I don’t mention him just because he’s Australian!); I think Cleary was one of the first crime writers I read who wrote about more than solving the crime. He gave his characters lives outside the main storyline, and his novels were also a fascinating commentary on parts of Australian society – immigration and integration in particular.
Perhaps this will reveal just how far in the woods I reside – although I live in the land of the book dart invention, I don’t think I’ve even seen one of these at work. There, now you know. However, I can tell a good idea when I see one!
Generically, I’m not a fiction reader – I like books about ‘real’ things – I’ve got a lot of instruction books (every night I watch a documentary film on Netflix). But my greatest book interest is cookbooks, of which I’m a collector. I live in a ‘book house’, where every available inch is filled with a bookshelf – either my cookbooks or San’s mysteries.
Specifically, I love the cooking of the old South in America (easily, the most interesting of all US regions) – a good representative cookbook of the region is “The Cotton Country”, a Junior League of Monroe, La publication. I also like cookbooks written from the black perspective, which also tend to be a slice of the old South. One of my favorites is “In Pursuit of Flavor” by Edna Lewis, a real gem.
But perhaps the one cookbook I use most often is “The Cuisines of Mexico” by the wonderful Diana Kennedy – any of her books on Mexican cooking give you a peek into the soul of someone who has devoted their life to the discovery and sharing of what is arguably one of the world’s great cuisines – strangely, this task is usually better done by an ‘outsider’ than by a native. If you’ve never experienced Kennedy, you must do so – she not only tells you the recipes she has painstakingly learned by going to the family source, but also tells you why she loves the food she is sharing with you – she is my favorite cookbook author.
Is it wrong of me to enter again when I won your competition before? Is it? My only excuse is that you have got me addicted to these magical little bookmarks and yet I have not yet ordered more…
I adore reading and have done since very young. Even know, I still enjoy Dr Seuss books as well as proper adult fare!
What I particular enjoy reading is science-fiction. Note, I do mean science-fiction rather than fantasy – I’m not really into dragons, elves and the like.
I like stories where the author has so cleverly extrapolated from our current day world that the picture he/ she paints of the future is so convincing that I can’t then imagine it unfolding any other way! For near future stories in particular, this can be exciting, disturbing, surprising and compelling.
I also love stories of vast empires where man has colonised scores of planets across the galaxy and the resulting societal and governmental changes that brings about. And of course, encounters with alien species can give rise to all kinds of stories from conflict to trade to cultural enrichment to complete incomprehension.
Also, whilst I read some of these on the e-book reader I bought last year, I still love physical books and especially love to find older editions of paperback sci-fi stories from the 1960s and 1970s – they had amazingly vivid hand-drawn cover illustrations which I think are smashing!
And then, of course, as you probably guessed… there’s the food porn. Oh yes…..
I love reading American Modernist novels, anything from the Lost Generation. Hemingway will always be my favorite but I could never forget Gertrude Stein.
Well, as I have my tin already…. do I have to tell you about what I read? Truth is, since I started blogging, my book count has dropped to an all time low.
I used to read loads of sci fi, science books written for non scientists, the odd cook book, modern literature by the bucketload, nature/philosophy writers like Richard Mabey, Deakin, Dilliard, Lopez, anthropology, that sort of stuff and then there was whatever hobby I was currently enthralled with; I have a lot of bird books, gardening books. I am sure you can imagine how many bread books have collected in the last couple of years. The odd self help book, I like those, because unlike a therapist, if you don’t like what they say, well you can just chuck them on the floor…
Oh, this is wonderful! Thank you all so much for getting into the spirit of this and telling us so much about your specific interests! As you might have guessed, this post was as much about getting to know you all a bit better as it was about giving away book darts! :)
And a note to anyone who’s holding back because they’ve won something before (thanks for mentioning it, Kavey), please feel free to join in. This is something completely new that I haven’t had before, so everyone’s welcome to play! :)
Yay! (Phew!)
I love the label on the tin! I don’t want to enter the competition – I am in Italy. I love Nancy Mitford. I have read Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love over and over again. I also love Ruth Park’s books.
Fun! Except that I hit the wrong button and lost my first comment. It was almost full with a complete list of authors, alphabetical and indexed according to genre.
Well, not quite- but it was quite a loss !:(
So- I love to read. Mysteries -from D L Sayers to Sue Grafton- really anything I can get my hands on. Lately people have been giving me mysteries with recipes in them and I enjoy those as well! One of my favorite writers is James Lee Burke- he opens up the Louisianna bayou like it is his backyard- and it is!
Sci-Fi- Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein, Ursula K Le Guin, Ray Bradbury
Fantasy- Tolkien, Anne Macaffery,Steven Donaldson,Tad Williams, David Eddings
Anything by Gail Godwin or Elizabeth Goudge.
Cookbooks- I love bread cookbooks- also regional cooking books that give you the atmosphere as well as the ingredients of their recipes. And Ruth Reichl- I also love church cookbooks- it is so cool to see the different takes on just a couple of favorite recipes.
And tea books- I love the romance of growing, drying and serving tea.
Paper craft books- paperdolls, origami, children’s crafts, box and envelope making, etc.
Classic literature and children’s literature, especially Rudyard Kipling, Dr. Suess, A.A. Milne, C.S Lewis
I love Charles Williams and- really ALL of the Inklings.
I’m going to stop- but the truth is I’ve never met a book that I didn’t read. And usually re-read.
( I also have a comic book collection of old Superman comics that I acquired one by one as a child while my mother was grocery shopping. She would drop me off at the comic section and would let me buy one comic every week.)
I read everything I can get my hands on from dictionaries and how-to manuals to cookbooks, sci-fi, fantasy and mystery. my favourite author is Martha Grimes
but I am currently reading a fabulous book about an Irish immigrant to Ontario, Canada, by an author who lives about 10 miles from me in Lund, BC Canada. “Oonaugh” by Mary Tilberg.
this is the synopsis from Mary’s website:
In 1831, eighteen-year-old Oonagh Corcoran emigrates with her sister from southern Ireland to Upper Canada. In the deep folds of cool, green forest off the vast inland sea of Lake Ontario, she believes she has found paradise — only to discover that the New World harbours its own horrible injustices when she meets a fugitive slave from Virginia named Chauncey Taylor. Love grows between them as Chauncey slowly reveals his terrible past to Oonagh, reliving the pain and tragedy he and his family suffered as slaves. The two find that even in their small, accepting community, there are certain lines that can never be crossed.
Based on historical research, Oonagh is both a powerful love story and a gripping tale that reaches deep into the secret heart of our nation’s past.
What a clever idea!
I am an avid reader and have been since I was a kid. I read a great deal of contemporary literary fiction with a particular fondness for some of the modern Irish authors like Maggie O’Farrell and William Trevor. I just Finished Trevor’s book, “Love and Summer” last night and am still captivated by his warm, lyrical prose. There is plenty of non-fiction around, too, that is completely absorbing with “Zeitoun” by Dave Eggers and “The Tall Man” by Chloe Hooper among my favourites from last year. There are some great Australian writers around at the moment and Craig Silvey’s “Jasper Jones” is brilliant. Have now begun “The Ape House” by Sara Gruen and it seems to be shaping up well.
When in holiday mode, or as a wind-down I can’t go past a good murder mystery. I’m not too fond of the gritty realism of the modern US crime writers, but am addicted to a nice, cosy, British crime. I currently have Reginald Hill and Ruth Rendell’s latest cued up on my Kindle and I’m waiting for an excuse to dive into them – I call them “chocolate for my brain”!
And of course cooking/food books! I collect old cookbooks and love to wander through them seeing how lives and eating has changed over the years and I love anything that engages me on the history, culture and rituals of food and eating. Mary Taylor Simetti’s book, “Sicilian Food” is a perfect example of this and has divine recipes as well – brilliant!
Look at all those lovely answers! Celia your labels look great, they go perfectly with the tin.
So many wonderful books and so little time. I always seem to fall into the travel section for writing I know I should branch out more but it sucks me in every time. Travel stories of news journalists being the top pick, followed by birth books (I’m still trying to study) and cook books. If only my brain could work a little faster to absorb more books!
Celia, I’ve just been whizzing through the posts because I’ve not had time in my little corner and I’m about to be cast out into the wilderness (Tasmanian wilderness) trekking for 6 days behind my husband (holidays with my Pete always involve a forced march and a dawn start). I was enchanted by your lanterns and clicked on the fish lantern video. For a nano-second I was so blown away by your talented family’s musical abilities – before the timpanni of commonsense clanged about my ears! I just love books but like Joanna, since I’ve discovered bloggers my reading has dropped off – except through my eyelashes in bed at night. I’m much like Sally above – everything from the classics to McCarthy. I like philosophy and for fiction I particularly enjoyed PD James – biographies, one in particular has stayed with me, Blue Ribbons Bitter Bread by Susanna De Vries about the life of an incredible woman, Joice Nankivell Loch – a most astonishing life and one that truly left the world a better place. I can’t recommend that one enough. I shall look forward to limping back here and reading through everybody elses’s book comments. Happy Anniversary Celia. Thank you for the reading pleasure.
I have a thing about books which detail people’s lives (not necessary biographies!) – which could be why I love reading blogs.
I recently finished Jonathon Franzen’s “Freedom” and got quite involved with the lives of the characters.
Read a book! Who has time with all these fantastic blogs to read?
And never mind reading other books, we just wrote our very own book today ‘Princess Everything gets Wounded’. HoneyB has a strange imagination!
Books: C.S Lewis and Tolkien – I could pick them up and lose a day easily.
Happy 2nd Celia … and here’s to many more posts.
Happy 2nd Blogaversary Celia! I’m glad you’re not sick ofus yet!
In a happy coincidence, I have spent the last 2 days cleaning off my bookcases and have got a perfect idea of my literary tastes.
Classics- Austen, Dickens, Defoe, Bronte
Spy/Action- Tom Clancy, Desmond Bagley, Frederick Forsyth, Alister Mac Lean, Clive Cussler
Intrigue- Tom Grisham
Historical Romance- Georgette Heyer(my favourites), Amanda Quick
Nice All Rounders- Laura Ingalls(Little House), James Herriot(Vet), L.M Montgomery(Anne of Green Gables and everything else she ever wrote), W.E Johns(Biggles), A.A.Milne(Pooh)
Fantasy- JRR Tolkein
Fun- Calvin and Hobbes(of course!) and Footrot Flats as well
Gardening- Jaqui French and Various others
Self Help- mainly exercise, diet and parenting books sent by my mother(and ignored by me)
And then we get to my Cookbooks…….
I have them lined up in style and cuisine…
Asian(the largest catagory), Cake Baking and Desserts, Bread, Dietary Needs(eg Gluten Free), Modern Australian, Christmas,Preserving, Celebrity Chefs, International Cuisine, Hints and Tips, Historical(love them), Chefs Text Books, Donna Hay(she has her own catergory)…..
I could go on and on and on. I also subscribe to 4 cooking magazines as well, and on top of that I get my daily dose of blog reading…
I have also just donated at least 15ft of books(piled on top of each other) to good homes as we needed to update and clean out the girls rooms too.
I hope you find this insight into my bookcases and soul interesting and will forgive the promiscuity of the subject matter.
I found your blog about 6 months ago and have been reading you daily since. I’ve also worked my way through many of your recipes. Today I made Chocolate Butterfly buns which instantly whisked me back to childhood birthday party’s in England (I’ve been in Sydney for 3 years) and they were beautiful. Thank you.
Reading wise, i was never a big reader as a child, but as i’ve grown older i’ve found comfort in a good book and find that a day doesn’t pass where I don’t read at least a page or two.
At the moment I have a real passion for Music biographies, not just any but rock biographies from the 60’s onwards. Learning the thoughts and feelings behind the soundtrack to me life has been really interesting. These song’s i have sung along to at the top of my lungs whilst driving now have new meaning for me after understanding where the bands were when they wrote them or the feelings behind them. I really think it’s given me a greater appreciation.
I also love cookbooks, any kind. My partner often laughs when i climb into bed with a list of recipes to read before sleep. But to me they are much more than a list of ingredients, they are a list that lets you enter the world of the dish and its possibilities. I adore 70’s cook books – who can beat a prawn cocktail in a glass.
One of my favorite authors is Douglas Coupland, he writes fiction based on current day observations. I can’t help but laugh whilst reading his books because I see so many things that I do in his characters.
Congratulations on 2 years of your blog.
I read lots of books…mainly crime fiction type of books to “switch my brain off and relax” and for every five crappy crime fiction books I read, I make myself read a ‘proper’ book. I just finished re-reading a Shane Maloney book – he is such a great author that I almost count his books in both categories…almost. I love books that are written really well…I want to slow down and roll the sentences around my tongue…they are delicious, just like a good chocolate cake, eaten in tiny bites to savour the flavours. I have no time for true pulp fiction in the crime fiction genre – people like James Patterson who are so formulaic that they outsource their books to other co-writers (what the..?!!). Peter Temple is another favourite. I loved Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and No Country for Old Men. Stef Penny’s The Tenderness of Wolves was a lovely find in an airport bookshop.
l love the label Celia. Congratulations on the two year anniversary. Time flies when we are having fun…!
Do wine labels count?
My reading tastes are quite varied. I love both fiction and non. However, my all-time favorite books ever are the Dune books (the actual Frank Herbert books only). I first read these books when I was a teen and fell quite hard for Paul. Ah, just thinking of my first literary glimpse of him still makes me sigh. Frank Herbert was brilliant. His universe was so rich and complex that it seemed completely real. I read the series again from time to time. I love it so!
“I cannot live without books.” Thomas Jefferson.
My biggest collection is turn of the century arts and crafts books. Anything that says “paper” or “toymaking” in the title is for me!
I also have a large amount of books on the Concord writers, Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott, Hawthorne, Fuller. The more obscure the better.
Other collections include the Inklings, Tolkien, Lewis, Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers. I guess I get interested in one author and then move on to their friends.
For cookbooks, Jamie Oliver is my favorite chef. ( I bought ALL of his books. I buy them from Britain because they come out earlier.) I have a lot of vegetarian cookbooks, “Moosewood Cookbook” and the first “Greens” cookbooks are my favorites. I have Plenty: Vibrant Recipes from London’s Ottolenghi on my wishlist.
Happy Anniversary FJ&LC! You make the world a better place!
Maz
I just read “The Instructions” by Adam Levin and regretted before I was 30 pages into it that it would ever end; it is 1030 pages long/short! Not only is it a fine romance, between 11 year olds who think like old really fresh people, reading it will make you smarter. Look into it only if you like to think about specific things from every angle.
I also just loved “Griftopia” by Matt Taibbi, the politics writer for “Rolling Stone”, and I’m reading it again to actually learn the details. He goes through the recent US (world) financial meltdown and like a laser closes in on why it happened, but he does so in the form of stories that I can understand. Some of the language is raw, but that seems proper for what amounts to grand theft which no one has yet been punished for.
I read my share of political stuff, but I expect to be schooled in reality by novels and remember Mr. Faulkner telling me once, as a student (at the U. of Virginia), that fact is too slow to capture the truth, that only fiction could do that.
Thank you all for your wonderful reading suggestions and kind wishes! :)
Bob, I hope you don’t mind if I leave you out of the contest…hahaha…(Bob is the inventor of Book Darts!).. :)
And Cosmo, yes wine labels count, but only if they’re from Bordeaux or the Margaret River…. ;-)
Currently reading The Deathly Hallows, just love that little guy. I also read a lot of Ellery Queen, Nero Wolfe and Agatha Christie. Oh and Georgette Heyer and Mary Stewart. Poul Anderson, Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. I have a really hard time sticking to one genre
This isn’t an entry as you were so kind to furnish me with some darts of my own but they’re great! :) Good luck to everyone!
What a lovely question – especially because I can see what everyone else is reading and get some new ideas! I will read anything – including the shampoo bottle in my shower. I stumbled across C.S. Lewis and Barbara Cartland in college, love Dorothy Sayers and Ngaio Marsh but not too fond of Steven King. I got my dad started reading Nora Roberts and Amanda Quick/Jayne Castle. My husband and I got married the same year as Joanie & Rick Redfern but are currently living the Zits life with our teenage sons. My fifth grade teacher read The Martian Chronicles to us and got me started on a love of SciFi. I just finished reading “Waiting for Snow in Havana” and looking forward to reading “The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet” I loved books by Jill Ker Conway and Sigrid Undset and Carlos Ruiz Zafron and Antoine de St. Exupery and Shel Silverstein.
Those book darts would come in very handy because I always have a stack of food magazines and cookbooks in my car and kitchen and bedroom and office just waiting to make sure I don’t forget the next recipe for our “New Recipe Wednesday” family dinners.
Oh – I was so caught up in thinking about books that I forgot to say Happy Anniversary! I love your blog – it is so fun to share your experiences and recipes all the way from Seattle! I especially love to see your spring and summer pictures when we are in the thick of grey, wet winter.
I’m so enjoying reading all your comments, thank you all! Lynn, it’s so nice to know you’re reading the blog from the other side of the world! :)
Well, if wine labels count, here is my comment:
A cheeky little read.
You can take your historic novels,
You can take your Mills & Boons
You can take your daily papers
With their dramas and cartoons.
Who cares who killed the Mocking Bird?
Or where lives the Great White Whale?
Or what shade of green the valley was?
Or how to cook with Tuscan kale?
Get rid of all that printed junk,
Piled up on coffee tables,
If you really want a gripping tale
You can’t go past wine labels.
There’s bountiful types of berries,
There’s the chocolate-melon discourse,
There’s the mystery of the sweaty saddle
When there’s no mention of a horse.
The labels tell an exciting tale
Of fine vintners and their must;
Afterwards you can drink the wine,
While books just gather dust.
Dear Mr Newberry
Your poems always make me smile
And I thank you from my heart
For this little ditty that you wrote
On my post on Book Darts
So many wine labels that I’ve read
Have offered facts in diction
But having tasted of their wine
I’ve found them to be fiction!
Thank you!
I wouldn’t encourage him Celia!
yeah encourage him – that was very good!
Oh my! What a difficult thing to ask….this is like asking which of your children is your favorite! I usually have more than one book on the go. My favorite is romance books, especially the romantic suspense, but then there are also murder mysteries…I love the English Agatha Raisin series, then there are the Wilbur Smith historicals, biographies, science, metaphysical…well everything and cookbooks to boot! My daughter gave me an electronic reader and now I have more than 250 books to read besides the good old paperback and hard cover books!
Great question!I wonder whether my favourites are the ones I re-read and re-read or the ones that made a huge impact on my life but I don’t read again?
Love thrillers and crime books – currently re-reading the Lord Peter Wimsey novels by Dorothy L Sayers, which I first read when I was a child. (And like another poster, I also enjoy the Scobie Malone series and Sue Grafton books – Kinsey Millhone is a great character!). I have read all the Agatha Christies – but don’t really rate them. My great aunt left me her entire collection. my brother got the family fob watch and chain and I got the paperbacks! Mind you, she had a nice inscription in them “My books are my friends” and given she lived in a pretty isolated valley and only came to town once a week for supplies I think this was probably true.
While re-visiting childhood favourites, I have just finished Daddy Long Legs, which is a book my dad gave me when I was about 10 and loved. I urge everyone to try it – such a beautiful and captivating book.
Jane Austen is my all time favourite and I re-read all her novels at least once a year – i have Pride & Prejudice on my phone in case I’m stuck somewhere and need something to read! Second is Gabriel Garcia Marquez – I adore his books and find him such a captivating writer. While in the South American theme, Isabella Allende is fab too. Bill Bryson ALWAYS makes me laugh and even his serious ones are great.
Recently I enjoyed the Stieg Larsson ‘girl with the . . ‘ trilogy – original and interesting heroine.
Love the Alexander McCall Smith books about Precious Ramotse the Zambian lady detective – they are just lovely and warm and an easy feel-good read.
Loved the Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, but didn’t really enjoy her others. Dickens is always interesting and such fab characters and I really like George Elliot – particularly Silas Marner which is a great redemptive tale.
I am not all that up to date on modern literature though – should get more involved! I enjoyed the Kite Runner, but mainly am into the kid’s books. We have been getting through the How to Train Your Dragon series by Cressida Cowell and i would totally recommend them (the proper ones, not the dumbed down movie tie in versions) to anyone with young children. they are SO captivating and interesting. We loved Pamela Allan when they were younger (Alexander’s Outing a big favourite here) and Mem Fox, but the more complex chapter books are great now!
my idea of hell is to be trapped somewhere with nothing to read – hence the phone downloads – and other than science fiction which I haven’t ever got into, I will give most things a go!
Happy anniversary! completely forgot to mark the moment as I was happily rambling about books!! Thanks for the fantastic recipes and the interesting links.
I like reading books of quotations – as I lose bits of my mind I can plug the gaps with bits of other people’s minds.
Cindy, Anne, I’m a sucker for romantic fiction as well, much to the chagrin of my men. :) And my boys loooved Pamela Allen growing up!
Anne, thank you!
Lee, I’m a lover of quotes too, and trivia! :)
Oh Celia, you are wonderful. Your tins are just adorable. This is a hard one to answer as my reading is quite varied. I like science fantasy as a genre, the classics and cookbooks too of course. At the moment I’m in love with Barbara Kingsolver. She is such a great writer and so varied. From life in the Congo to her year of seasonal eating. I’ve just bought her latest – The Lacuna, set in Mexico this time in 1935.
You are very generous, Celia, and this is an interesting survey…
I think I should be excluded from competition as I don’t get much time to read at the moment.
As an artist and one time children’s book illustrator wannabe, I have a good collection of books for little people. The favourites amongst these are by Tove Jansson (Finn Family Moomintroll etc). My little man is not quite up to these…however we do read Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar just about daily and I don’t ever get sick of it.
In terms of cookbooks, at the moment Hairy Bikers (who are just like old friends) and Preserved by Sandler and Acton are prize possessions and entertaining reads.
I wish I read more wine labels…for the pictures if nothing else!
Choc, thank you – I’m pretty chuffed with how lovely the tins look as well! :)
Vix, I adore children’s books! You need to check out Joanna’s blog (zebbakes.com), she’s a big Moomintroll fan too! :)
Happy Birthday – two years of glory. I love to read every and anything. I have recently enjoyed ‘Junie B Jones’, my daughter’s chapter books written in the voice of a confident 7 year old.
Celia, I just had to make a comment even though it’s not for competition purposes…. the books I’ve enjoyed most in my life were the ones I read to my babies over many years. The standouts would have to be The Paper Princess by Elisa Kleven and The Muddle-headed Wombat on Clean-up Day by the wonderful Ruth Park. The memories of those times (now long gone unfortunately) will stay with me forever. On the second anniversary of your blog – congratulations! – and thanks for sharing the recipes/amazing photos/insight into how your beautiful family enjoys life:)
Oz, Rob, I love the kids’ books too! Some of the happiest reading ever was with the boys as they were growing up! :)
Hi Celia, and happy anniversary.
This was fun to reflect on and read others comments.
I have always loved fiction, and this year am reading all the Shirley Hazzard I can get my hands on.
I have also started to move more to non fiction in recent years and recently read “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbars Kingsolver and “Born to Run” by Chris Mc Dougal and both were excellent.
Then there are always cookbooks, you will usually find at least one by my bedside. Not sure if that’s weird or normal :)
The current one is “Plenty” by Yotam Ottolenghi – thanks to you introducing him to me, and my local library.
I’m an avid reader. I realised the other day that I own more of Ben Elton’s novels than any other author.
I’ve recently discovered Joanne Harris, who is probably best known for her novel Chocolat. I’ve not read that one yet, but her novels are VERY well written, and are all interspersed with recipes. She has also co-authored two cookbook/memoirs that are interesting (but French food, not my fave to eat).
My absolute best read cookbook at the moment is David Lebovitz’s Perfect Scoop. With the heatwave we’d been having, I made coconut ice cream, then mango ice cream and mixed them together. Devine!
I love to range far and wide with my reading… just like tasting new foods. I love authors who are a half-bubble off like Carl Hiassen (Stormy Weather) and Christopher Moore (A Dirty Job). Steig Larsson wrote the great Millennium trilogy. And then for grounding, J. I Packard for doctrine. But Frank Maloney for my all-time favorite: How to Eat a Slug!
Cherie, I go to bed with a cookbook often – I’m sure it’s very normal! :)
Jade, thanks for the suggestion – I’ve got several of DL’s books, but not the icecream one! I’ll have to look out for it!
Carol, “How to Eat a Slug”! What a great name for a book! :)
Hi Celia, Thanks for the opportunity to enter this competition. I’ve been loving your blog for ages, but I am a chronic lurker as everyone else says it first and says it better usually.
My favourite authors are Georgette Heyer, for regency romance, Agatha Christie for whodunits, and PG Wodehouse for humour with Jeeves and Bertie.
Of course, there are lots more, including an addiction to gardening and cooking books, however, these are my go to books for when I just need to get back in my comfort zone. Old friends are the best friends.
Kerrie, thanks for jumping in and saying hi! :)
Happy Anniversary! What a great idea! I finally found some time to share some of my favorites (by far not all; there would be too many).
I really enjoy Western novels, historical fiction, animal stories, bibliographies, gardening books and cookbooks. I often read the dictionary, encyclopedias (there’s so much to learn), old & new schoolbooks, and songbooks. I have a varied collection of all the above, plus lots more. Seed cataloges make for very interesting reading, plus they’re good for different art ideas and projects. I definitely have a soft spot for books from the late 1800s and early 1900s.
The Mark of Zorro is one of my favorites, (the book is different from the movie). I read a very interesting pirate story. It was so interesting I read it all in one sitting! (I can’t remember the title or author, just what the story was about.)
Some of my favorite authors include Louis L’Amour, Zane Gray, Jeannette Oke, Laurraine Snelling, Christmas Carol Kauffman, Patricia St. John, Barbara Schmucker, Kristina Roy, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Marguerite Henry, Johanna Spyri.
I enjoy the Black Stallion series, Heidi, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, A Tale of Two Cities, Winnie the Pooh, Black Beauty, The Little House I could go on and on!
Manuela, lots of my faves in there too – especially some of the old kids books – Laura Ingalls Wilder, Heidi, Black Beauty. My favourite series as a child was the Lone Pine Series written by Malcolm Saville – I wonder if anyone else read those? They set up a lifelong fascination with the English countryside for me.. :)
hello celia…thank you thank you thank you so very much for your very thoughtful gesture of sending me these wonderful book darts…what a clever idea…you really made my day as it was such a surprise…
as to the arm it is still in a sling…xrays coming up then physio…my hubby is doing double duty caring for me and our daughter…he is doing a wonderful job and i couldn’t do it without him…
thanks again so much celia…regards, dzintra
ps happy 2nd birthday fig jam and lime cordial…
You’re most welcome Dzintra! Hope you’re feeling much better soon…all the best for a speedy recovery!
thank you Celia…have a great weekend…Dzintra