An Early Night

I went to bed this evening at the unusually early hour of nine o'clock, hoping to sleep off my (still) sore neck and this stupid tiredness. It feels strange but good to be tucked up and blogging, and when I am finished I will read some more of my annoying but strangely compelling detective novel; "The Risk of Darkness" by Susan Hill, the third in the Simon Serrailler series. My parents' house was full of books, including lots of crime novels and science fiction, both of which genres I feel very at home with, like putting on a comfy old pair of slippers. Both my Mum and Dad were big readers and my Dad romanced my Mum by taking her copies of The Lord of the Rings when she was in hospital in the 1950s. My tastes in reading were definitely influenced by the huge variety of classic and contemporary novels that I was able to explore; as a child I read all the Laura Ingalls Wilder novels (Jennifer and I read "On the banks of Plum Creek" to Mum during the night before she died) and the Jane Shaw "Susan" novels which I thought were hilarious. As I grew older I discovered and fell in love with Evelyn Waugh, Thomas Hardy, Robert Graves, Samuel Pepys, and many more. One of my favourite authors when I was a young girl was Betty MacDonald who wrote "Anybody Can Do Anything" and "The Plague and I". I can't explain why I loved her books so much, except that I found them to be funny and beautifully written and I felt as if the author was talking to me personally. I would have loved to have met her and was sad when I found out that she died before I was born. Anyway I have long moved on to choosing my own books and enjoying the recommendations of friends, but I do appreciate the good start I had thanks to my bookish parents.