Hey there!
Yup, I’m still alive and reasonably well.
All of December and about a third of January seem to have rolled on by without me present in this particular venue, and I guess all I can say is, “Whew! Life!”
An utter avalanche of kind-of-unplanned-for paperwork landed in my lap that last week in November, and then I got sick with a virulent virus (I’m much better now), and just Plain Old Stuff kept cropping up. Christmas whooshed past. We got the tree up on December 24th (and it’s still up though not for much longer as it is starting to drop needles and become a fire hazard over there in the corner of the living room), but we didn’t actually have our family Christmas dinner till January 6, because my daughter-living-at-home was also ill, my husband worked through the holidays, and we told our living-elsewhere son to stay far away from the House of Plague until we weren’t quite so collectively contagious. So now I’m feeling more human, and things are starting to get under a bit of control, and I yearn to return to the blog. Which I shall do properly soonish, I hope.
In the meantime, I’ve been reading mostly old favourites. Pretty well every single D.E. Stevenson I own, plus the whole Megan Whalen Turner Eddis-Attolia quintet-so-far (the sixth and last book is due out in March – sob! – can’t believe it will be over), plus various other old friends. R.A. MacAvoy, Rumer Godden, Margery Sharp, some literary garden writers. This and that, mostly easy reading. Nothing too demanding.
I did read a new-to-me book, a reissue of the 1962 novel Four Days by John Buell (thank you for that, Brian Busby), and it was an intense little experience pushing the #10 end of the rating. I will write about it in the very near future.
Also Colin Thubron’s 1987 travelling-in-China book, Behind the Wall, which was absolutely excellent.
Great experiences with two writers I suspect I am in no way done with.
I sometimes wonder if I’m running out of writers to discover, and then another obscure door opens and off I wander into another dusty corridor lined with shelves full of delectable things by people I’d not yet heard of. And thank goodness for that! I will never run out of things to read, will I?
Here’s hoping you all have had a marvelous holiday season, and that 2019 is good to you!
Leaves & Pages 
Thanks for your post. I also enjoyed your post on Celia Furse from a little while back – I contribute to Slightly Foxed so am always looking for new ideas about old books! Ann
Oh yay for DE Stevenson!
Lots of D.E. Stevenson titles are being reissued, some of them very rare up till now. Check Furrowed Middlebrow for info on some.
Glad to hear you’re over that bout of illness. Re-reading old favourites is such a joy. I recently read a D E Stevenson, though I haven’t read that many of her books yet. Happy New year.
So glad to hear you are well now, and back in contact. Nothing like a plethora of DE Stevensons to get you through a time of trials.
Happy New Year, Barb! It’s so nice to hear from you.
Must say, of your recent reads I’m most intrigued to know who the literary garden writers were. Definitely feeling the need for some garden-focused reading right now as signs of spring are starting to show everywhere.
You’ll be happy to know that three Margery Sharp titles landed on my doorstep this week: The Nutmeg Tree. Something Fresh, and The Flowering Thorn. I’ve read them all (thanks to your encouragement) and am so happy to now have copies of my very own.
Sorry, Something Light (not Fresh) was the Margery Sharp title (obviously still thinking of the P.G. Wodehouse books I was sorting earlier).
I’m so glad you’re back! I’m always fascinated by your well-written posts and love to know what you’re reading. I’m also keen on D.E. Stevenson, and many are available now as cheap e-books. At one point I was paying $8 or $9 a pop for out-of-print titles I’d read only once. No idea what the “Megan Whalen Turner Eddis-Attolia quintet-so-far” is but I’m off to look it up.
How how howwwww is the last Megan Whalen Turner book coming out? That series has been happening since the 90s, yet I am somehow not prepared for it to come to an end. NOBODY CAN DIE. There are, what, six main characters that I care about? And I am not resigned to losing any of them. I guess the Magus can die, that’s okay. I guess.
Sounds like you had a very hectic holiday season! I’m glad you’re on the mend, and hope you get plenty of lovely reading done.
No. Nobody can die. Not even the Magus. (So there!)
You know, I can absolutely see where MWT is coming from in wanting to duck out from under this (perfect!) thing she’s created, but as a reader I am in mourning even as I look forward to finding out how the heck she’s going to round it off.
In a perfect world this particular writer would kick out a book-a-year or something like that; I’m sure she has it in her!
I have lost count of how many times I’ve read and re-read these books. There’s something going on there that I like. A lot.
I reread a lot of D.E. Stevenson in 2019 – partly because so pleasant but also because when I happen to be in the library of my youth I look to see if the Stevensons, Cadells, and Thanes are still on the shelves. Then I think I had better check them out so they don’t get discarded!