A Postcard A Day - Tuesday 7 June 2022 - T for books (lots of books) and some flowers and produce

 Hello lovely ladies,

The weekend is over now. In the UK it has been a very important Bank Holiday weekend. (Queen Elizabeth's 70 year jubilee.) There have been parties and other events and great TV watching. We have seen a little bit on our computer. I thought the Queen's sketch with Paddington was delightful!

This blog is about books and my postcard comes from Germany:

The photo is entitled Old Bookshop by Francesca Phillips. There's no date. In my opinion it is totally timeless. I would love to visit a bookshop like this!

The stamps are lovely, especially the large one which commemorates 200 years German Bible Society.

It is a stamp from September 2012.

Because we both have been ill with Covid, we have been self isolating and consequently I have been reading more than usual. I have lots of unread books on my Kindle and  I will tell you about a few that I read recently. First off is A Boy and his dog at the end of the world.

It's an apocalyptic story about a boy Griz who lives with his mum & dad on a remote Scottish island. He lives in a time where the world is empty because the population has dwindled due to fertility problems worldwide. Griz had a sister once but she fell off a cliff into the sea and was never seen again. One day a visitor comes to the island to trade and he steals Griz's dog Jess. Griz goes after him to find his dog. It's quite an adventure. This book really is a YA book, but I found it very entertaining. It has quite a twist at the end that I didn't see coming.

Here is the author and his dog:

Then there was Death in Delft. As it says on the cover: A 17th century murder mystery.

I was attracted to it as it is set in Delft (a town in the Netherlands) which I know quite well. The protagonist Master Mercurius is an interesting character and I really liked him. One of the characters in the book is Vermeer, the painter. 

If there are more in this series, I will definitely read more.

The author Graham Brack lives with his wife Gillian in Northamptonshire and has two children and three granddaughters, who are too young to be allowed to read Grandad's books, so he provides other stories for them.

He trained and practised as a pharmacist and has also written about football, rugby and medical law.

Jesse Burton's The Muse is a very interesting book. It has dual timelines. It switches from  London in the 60s to Southern Spain at the beginning of the Civil War. The London part has Odelle, who has come from Jamaica to work at an art dealer. One day a picture comes into the shop that causes a stir. The origin of the picture is told in the Spanish part of the story, although the reader doesn't immediately understand how it is all connected. It all gets revealed at the end.

I did like this book.

The Dictionary of Lost 

words by Pip Williams is a novel about the origins of the Oxford English Dictionary, (OED) and how it came about. It took years of collecting words by a professor Murray.

Set around the Scriptorium, first home of the OED, and the life of great lexicographer James Murray and his team of assistants at the beginning of the 20th century. Underpinned by a series of sobering reflections on how language is enabled and limited by gender, power and social class, against the backdrop of the suffragette movement. Highly recommended.

The photo shows Professor Murray and his assistants and also the cards that each word was written on.

I absolutely loved this book.

Mrs England was a holiday read.

 West Yorkshire, 1904. When newly graduated children's nurse Ruby May takes a position looking after the children of Charles and Lilian England, a wealthy couple from a powerful dynasty of mill owners, she hopes it will be the fresh start she needs. But as she adapts to life at the isolated Hardcastle House, it becomes clear there's something not quite right about the beautiful, mysterious Mrs England.

I liked it, but was happy to move on to something else when I finished it.

The best book I read of this lot was The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn. It's a WWII novel based on a true story, which I later Googled.

In the snowbound city of Kiev, aspiring historian Mila Pavlichenko’s life revolves around her young son – until Hitler’s invasion of Russia changes everything. Suddenly, she and her friends must take up arms to save their country from the Fuhrer’s destruction.

Handed a rifle, Mila discovers a gift – and months of blood, sweat and tears turn the young woman into a deadly sniper: the most lethal hunter of Nazis.

Yet success is bittersweet. Mila is torn from the battlefields of the eastern front and sent to America while the war still rages. There, she finds an unexpected ally in First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, and an unexpected promise of a different future.

But when an old enemy from Mila’s past joins forces with a terrifying new foe, she finds herself in the deadliest duel of her life.

Absolutely riveting! Mila of course is Ukrainian and the places she fights (like Sebastopol) are names I recognize from the news about the current war there. Unputdownable!

I'm a bit disappointed that none of these books have a drink reference. So I will have to go through my photos and see if I can dig up something. Having been ill, we haven't gone anywhere and our taste buds have been changed with Covid and so our drinks have been limited to water, water and more water!

Did I tell you that my lovely fuchsia  fell off the wall? The (plastic) pot burst and half the plant broke off. 

I was very upset about this but it is picking itself up, as you can see:

Then the other evening as I was watering the plants I saw the fuchsia had a visitor:

It looks like a juvenile ladder snake, but I'm not an expert on snakes.

Our fruit trees are doing well:

And our tiny vegetable patch is doing okay too. (potatoes, shalots and broad beans)

Sunday it was my mother's 98th birthday. My sister went to see her in Holland and sent me a photo of her and mum on the balcony (bottom right). I found some old photos of previous birthdays, and hey presto, we have a collage!

There are some drinks in these photos, so at last I have found my 'ticket' to the T-Party, hosted by Elizabeth and Bleubeard. 

Well, my dear ladies, that was it from me today.

I wish you all a very happy T-Day.

Keep smiling,

Hugs,

Lisca