The Book Trunk

This site is dedicated to my grandmother, who ran away from her Norwegian home in 1915 and arrived in England with nothing but a trunk full of books

Haphazard by Starlight – Poems for Advent

The Adoration of the Magi, by Andrea Mantegnadd – celebrate Christmas by reading TS Eliot’s ‘Journey of the Being a bit of a magpie, I look at what people write about books, then steal authors and titles for my own use. Sometimes I require instant gratification, which is where the Kindle comes into its own. Or, if…

chrisharding53

December 23, 2014

Advent, Christmas, Haphazard by Starlight. Janet Morley, poem a day, poetry, winter
Short Story Sunday: The Devastating Boys

Well, we’ve had our ‘Christmas’ already, last weekend, when the Darling Daughters and their Boyfriends came home, and we had a Christmas dinner, and crackers, and presents, and wine, and sang along to Christmas music, and played silly children’s games, and had a thoroughly wonderful time. My Mother didn’t join us as originally, because she…

chrisharding53

December 21, 2014

Elizabeth Taylor, Girl in a Red Dress Reading by a Swimming Pool, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Sir John Lavery, The Devastating Boys, The Penguin Book of Modern Women’s Short Stories
The Novel Cure…

Well, it’s a very long time indeed since I’ve posted anything here – almost a year in fact, and I’m not sure why. I just reached a point where I felt I’d had enough of writing and blogging, and where writing about books, and reading other people’s reviews, seemed to have somehow become more important…

chrisharding53

December 7, 2014

Ella Berthoud, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, reading in bed, reading on trains, Susan Elderkin, The Novel Cure: An A-Z of Literary Remedies, travel sickness
Short Story Sunday – Telling Tales with STW

I’m not sure if a Gainsborough portrait of Arminella Blountin the character actually exists, so here’s his painting ofhis daughters chasing a butterfly. This week a short story much more to my taste – A View of Exmoor, by Sylvia Townsend Warner, whose work I adore. Here the Finch family, dressed in their best, are…

chrisharding53

January 19, 2014

A View of Exmoor, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Sylvia Townsend Warner, The Persephone Book of Short Stories
Poirot’s First Case

Poirot at work: Actor David Suchet as /Hercule Poirotin the Chanel 4 TV series. I sat and enjoyed a Poirot-fest over the weekend, thanks to ITV3, which screened enough back to back episodes to satisfy the most die-hard addict. So having immersed myself in the television version and watched the ever-wonderful David Suchet, I decided…

chrisharding53

January 15, 2014

Agatha Christie, Crime Fiction, Poirot, The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Haphazard by Starlight – Poems for Advent

Short Story Sunday: The Devastating Boys

The Novel Cure…

Short Story Sunday – Telling Tales with STW

Poirot’s First Case