The Three Rs

Reading, Writing and Receiving.  I know!  It's supposed to be Arithmetic, but I try to avoid numbers especially those on bank statements!  Listening doesn't start with an R so I looked for a synonym and found receiving.

So what am I receiving?  What am I listening to?

On Sundays I listen to the preacher from my church.  During the week I listen to podcasts from Matt Tommey.  On Tuesdays he interviews artists of all kinds and on Fridays he does something called Five Minute Mentoring.

What am I reading?  Or re-reading?

I've just finished re-reading 'Stay the Path' by Bobbie Houston and 'The Gifts of Imperfection' by Brene Brown.   I like to read books very quickly so have to keep re-reading them to be sure I've taken in everything.

I'm also re-reading the D.I. Nikki Galena series on Kindle Unlimited, having just finished re-reading the D.I. Munro series by Pete Brassett.  Next on my list to re-read are Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti books and another great series, set in Venice, by Philip Gwynne Jones.

What am I writing?

Well, this blog obviously.  I'm also writing two blog posts on creativity for the church blog.  In addition I have set up a zoom & WhatsApp group of writers and poets from church where we encourage one another in our writing.  Here's a poem I wrote earlier!

What am I watching?

I've just finished watching three weeks of the Tour de France.  Despite not having a bike myself I love watching cycle racing.  Strange or what!  Last week Sky Arts moved to Freeview so now I'm watching lots of programmes from there.  There was a great documentary on Madness over the weekend.  The group not a condition!!!!  And tomorrow Bake Off starts - hooray!

I realise that's four questons I've asked myself.  And watching doesn't begin with an R.  Reviewing was the nearest R word I could find.

I've loved thinking about R words, rather than the R rate.  How about you?

What are you receiving, reading, writing, or reviewing?

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Reading List

I thought I would show you some of the books I have recently read, recently bought and recently downloaded.

First, two books I've just finished reading.

Reading currently

Just arrived in the post

And the downloaded collection on the Kindle App on my iPad.

In between I'm reading detective fiction!

Should keep me going for a while!

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

70 books

I came across this reading challenge website, Hotchpot Cafe.  In amongst several challenges there is one to read books that were published in the year you were born.  I thought it sounded intriguing so I looked up those books which were published in 1949.

So that's let the cat out of the bag!  Yes I will be 70 this year so I thought I would challenge myself to read 70 books off the published in 1949 list.

There are 200 books on the Goodreads list for the year so I chose the following 70.

1. 1984   George Orwell
2. The Intelligent Investor   Benjamin Graham
3. The Lottery and Other Stories   Shirley Jackson
4. The Hero With a Thousand Faces   Joseph Campbell
5. Crooked House   Agatha Christie
6. A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There   Aldo Leopold
7. The Weight of Glory   C.S. Lewis
8. Arabella   Georgette Heyer
9. Selected Poems   William Carlos Williams
10. The Third Man   Graham Greene
11. The Little Sister (Philip Marlowe, #5)    Raymond Chandler
12. Sexus (The Rosy Crucifixion, #1)    Henry Miller
13. Tales from the Perilous Realm   J.R.R. Tolkien
14. Upper Fourth at Malory Towers (Malory Towers, #4)    Enid Blyton
15. Diaries, 1910-1923    Franz Kafka
16. Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret    F. Howard Taylor
17. Paroles   Jacques Prévert
18. A Short History of Decay   Emil M. Cioran
19. The Black Stallion and Satan (The Black Stallion, #5)   Walter Farley
20. To Hell and Back   Audie Murphy
21. The Emigrants (The Emigrants, #1)   Vilhelm Moberg
22. In a Dark Wood Wandering: A Novel of the Middle Ages    Hella S. Haasse
23. And Both Were Young    Madeleine L'Engle
24. The Myth of the Eternal Return or, Cosmos and History    Mircea Eliade
25. The Origins and History of Consciousness   Erich Neumann
26. Green-Eyed Monster (The Prada Plan, #3)    Ashley Antoinette
27. Brat Farrar   Josephine Tey
28. The Fuzzy Duckling   Jane Werner Watson
29. King Solomon's Ring   Konrad Lorenz
30. Jesus and the Disinherited   Howard Thurman
31. The Skin    Curzio Malaparte
32. Love and War (The Prada Plan, #4)   Ashley Antoinette
33. The Mountain of Adventure (Adventure, #5)  Enid Blyton
34. Unto a Good Land (The Emigrants, #2)    Vilhelm Moberg
35. The Important Book    Margaret Wise Brown
36. The Second Confession (Nero Wolfe, #15)    Rex Stout
37. The Historian's Craft: Reflections on the Nature and Uses of History and the Techniques and Methods of Those Who Write It.   Marc Bloch
38. Trouble in Triplicate (Nero Wolfe, #14)   Rex Stout
39. The Third Man & The Fallen Idol   Graham Greene
40. Movie Shoes (Shoes, #6)   Noel Streatfeild
41. The Sweet Science   A.J. Liebling
42. Eastern Approaches   Fitzroy MacLean
43. Men of Maize   Miguel Ángel Asturias
44. Funeral Rites   Jean Genet
45. Happy Times in Noisy Village   Astrid Lindgren
46. Miss Silver Comes to Stay (Miss Silver, #16)    Patricia Wentworth
47. A Wreath for Rivera (Roderick Alleyn, #15)    Ngaio Marsh
48. Little Boy Lost   Marghanita Laski
49. The Wooden Horse   Eric Williams
50. Kinfolk: A Novel of China (Oriental Novels of Pearl S. Buck)   Pearl S. Buck
51. Jeeves & Wooster Omnibus: The Mating Season/The Code of the Woosters/Right Ho, Jeeves (Jeeves #9,7 & 6    P G Wodehouse
52. The Thread That Runs So True   Jesse Stuart
53. Vittoria Cottage (Dering Family, #1)    D.E. Stevenson
54. My Friend Maigret (Maigret #31)    Georges Simenon
55. Tales of Deltora   Emily Rodda
56. The Little Mermaid and Other Tales    Hans Christian Andersen
57. The Portable Voltaire   Voltaire
58. The Rockingdown Mystery (Barney Mysteries, #1)    Enid Blyton
59. The Lady's Not for Burning   Christopher Fry
60. The God That Failed    Richard Crossman (Editor)
61. The Secret Seven Collection    Enid Blyton
62. Complete Poems Of Robert Frost, 1949     Robert Frost
63. Poor Man's Orange    Ruth Park
64. Killers of the Dream     Lillian E. Smith
65. The Best of Wodehouse: An Anthology    P.G. Wodehouse
66. The Wanderer    Mika Waltari
67. Brief Lives   John Aubrey
68. Coral and Brass    Holland M. Smith
69. Complete Poems    Edith Södergran
70. A Writer's Notebook     W. Somerset Maugham
71. This I Remember    Eleanor Roosevelt
72. The Bells of Nagasaki    Takashi Nagai

I actually own the Robert Frost poems so will have to start there.  When I eventually find my library ticket I'll see what books I can download and then visit the library.  I haven't been there for a while.

Here's hoping I manage to read all of them.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Reading Books

I used to love spending time reading books.  I'm not sure why I don't do it as much as I used to.

I saw a blog post about needing a reading area to trick yourself into reading more books, but actually I didn't think it particularly applied to me but the post was interesting.

I also read about a 17 for 2017 book challenge.  But I didn't accept the challenge because I thought setting a number might set me up to fail.

I have a Kindle App on my iPad and I download lots of free books - particularly fiction - but don't necessarily read them.  I tend to buy non-fiction books, particularly craft related ones, but then look at the pictures rather than read the words.

So what have I bought so far this year.  And how much have I read of them!!!??

Stitching the Textured Surface by Lynda Monk & Carol McFee

Read quite a bit of it.

Reclaimed Textiles by Kim Thittichai

Dipped in and out for various techniques!

 

Born to Create by Theresa Dedmon

Working through it slowly

Craving Connection from (in)Courage

Unopened!

The Daniel Plan 365-Day Devotional 

Unopened!

Adventures in Seeing by Kim Manley Ort

Working through it slowly with a group on Facebook

For Roger's birthday in January I bought him

Map Addict by Mike Parker

Roger's still reading it

The Wild Rover by Mike Parker

I've finished it!

For Christmas I bought him

The Pie at Night by Stuart Maconie

I've finished it!

This is my most recent purchase
Globejetting by Dave Fox

However I have read about 6 novels on my Kindle.  I like crime stories and have been taken lately by the books of Wendy H Jones.

So basically I've read 2 proper books in just over 3 months.

What sort of books do you like to read?    How many have you read this year?   Let me know in the comments below.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice