Well, I'm back ...

...and it's been so long that I have almost forgotten how to blog. No sooner was I recovering from the car crash - plaster off and walking on crutches - than I caught swine flu -and so did my daughter. There have been other problems too which I can't write about, because they involve someone else. Suffice it to say that the last six weeks or so rank among the most difficult of my life. Housebound as I have been for much of the time and bedbound too for some of the time, books have been a vital comfort and escape. So thank you, Garrison Keillor, for LEAVING HOME which I read in the gaps between being wheeled around between the consultant, the X-Ray department, the plaster room, and the physiotherapy department at Chesterfield Hospital. Thank you E. B. White for the hundreds and hundreds of witty and humane letters that you wrote: perfect for sick-room reading. Thank you, Martin Edwards, for THE ARSENIC LABYRINTH, which made me forget everything for a while. Thank you, Jane Austen, for MANSFIELD PARK, which I re-read with immense pleasure. Thank you, Sara Paretsky, Ann Cleeves, and Tess Gerritsen for the fine crime fiction which beguiled many weary hours.
This blog is about books, but I want to say thank you to all my lovely friends who took me out and saved my sanity, drove me to hospital and my reading group, e-mailed me, sent me cards, even did my ironing. I'm a lucky woman.