Snow!

A nice bookish day today. I went to Waterstones and was able to enjoy a half hour's browse among the new books. Not much to tempt me really, but I did buy this and also picked up my copy of this which you get free if you have a Waterstone's loyalty card, which I do. It's worth having the card just to get their free magazine, to be honest, as it really is very good, and one of the very few book magazines available in this country. Which always strikes me as a big shame.

More disappointingly I've just given up on a book. I really hate to do this but The Fade by Chris Wooding just wasn't doing it for me. It's hard to put my finger on why because I usually like this kind of sci fi novel. Partly, I think I'm not fond of the kind of female character some male authors write where she's clearly a man in women's clothes. Not much depth there at all to be honest, and the plot is dragging, 100 pages in and I'm still waiting for something to happen. It's a shame. I tend to get annoyed, not just by the wasted money, but also by the wasted reading days. I could have been reading something good!

Anyway, most of our snow is now gone although it is still perishing cold. We've been told to expect more tomorrow and Friday but, in the meantime, here're a few pics of *my* snow. I'm aware it might not look much to folk who live in proper snowy climes but we hardly get any snow in these here parts, so this was a bit special.

The first three are of our front garden.







And a couple of distance views:





And what better time to list the snowy/winter book titles I collected a few weeks ago. Some of these are wintery throughout, some just have a chapter or two and some I haven't read, so can't say. This is they:

Children's/YA:

North Child – Edith Pattou
Predator’s Gold – Philip Reeve
At the Back of the North Wind – George MacDonald
The Long Winter – Laura Ingalls Wilder
Northern Lights – Phillip Pullman
The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
Wintersmith – Terry Pratchett
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
Call of the Wild – Jack London
The Dark is Rising – Susan Cooper
The Snow Queen – Hans Christian Anderson
Winter Holiday – Arthur Ransome
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase – Joan Aiken
The Rat-A-Tat Mystery - Enid Blyton
No Such Thing as Dragons - Philip Reeve
The Dead of Winter - Chris Priestley
Magyk - Angie Sage

Fiction:

Ordinary Wolves – Seth Kantner
Dr. Zhivago – Boris Pasternak
Light on Snow – Anita Shreve
A Winter in the Hills – John Wain
The Adventures of Captain Hatteras – Jules Verne
A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
Sylvester - Georgette Heyer

Sci fi/Fantasy:

The Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula Le Guin
The Fifth Elephant – Terry Pratchett
The Forbidden Tower - Marion Zimmer Bradley

Crime:

Snow Blind - P.J. Tracy
The Virgin in the Ice – Ellis Peters
The Sittaford Mystery – Agatha Christie
The Nine Tailors – Dorothy Sayers
After the Fine Weather – Michael Gilbert
The Tenderness of Wolves – Stef Penney
Dead Cold – Louise Penny
Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow – Peter Hoeg
Ghosts in the Snow – Tamara Siler Jones
Death and the Dancing Footman – Ngaio Marsh
A Christmas Journey - Anne Perry
Raven Black - Ann Cleeves
Death at Wentwater Court - Carola Dunn
Ice Cold - Tess Gerritsen
Mystery in White - J. Jefferson Farjeon


Short Stories:

The Triumph of Night - Edith Wharton

I'm sure there must be a *lot* more. Looking at the list it does seem that two genres are well catered for - YA fantasy and crime. I'm sure there must be many more in other genres? And I'm racking my brains trying to think of the Georgette Heyer where the hero and heroine get stranded because of snow. Is it Sylvester? Or am I thinking of some other regency romance?

Anyway, thanks to all who contributed and anyone that can add to the list, please do.



Our back garden. A trifle parky to be sitting on that seat, reading, at the moment but it's a lovely spot in the summer.