I’ve been remiss in not reporting what I am currently reading; last week I finished reading Emma again and that’s when I started my Jane Austen series of blogs regarding my favourite likes and dislikes.
So to get up to date I have 3 books going at the moment; they’re not stories or novels. In no particular order; Classic British Steam Locomotives”, I loved the days of steam and steam engines, as a youth after the war I’d take a train up to London and visit the great stations and look at those magnificent engines. My favourite was the “Golden Arrow” a Battle of Britain class loco, that did the London – Paris run. I thrilled at the sight of it pulling into platform at Victoria Station. Glory days indeed. This book tells the history of steam locos from the very beginning, details of every class and illustrations of them all. A great book that you can pick up and open and start from the page you first select and go back and forth to read and see locos and trains that you know and love.
Next there’s “The Great Composers” by Wendy Thompson, which purports to be ‘An illustrated encyclopedia of the lives and works of the worlds best loved composers’ This is a very small encyclopedia less than 300 pages, printed on beautiful paper and the illustrations are first class. It’s a reference book really and I’m reading things about composers who I’ve never heard about and I’m finding it fascinating.
The last is entitled “History’s Great Untold Stories Obscure Events of Lasting Importance” by Joseph Cumming. There are no punctuation marks between any words in the title; WYSIWYG. I was given this book by somebody who obviously didn’t like me as a Christmas present some years ago. All of the 28 events listed are supposed to be true, perhaps they are, I’ve never bothered to check. It reminds me of those TV programs one sees, where at the start you read that “this program is based on a true story” after which you sit stunned in disbelief and glued to the screen.
That is this book; however it is fun to pick it up every now and again and to read some of the fantastic (in the true sense of the word) tales told in this volume!
LordBeariOfBow 