The Fine Art of Procrastination...

I don't think I can be bothered to write about this.

Maybe.

No.

So, here's a nice picture instead.

The Price of Magazines, Just Buy a Book Instead!

I rarely buy magazines these days, the same with newspapers, the availability of free information on the internet means that I don't really need them any more.  

But occasionally, I will check the news-stand when out shopping, just to see if there are any magazines that I can remember.  I was doing this the other night in my local ASDA and one thing stood out about all the magazines that I looked at, the price. 

I am old enough to remember a time when you could buy a magazine for a pound or less.  

Okay, that was quite a while ago, but I think the last time I paid full price for a magazine it cost me £1.99.  Most of the magazines that I picked up the other night, just looking mind, were in the £4.95 to £9.99 price range.  Many of them had pages of adverts as well! I couldn't help but think, does anyone actually buy them? 

We are living through yet another cost of living crisis, but ten quid for a magazine?

You could buy a book for the same price. 

In fact, books can often be found for a lot less than a tenner.

Now, I like a bargain book.

I've written about the charity shop that I go to that often has a five books for a pound sale. I've managed to get some good books that way, but these days you can buy brand-new books for less than the price of a magazine. 

ASDA also had a selection of books for sale, many of them were of the bestseller variety, and they were priced between £1.99 and £4.99.  

Online you can find many priced at £0.99p or free, especially from indie, self-published authors.  

Magazine or book?  I think I'd rather buy a book.

Thanks for reading!

The Steps of Balamand University

I was on Twitter (or X as Musk would prefer it) this morning when I came across this picture.

The steps of Balamand University, Lebanon.

How original and clever. Wonderful. 

Don't really need to say much more.

Charity Shop Book Haul: Another haul

I made another visit to a local charity shop that regularly runs five books for a pound sale.  This is what I bought this time.

1) Pause by Daniella Marchant. How to press pause before life does it for you.  Has a 3.79 rating on Goodreads.

2) The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.  Has a 3.73 rating on Goodreads. I don't really buy all this Law of Attraction stuff, but I thought that given how it cost twenty pence, I would finally read the book. It also has something to do with a pair of boots I found recently.

3) Happy by Derren Brown.  Has a 4.06 rating on Goodreads.  I see a trend here.  Three self-help type books in a row.  Interesting.

4) The Meaning of Sport by Simon Barnes.  Has a 3.78 rating on Goodreads. I like sport, so for 20 pence this was an easy pick.  We will see.

5) A field Full of Butterflies — Memories of a Romany Childhood, by Rosemary Penfold.  Has a 3.67 rating on Goodreads. The lowest Goodreads rating here. Having written a memoir myself, (well, the only book I've written) it is a genre that I like, a real life story. 

So, plenty more to read and all five for a pound.  

The Bestselling Books of 2023 (So Far)

Here are the bestselling print books for the first half of 2023 released by Publishers Weekly.  It does not include audiobooks or e-books. 

Perhaps not surprisingly the top spot is taken by Prince Harry with Spare, 1,179,379 books sold.

Colleen Hoover has seven books in the top 20 with almost four million in sales.

 For the full list, go to Publishers Weekly.

Going For a Walk, and the Satisfaction of Picking Blackberries

I'm fortunate in that there is a local park just across the road from where I live.  It is a country park where you are invited by the local council to walk through woodland, grassland, wildflower meadows and open water. It's home to many varieties of birds, where the ducks, geese, and swans will come and greet you in the expectation that you might feed them. A local canal and river also runs through the park.

 

There is something else about this time of year on the park. It is fantastic for blackberry picking. From around July to the end of August there is a feast to be had, if you like blackberries that is. I do, as a healthy option for breakfast or in a smoothie, and they are free. They are just starting to ripen now, although the full on black ones are still hard to find, every day there are more and more. 

That Friday Feeling…

Here are three things that we may never see again.

1) A pay packet with actual money in it (but not much money).

2) England winning the World Cup.

3) House prices this low (I think this one is a certainty).

And they were still being built with a chimney!

But I suppose how low pay was - see number one, five grand would have been a lot back then.

These Boots Are Made For Walking: Something Wild and the Law of Attraction — Part two

A few days after I found my “new” walking boots, I was looking through my book collection for something to read.  I say collection, it's not that large, perhaps two to three hundred books. It is mainly the ones that have survived various culls over the years. Books that I have read, or unlikely to read, I often give to charity shops.   

Books can take up a lot of space.  When I was a young boy, I lived near a couple of neighbours who had large book collections, all in book cases that covered the walls of a room in their house.  Between them, they could have opened a bookshop. I wondered if I would ever have the same, not a bookshop, but a house with a room or a study with lots of books.  The answer has turned out to be no. The books I have tended to be housed in different places, some stored away, hidden away.  Occasionally I would remember to go and look at them and pick one to read.  

This time I settled for one that had been sitting in a pile of books for some time.  It was in used condition and I had probably picked it up at a charity shop or car boot sale. It was something that I had looked at many times and put down, never quite being in the mood to read.  It was a book by Cheryl Strayed called Wild. Part memoir and part travel adventure, it tells of her journey to walk the Pacific Coast Trail.  I thought to myself, it's about time I read this, or at least a few chapters to see if it is worth reading.  I can usually tell after two or three chapters if a book has got me interested, and I really want to read more.