(Old luggage at Arley railway station on the Severn Valley Railway – Wikimedia)
Hi everybody!
As we are spending a few days away in the family, I’m busy preparing our luggage but on the eve of our departure I feel, as I always do on such occasions, very frustrated not being able to squeeze more things in my suitcase. I should learn to travel light but I simply can’t!
Worst of all is the problem of the books! My Kindle should have solved it but I must admit it has NOT though it has become a whole library in itself.
Some time ago, on opening my Kindle, my son exclaimed: “Mum ! You can’t have downloaded all these books !” Yes I had and some new ones have even been added since. 😉
The problem is that I can’t do without my old books and many of them can’t be downloaded.
Finally, I travel with only one suitcase of books (a little one) and, as you can see in the article below, it could be worse 😉
“In the age of the e-reader, we’re crossing India by train with six huge suitcases full of books. They’re bound in kangaroo leather, transform into bookcases, and collectively weigh a quarter of a tonne. The porters heave them onto trolleys and name an outrageous price. We make a great disgusted show of unloading the trolleys. After much arguing in three languages, the porters throw the cases back on and push the trolleys into the station at a run.”
All in all, my travelling library has never been so light. Here’s a glimpse of what I’ve put in it.
Starting from Beatrix Potter’s Scotland my ‘travelling library’ will include mystery books featuring this author.
So, among the chosen few are the well expected and fascinating biography of the English writer who loved so much Scotland, and on a lighter and very different genre The Tale of Hill Top Farm and The Tale of Holly How which are the first two volumes of ‘The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter’ by Susan Wittig Albert.
The homage of a very popular Texan author : a series of eight books whose heroïn is Beatrix Potter herself and some of her fictional creatures. I fell in love with these lovely little mystery books which read easily, like Agatha Christie’s detective novels.
The China Bayles Mysteries (written as Susan Wittig Albert)
The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter
- The Tale of Hill Top Farm (2004)
- The Tale of Holly How (2005)
- The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood (2006)
- The Tale of Hawthorn House (2007)
- The Tale of Briar Bank (2008)
- The Tale of Applebeck Orchard (2009)
- The Tale of Oat Cake Crag (2010)
- The Tale of Castle Cottage (2011)
I’ve just received The Tale of Hill Top Farm and began to read it at once. You’re immediately carried off to Near Sawrey, the village in the English Lake District where Beatrix Potter bought Hill Top Farm.
Susan Wittig Albert fell in love with Beatrix Potter’s books when she was a child and has never forgotten the joy of reading the stories and imagining the lives of the animals beyond Miss Potter’s pictures.
After careers as a mother, a college professor, and a university administratory, Susan went on to become the best-selling author of many books for young people and mysteries for adults.
“I love working with the life of Beatrix Potter,” Susan says. “She was a remarkable woman who patiently worked against adversity to create exactly the kind of life she wanted for herself. A gifted storyteller and artist, a determined countrywoman who helped to preserve the natural beauty of the Lake District for generations to come, Beatrix Potter is a woman we can all admire.”
The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter are Susan’s special tribute to Miss Potter, whose delightful stories and charming pictures continue to bring joy to the young at heart.
Susan Wittig Albert lives with her husband Bill on thirty-one acres in the Texas Hill Country near Austin, where they have cows, sheep, geese, dogs, and cats.
Source: bookinwithbingo.blogspot.fr
Also in my travelling library; several books about Aubigny-sur-Nère and the Auld Alliance for we intend to stop at Aubigny during our travel. Among them :
The Auld Alliance by Hubert Fenwick, La Verrerie ‘Le Château où le temps se repose’ edited by Histoire et Patrimoine, Aubigny-sur-Nère, A guided walk by Jacques Gaurant and the Museum of Old French-Scottish Alliance guide-book
The Masked Fisherman, a collection of short stories by George Mackay Brown which is one of my favourite ones by this author.
HV Morton In Search of Scotland and Scotland Again together with a map of Scotland 🙂 A very good way to make a virtual journey around Scotland! Better than a guide!
Mairiuna’s Amazon Kindle © 2012 Scotiana
Below are the book covers of the Scottish books I’ve recently downloaded on my Kindle but I have many more on it : books by Kenneth White, Iain Crichton Smith, Alexander McCall Smith,John Muir, Alistair Moffat, Hugh Miller, James Boswell, Arthur Conan Doyle, JM Barrie, James Hogg, Walter Scott, Margaret Oliphant, John Prebble, Andrew Lang, Mary Queen of Scots by Antonia Fraser, Ron’s Fergusson biography of George Mackay Brown and a very interesting old biography in French of Robert Burns…
The Long Delirious Burning Blue
Chain of Destiny Nigel Tranter
The fact that I carry all these books with me doesn’t mean that I will read them all in the following days, far from it, but at least it gives me the opportunity to choose…
EarthLines 5 May 2013
My travelling library would not be complete without a few magazines.
The last three issues of Keltia magazine…
and I would not leave without taking with me The Scots Magazine though its format is too large now for me to put in my handbag! The cover of the September issue is particularly beautiful and it reminds me that we had planned to go to Kelburn on our last journey to Scotland…
Of course, this a very personal selection of books but I hope to have made you feel like reading some of them.
And now back to my luggage… we start early tomorrow and I’m not at all ready 😉
Bonne lecture !
A bientôt.
Mairiuna
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