Sunday Salon: Phew what a week

Looking Back

Armchair BEA came to an end yesterday, leaving me with very sore fingers from masses of commenting but also fond memories from encounters with people who have a similar love of everything to do with books.

This was the third year I’ve participated in the event but the first in which I volunteered as a cheerleader. That meant not only was I trying to write a daily prompts based on the topic for the day, but also making a conscious effort to comment on other people’s entries. I incurred quite a few black looks from Mr BookerTalk when I was still tip tapping away at 11pm trying to get to as many other participating bloggers as possible. But I know how it feels when you’ve spent time carefully crafting what you thought was a good post, only to find it disappears into the ether and no-one comments.

What all this brought home to me was just how big a fan club exists for the kinds of books that I don’t tend to read at all; namely young adult fiction. I knew this had grown and grown in recent years but I’d say that nine out of every ten blogs I looked at seemed to focus on that category (or would you call it a genre?). I know my young adult days are long over but I can’t ever remember reading anything in that vein myself – I doubt there was even a descriptor of ‘young adult fiction’. We just seemed to graduate straight from children’s books to adult. Or is that my memory playing tricks with me??

In between commenting I did manage to write these posts:

• my favourite novella/short story
• resources for bloggers (writing and images)
• literature from other countries 
• audio books and podcasts
• introductory post talking about my favourite books from last year and this year

Looking Ahead

Next week will be just as busy though in a different way.

Today I’m going to be at the Hay Literary Festival listening to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talking about her latest book Americanah which I finished reading last night. I didn’t want it to end, it was that good.

Monday sees the start of the next MOOC course for which I’ve enrolled. It’s on the literature of the English Country House. According to the introductory email from FutureLearn, this course will:

take you on a tour round country houses of Yorkshire and Derbyshire including Haddon Hall, Hardwick Hall, Chatsworth House, Brodsworth Hall, Bolsover Castle and Nostell Priory, and introduce you to some wonderful English literature texts. Each week we will explore a different historical period and a different theme which will include ‘Entertainment in the English Country House’, ‘Politeness’ and ‘Reclusive or Malevolent Owners’

Wednesday is our monthly meeting of the book club. This month’s choice is Wind in the Willows which I have yet to open so I’d better get cracking. Since most of the people in the group are in the 40+age group (our oldest member is 92!), it will have been many years since we last read this book. What will be interesting to discuss is how reading of a children’s text differs when you read it as an adult.

Somewhere along the line I need to start reading The Canterbury Tales which was the book I ended up with after the Classics Club spin. I’m supposed to read it by July 7 but since I don’t imagine its the kind of text you  can, or would want to, read quickly it’s best if I don’t leave it until the last moment.

So that’s my week ahead. How does yours look?