On my bookshelf ....

I thought you might be interested to try and read the spines of these books. When I see a photo of a room with books, I always try to make out the names on the edges. I like to see what books people have - perhaps you can discover something about them from their choices.


At my school library there was a novel called, "Books do furnish a room." No doubt you have read it. I thought it would be interesting, but I've not yet got round to finding out (after almost thirty years, sadly). There were two other books that caught my eye, and stay with me in memory, and guilt (I've not read these either) - "Death comes to the Archbishop" and "A ring has no end**". Brilliant titles. Both of these, I believe, have recently been republished so maybe I'll get round to reading them.

Our book group is reading Naples 44 by Norman Lewis. I borrowed it from the library and read the first seventy, and last ten, pages. So you can tell from that what I thought of it - a bit too much interest in reporting the moll . e .station of wo. men in wartime. (Typed thus to try to avoid per. verts from googling me.)

**PS - Actually, now I think it was Vice Versa by F W Anstey.

The beautiful names of moths

Apparently someone is trying to count the moths in Britain. Good luck to them. The most interesting moth I've seen (maybe because it is out and about before my bed time) is the humming bird hawk moth. I saw it a few years ago in the Isle of White and the year before last in my own back garden. It looked just like it says on the tin.

I have a wonderful book on moths, with a great many pictures of little brown-winged creatures - "Moths of the British Isles by Bernard Skinner". I am too stupid to be able to actually identify anything with it but I love it for its descriptions and lists of names.

I wonder where these very poetic names sprang from - so many original and fascinating tags. I will give you a few examples, though if you were to look up their pictures you would almost find a little brown-winged creature staring back at you, defiant beside his label.

Don't these sound lovely? - The Anomalous, Goosefoot Pug, The Geometrician, Northern Drab, Four-dotted Footman, Flounced Rustic, May Highflyer, Autumnal Snout, Beautiful Carpet, Confused, Conformist, Essex Y, Tissue, Weaver's Wave (I had to include him), Oak Lutestring, Old Lady, Passenger, Vapourer etc etc.