Books, Mud and Compost. And Horses.

My book is taking shape (at last - not helped by my decision to do a complete re-write of one section, hem hem). Frantic scribbling allied to my faithful winter friend, the chest infection has meant a failure on the blogging front, but I have been reading other people's. Firstly, here's Susanna Forrest on  Totilas: money talked, but the horse wasn't listening . Look! Flowers!   Seattle in Spring on Piccalli Pie. The reality of life in sub-zero Britain. More War Horse (I promise I will stop soon), but this pictorial review is too good not to share. Apologies if you've seen it elsewhere I've posted. Skip right on. Have great weekends, people. Must go back out and do more yard clearance now.

Here is the cover for Susanna Forrest's long awaited book: It's out in March 2012, and you can read more about it here : Susanna says it far better than I ever could so have wimpishly not attempted to summarise. Linda Newbery has written about the danger of horses, and some of what was going on in her mind when she wrote The Damage Done . And if you like commercials, there are some gems here at Fran Jurga's The Jurga Report . And at Piccalilli Pie, the purples of a North Western American autumn .

If you work in the retail trade, the customer whose connection with the real world is iffy at best will not be news to you.  Jen Campbell works in a bookshop, and she writes here about some of her more memorable customers. I don't get a lot of direct customer contact, being an internet seller, but my particular favourite variation of this is the person who contacts me wanting to sell me books.  When the email starts off by stating the seller has already looked up their books on Abe/Ebay/Amazon (subtext so DON'T  YOU DARE ROOK ME, you evil grasping witch), my heart sinks.  If they follow it up with a list of the prices they want for their books, all of which are taken from the least reasonable end of the spectrum, I know there is no hope.  If the absolute top price for a book is, say, £50 for a pretty decent copy, then I, who earn my living from selling books, am not going to pay £50 for a frankly rather tatty one.  I wouldn't pay £50 for a pretty decent o...

Fellow book dealer Barbara Fisher at March House Books has just started a blog:  she has a lovely piece about finding a poem for a customer (you don't get that kind of service at Amazon), illustrated with some Margaret Tarrant drawings.  Margaret Tarrant isn't I must admit my first choice of illustrator, but I do wonder quite what fate awaits the child at the beginning of the post .  Innocent watery splashes up his lovely clean socks, a Dawn French-esque disappearance or something else entirely? Susanna Forrest writes about hunting horses (something I have been thinking about lately as I read Elaine Walker's Horse, which mentions the disappearance of the horse from North America some centuries before they were re-introduced by the Spanish.  Were they eaten to extinction?) Piccalilli Pie has a gorgeous post on the Bushtit - what we in the UK call by the technical term of LBB (Little Brown Bird). Speaking of Roundup, for years I have resisted the siren call of...

Christina Wilsdon remembers time and model horses gone by . Presumably these horses were sold in nice dry weather . Pony Book Chronicles takes time off from books to contemplate gardening.  Day lilies might be thugs over there, but in my garden they are tender sensitive souls, who shy prettily away from the idea of flourishing and then wither away to nothing. Stephen Foster writes about the appeal of the book rainbow .

Elizabeth Taylor, star of the film of National Velvet, died on 23rd March .  I bet Velvet would have turned up 15 minutes late to her own funeral too (though possibly  not for the same reasons). I just can't get into cupcakes; just TOO sweet, but I am happy to drool over Rachael's chocolate brownie recipe . Something to read that is not a pony book: Juxtabook reviews   The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag  by Alan Bradley. Thanks to Rosemary Hall for telling me about Bartabas, who has only just swum across my ken, despite the fact  If Wishes Were Ponies  has been to see it. And another thank you to Rosemary Hall for this:  get the Barney the Boat Dog experience:  try horseboating for an hour or two. Lastly, thanks to the fact I spent this afternoon finishing off the very large box of Jelly Babies left over from Christmas (someone had to) I can tell you that Jelly Babies were originally known as Peace Babies, as they were introduced ...

A few blog posts I've enjoyed recently: How to be the effective mother of a pony-mad child , over at If Wishes Were Ponies. It's still winter over at Pony Book Chronicles. Juxtabook has an epic to-be-read pile. and lastly, gorgeous February pictures over at Tales From the Village.

A few posts I've enjoyed recently: Ponybookchronicles on Saki :  who, as she says, doesn't really do  horses, though plenty of other animals. Christina Wilsdon encounters the fantastic side of life out on a walk. Bagot Books on Cornish map s I love this picture of bloodhounds at work .