I meant to mention earlier the new books that recently came in the mail. Thanks to a reader who left a comment in a post where I described a book I read about a long time ago, but had failed to write the title and author down (or did write it down and promptly lost it, which I am known to do quite often). I knew approximately what it was about, but had never been able to find the actual title. Here is the book! Another Time, Another Place by Jessie Kesson:
"In the summer of 1944, three Italian prisoners of war are billeted in a remote village in the north-east of Scotland. For most of the locals, their arrival is of little interest, hardly disturbing the quiet routines of their isolated crofting community. But for the young, farm-worker's wife who has to look after them, the Italians bring with them a tantalising glimpse of another, more exotic world, reawakening dreams of a future far removed from the harsh realities of crofting life."
It was also made into a movie (the book was published in 1983), which I may have seen first and then discovered it was made from a book (or vice versa). In any case, I remembered the story, but nothing more. When I found the title, I was surprised that it was still in print and readily available. Don't be surprised if I sneak this book in between other reads sometime soon as it is a slim story of only about 120 pages. I hope it lives up to my high expectations!
In order to get free shipping (you can never order just one book, right?!), I also got two books about books/reading. As I am enjoying Anne Fadiman's writing so much at the moment, I thought I would try her other book of essays, Rereadings: Seventeen Writers Revisit Books They Love (though it looks like it is less her writing, and essays by other authors, still looks good, though!). I don't reread enough I sometimes think. Perhaps this will inspire me to reread a few of my favorites this year. I also now have Michael Dirda's Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments, which appear to be some of his columns which were published in The Washington Post's Book World. They look short and wide ranging in terms of bookish topics. I have a feeling this will be the perfect follow up to Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader!
Bloglines
I need a little help with Bloglines. I am finding that I am not always getting the most recent posts to blog feeds that I am subscribing to. I'm not sure why that is? I was surprised to click directly into some blogs today to find they had been updated, but I did not see them when I went into my Bloglines account first thing this morning. I wonder if I chose the wrong feeds? Sometimes there were several feeds to choose from, and I would usually just choose the one with the most subscribers. I am also finding that I will read through all the posts, but not select any to save, yet I will go back into my account later and the same posts are still showing up. I was hoping to avoid some of this repetitiveness. Am I doing something wrong here? I wish there was a way to save posts, but put them in a folder so they didn't pop up with all the newer unread posts. I am also finding that I won't see posts for a blog , but then all of a sudden posts from the last four or five months will show up. I will have 90 new posts to read and I always think surely not everyone updated at once? And generally they didn't--I am getting all the old posts for one blogger. I guess I am still feeling my way here. I do like Bloglines a lot, though. I'm finding it better to check in a few times a day--over the weekend I let a few days slip by and had masses of posts to read (due in part to some of the problems I listed). Any ideas as to what I am doing wrong?