Friday Meets - 23 June 2017

Greetings! While most of my fellow bloggers are enjoying the summer and sunshine, some of us here in the Southern hemisphere are freezing. No, we do not go to the gym. We read. The brain needs exercise too. 

Meet me on Friday @ Friday 56 for a bit of Book Blogger Hop to kick-start the weekend with Book Beginnings.

Friday 56 is hosted by Freda's Voice. For this date, you will need the following:

• Grab a book (Yes, any book. But it might get you to your other Friday activities a bit quicker if you just grab the book you are currently reading)
• Turn to page 56 or 56% on your e-reader
• Find a sentence or two (your other Friday activities might determine this)
• Post it!
• Remember to post your link on Freda's Voice and to visit the other guys in the linky.
• And don't forget to list the title of the book and the author as well.

I had a good reading month so far and I am on schedule. That "monthly reads" shelf on my Goodreads profile proofs to be helpful. I've only deviated on one or two books, but they brought so much pleasure, I don't care. I have My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier lined up for the weekend. Been looking forward to this one for quite some time.I have a 1951 edition to read from and the cupboard is stacked with hot chocolate and my blanky is waiting on the coach. Gosh, sometimes life is just good.

Page 56:

"I arrived home the first week in September. The news preceded me - the Italian had not lied when he told me he had written to Nick Kendall. My godfather had broken the news to the servants and to the tenants on the estate. Wellington was waiting for me at Bodmin with the carriage. The horses were decked in crepe, as were Wellington and the groom, their faces long and solemn."

Sure does sound if someone died here. Or there. Ooh, can't wait to start this one. Let's have a look at the opening lines.

Let's join Gilion @ Rose City Reader now for Book Beginnings. Every Friday we share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.

They used to hang men at Four Turnings in the old days. Not any more, though. Now, when a murderer pays the penalty for his crime, he does so up at Bodmin, after fair trial at the Assizes. That is, if the law convicts him, before his own conscience kills him. It is better so. Like a surgical operation. And the body has a decent burial, though a nameless grave. When I was a child it was otherwise. I can remember as a little lad seeing a fellow hang in chains where the four roads meet. His face and body were blackened with tar for preservation. He hung there for five weeks before they cut him down, and it was the fourth week that I saw him.

How times have changed. Books don't come like this anymore. Murderer's conscience doesn't come like that anymore either. And a young lad who has to lay eyes on a four week old corpse will now need life-long therapy. 

As always, I will also be joining the Book Blogger Hop hosted by Ramblings of a coffee addicted writer. Every week they will pop a question that you need to answer. Post your answer to your blog, enter your post to the linky provided, make yourself a cup of coffee and go visit the other blogs in the list. 

Today's questions: If you are at a really good point in a book and the phone or doorbell rings, do you stop reading or let the phone or door go unanswered?

My Answer: My pets are well trained. And I don't have a doorbell.

 

But seriously now, my biggest "disturbance" is not the doorbell, a sleigh-bell, a cat-bell or the phone ringing. It's my husband!! Really. Seriously. It happens time and time again. I will be in the most important place in a novel, just before you find out who the killer is - or even worse, I will have only 2 pages left, and then he wants attention. Or go for a walk. Or he's hungry. *Sigh* Oh, what to do. I don't need to train my husband to do household chores, I've got that under control. It's my DO NOT DISTURB face I need to work on. I still struggle with that one.

Mareli 

Talk to me! -  What are you reading this weekend? What do you do with an annoying disturbance a when you are reading?