Virgin Books?

I read this week that Richard Branson might be interested in the Borders chain. At first I thought that sounded OK. But then I remembered how he's just shafted all those NTL/Telwest cable customers by refusing to stump up for Sky One. Welcome to Virgin Books - but we don't sell books from Insertasmallpublisherhere as they don't offer enough discount. Hmmm.

I was delighted (not to say gobsmacked) to see that my little tirade about the state of bookselling was mentioned in The Guardian this morning. They quoted a passage in the Bloggy section of the Review. Welcome to anyone who's stopped by for a look!

Of course all the things I moaned about in my bookselling post are also very bad news for writers. If AnyHighStreetBookstore is only going to stock the top fifty bestselling authors, where does that leave everyone else?

I have been reading this week. I just finished The Lords of the North by Bernard Cornwell. Now I like Bernard. He's probably never going to win the Nobel Prize for Literature but he can write a cracking plot. This is the third in the series about Viking / Saxon Britain and Alfred the Great. However I had it in my head that this was the final part of a trilogy and was expecting it to wrap up rather neatly at the end. Suddenly, however, I realised that I was only twenty pages from finishing the book, and there was still lots of plot developing, so there was no way this could be the final one. Duh! So, Bernard, if you should happen to be reading this, could you hurry up and write the fourth one, as I want to know what happens next.

I started Priest by Ken Bruen, but couldn't get into it, so I stuck it to one side in favour of Lee Child's The Hard Way. I've not read a Jack Reacher book for a while and it doesn't appear that he's changed much in the several books that have elapsed since then.

I have been frantically spinning and knitting a scarf for my MIL's birthday. This is some of the roving I bought earlier in the week. I spun the plain cream shetland with some pink shetland and it looks just like Raspberry Ripple ice cream. Photos to follow when I've finished.

I've finished the Knit Cafe Hoody but have still to put the zip in.

Today is the end of the first Project Spectrum section. So farewell to Grey, Blue and White and a big hello to Yellow, Pink and Green. I'm hoping to be a bit more successful with these projects than I was with the previous colours. I have some great pink and yellow sock wool somewhere that I've been dying to knit with. If I could just remember where I put it....