Where To Now?

The Autumn has brought the usual leaf fall that sends me out to tidy and clear daily. Not much time left over for literature as a result.
However, since the nights are dark, reading has replaced TV as the distraction of choice. The bookish people who now gather in little groups to hear writers read from their latest work are also good company. Last week we went to hear Alan Glynn read from "Bloodland", a complex thriller set on three continents. Paranoia fiction is seeing a revival, doubtless thanks to the psychological horrors being inflicted on unsuspecting citizens by corporations and governments worldwide.
It's nice to be tucked up indoors with a book that makes one think...

Happy Days Again

The other night I went off to listen to Alan Glynn read from his new thriller, "Bloodland". It is much easier when a book is read aloud in a friendly atmosphere than when, finally, one sits down to untangle character, plot and local colour.

The best part of the evening was a leisurely walk through Temple Bar, down to where Essex Street intersects with Cow's Lane. It has improved beyond belief since the days in the 1980's when I went looking for ideas to write about. The new Gutter Bookshop is off the beaten track, but should find many visitors as word spreads. Friendly staff and willingness to help find the exact book for a gift always make bookshops inviting spaces.

Photos are up on the Flickr Rosewoodoil site, and I'm too busy making pies from the excellent apple crop that the wretched Summer weather seems to have encouraged to bother to link to them here.
Nature is very mysterious ...

More About Meme

More About Meme

My husband and I are in absolute agreement on one fact. Neither of us have any recall about the sites we have signed up to over the years. They are gentle, bland names that slip, unnoticed through our aging synapses, leaving no mark.

It was with pleasure, then, that I found I had somehow bonded with
Tweetmeme


I have to admit that I joined Twitter with the enthusiasm of a novice swimmer jumping off the Forty Foot in early January.

Oh No! Not another system to learn!

It has turned out to be less painless than anticipated, and I have even Retweeted, though in such a state of confusion that I claimed to be "Tetweeting".

The English language is never going to be the same...



Dublinoise Connection explores a similar theme...

Cognitive Windows of Opportunity

I'm back gardening...


It is the only activity where exercise and fruitfulness come together in a relaxed way.

The apple, pear and plum harvest has been exceptional and I'm looking forward to making jelly.

There is much to preoccupy my thoughts as I head into the overgrowth with a red handled secateurs and a determined grin. Gardening makes me happy and wipes down the windows of perception in a way that no drug or brain enhancer could.

These thoughts persist thanks to having read
"The Dark Fields"
by Alan Glynn.
The protagonist, led astray by a brother-in-law who could have stepped straight out of "The Duchess of Malfi", takes to lashing down a brain enhancer called MDT-48.
It does not do him much good in the long run, but his rise to success on the stock market could inspire some of the dullards who are trying to run the World's fiscal affairs at the moment.


Thanks to Damien Mulley who gave the book a Fluffy Thumb's Up
this week.