Two good reads

Today I'd arranged another Balsam-pulling day on the Black Lynn.  The day began dull and when I arrived on site it began to drizzle, but fortunately got better through the day. Over the course of four hours we had eight adults and two youngsters come along, which was very good going for us! Still more to do and the seed is getting riper, but I think we'll have one more go next Sunday!

Got home to realise that I hadn't got a Blip and was too tired/lazy to go in search of one, so I eventually Blipped a couple of novels that I've recently read and enjoyed. 'The American Boy' is a wonderful story by Andrew Taylor, set in Regency London and Gloucestershire - it took the author two years to write and left me wondering how on earth such a book could be written! The 'American Boy' in question was Edgar Allan Poe; he's not an obviously major character in the book and is described by a later reviewer in the novel itself as 'being like the pintle of a hinge' - barely visible, but the still point around which the whole business revolved'. Definitely recommended!

The other book, 'The Reader', is a German novel by Bernhard Schlink, better known by some maybe as a film starring Kate Winslet. I haven't seen it, but I must. The story is aimed at the post-Holocaust German generation and follows the life of a boy who has an affair with a much older woman only to find years later that she's accused of war crimes having been a camp wardress. She's found guilty and sentenced to a long term in jail. Also recommended - a very good book, I thought.