Cats, cake, Pym, Kipling & bookish decisions

My Barbara Pym mug has arrived & much tea has already been sipped from it. In honour of the occasion, naturally I have to reread Excellent Women (the Folio Society edition even has a silver teapot on the cover).

But, I also want to reread Cold Comfort Farm after reading an article or a link that I now can't find. I can find this article in the Guardian about the joys of reading Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers. Interestingly, the author of the article read Gaudy Night first & wasn't a fan of detective novels, although she went on to read the other Wimsey novels. I can see why someone who didn't like detective novels but did enjoy novels about academic life, writers & Oxford would enjoy Gaudy Night. Luckily I reread Gaudy Night just last week so I don't need to reread it again just yet. I would like to find some time to watch the TV adaptation again though.

Then, thanks to a link on Facebook, I discovered this terrific radio program, part of the celebration of the 125th anniversary of Agatha Christie's birth. Jessica Mann talks to Janet Morgan, Julian Symons & others about Christie. It was first broadcast in 1982 as part of the Queens of Crime series. I wish I could hear the other episodes but I do have Mann's book, Deadlier than the Male, about the Queens of Crime, which was rereleased as an eBook last year. If only I can squeeze it in somewhere.

I was reading an article in History Today (last March's issue, there's no way I'm up to date with History Today) on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (they'd won a History Today award) & came across a mention of Kipling's short story The Gardener. I have the story in this collection so pulled it off the tbr shelves. It's now sitting with two Tolstoy stories that were recommended somewhere & The Executor by Margaret Oliphant, which is the story that begins her Carlingford Chronicles. As the first sentence of The Executor is "The woman was certainly mad" said John Brown - I need to read on as soon as possible.

These are the books I've pulled off the tbr shelves in just the last month or so that were definitely going to be next. Nearly all these books were chosen in response to an article, a review, a movie (Suffragette), a longing to read a Scottish book (Return to the West), reading another book (Gaskell's life of Charlotte Brontë by reading Claire Harman's life of Charlotte Brontë). Angela Thirkell is there because I keep preordering the Virago reprints of her books but not actually reading any of them. The book on Evelyn Dunbar is there because I read the Persephone posts about her late last year when they had an exhibition of her work in the shop. I love Alison Weir's biographies & always drop everything to read them but at the rate I'm going, the paperback of The Last Tudor Princess will be out before I get around to it.

Then, this arrived, the latest British Library Crime Classic, Murder of a Lady, by Anthony Wynne. It was a preorder so I didn't break my book buying ban. And it's set in Scotland and I love the cover. The castle looks like Glenbogle from Monarch of the Glen, doesn't it?

Then, I read a post on Sue Hepworth's blog about enjoying life & going with the flow, not worrying about achievements but doing what you want to do. So, I decided to just let the next book decision take care of itself. Maybe I'll even get back to that March issue of History Today... 
Here's a picture of a cake I made on Monday with more of the zucchinis that are going mad in the garden at the moment. I also used some of the yoghurt I bought by mistake at the weekend. I finally found a brand of Greek yoghurt without cream (why put cream in yoghurt in the first place?) But, instead of buying the Natural, I bought the Classic which has sucrose in it. Much too sweet for me. So, I searched online for a zucchini & yoghurt cake & found this one at Chelsea's Messy Apron.

No rambling post would be complete without a cat photo. So, here's Phoebe looking angelic & fast asleep on my bed last weekend.