toms, I can’t really comment on our local bookshops because, in a word, there ain’t none. I confess that I and others like me are partly to blame, because we tend to look online in the knowledge that the price will be considerably lower. That said, I did use our late lamented shop, if I wanted something in a hurry. In central Londond there is at list one large bookshop with reading spaces, rather than reading rooms.

My main reason for posting is to share your delight in the fact that your grandson is an avid reader. Both my great-nephews fall into that category, although the 4-year-old can’t read yet but loves handling books and being read to. The younger of the two was born when his elder brother, already a keen reader,was 10. It was uncertain how he would react on the arrival of the new baby, having been king of the castle for 10 years. After a quick and trouble-free birth, their mum was home within 48 hours. Far from throwing a hissy fit, on that first morning and on many subsequent ones, to give his mum some extra time in bed, the elder boy quietly planted himself beside the wee one’s cot and started to read to him. The family, including me, are sure that it was this that has made the 4-year-old a trainee bookworm. Now he has started school we are also sure it won’t be too long before he can read for himself.

In that case, toms, I am also a soft old sod. I fill up every time I think of it. It’s happening right now. To change the subject a bit, I’ve just skimmed through this thread and I don’t know why I haven’t posted on it more often. Much of my reading has been the result of recommendations from friends, so it will be fun to follow up the suggestions of fellow members the 5:2 brigade.

At the moment I’m having to read stuff relevant to the MA History of Art I’m doing as an essay is looming. However I’ll get back some time soon with books and authors I’ve enjoyed. And maybe a few I wish hadn’t bothered!

toms – The MA is purely for my own intellectual satisfaction and to some extent it’s an attempt to keep the ageing brain in gear. Even so it has had a very positive effect on the day job – freelance translator specialising in arts and media. I started three years ago doing a Graduate Certificate in History of Art and Architecture, a conversion course for people with degrees in other disciplines – mine was in Modern Langages – which was pretty hairy as it took you to first degree level in a single academic year. Despite an iffy start I finished with a Merit (good 2.1 equivalent) which qualified me for the MA. Then I took a year out and started the post-grad degree in October 2012.

It is gratifying to find that despite the bar being set considerably higher than for the Grad Cert I’m still getting some pretty good grades – not to mention being encouraged by a very kind supervisor to rework my research project on the Glasgow Tenement House and turn it into a book.

I love the fine and applied arts, and can be reduced to tears by a beautiful painting, object, interior or building. Sadly, though, I was born with ten thumbs and am totally useless at any kind of art or craft. My mum was pretty skilled at several crafts but all I inherited from her was bad hair and a weight problem.

To my shame I haven’t read Wuthering Heights or War of the Worlds although they are both on the shelf with a number of other English and European classics some of which are still unread. One of these days I must stop buying more books and stay away from the library until I have made some in-roads into the couple of thousand books currently sharing our home with us.

Of course I’ll do the book. To make sure I do, I’m telling everyone who will listen and have already told all the lovely people in Glasgow who made the research process so rewarding that I’ll be back bothering them in about 18 months time.
I was academic but hated school. I dropped out and got a job one half term during the first year in the sixth form. The school dissowned me and refused me a reference, although one very wise teacher told me I had the makings of a first class linguist. Years later that proved to be (almost) right. I’m pretty damned good, but not first class.
Following this I had a very interesting life, journalism, bumming around on the continent doing various jobs including teaching English as a foreign language. Then returning to the UK I went into banking where I worked for a total of seven years, during which time I got fed up with being overqualified for the jobs I was asked to do and underqualified for those I really wanted to take on.
To cut a long story short, like you I went to uni as a mature student, married without kids. I found I loved studying and researching which I turned out to be rather good at. Took a post-grad teaching qualification and stuck at teaching for about five years then took the plunge and did what I really wanted to do, become a translator, which I’ve now been doing for 24 years and still love it. The only problem is it’s a case of feast or famine (sounds like the Fast Diet!) either you are working flat out 7 days a week or there’s zilch. Sometimes you might earn £1,000 in a week, but then nothing for the next four or five. Sometimes, though, there’s a steady flow, when you’re earning money but also have the time to enjoy the fruits of your labours.
Some good news today. Him Indoors has been accepted on a course leading to a formal qualification to teach Tai Chi and Qigong (a somewhat gentler version of Tai Chi) to lifelong learners. So we’ll be studying side by side.

sylvestra:As and when the book comes out (I was about to say IF and when, but it’s definitely going to happen once the MA is out of the way) I think it will have more success in Scotland than south of the border, although it does tell several intertwined human stories that can be appreciated anywhere. Like you, as well as the house full of books we both have Kindles loaded with yet more books with, in my case, at least two-thirds still to be read. Thanks for your good wishes. No doubt we’ll each post again before you go away for your New Year week.

piper: I’m flattered. We’re talking at least 2 years ahead, but as and when… It would be lovely if fellow Fast Dieters were able to read hermaj’s literary efforts but advertising on the forum might be seen as trollish behaviour. However, I’m sure when the time comes a link would do not harm…

toms: It’s heartening to hear more about your 4-year-old. Our wee fella is at a similar stage as he comes to the end of his first term at primary school. The last time I saw him a few weeks back he was recognising letters and managing to write his name – exotically but recognisably. Like your grandkids, he and his brother are allowed limited time with the telly and the computer. For the eldest one, computer games are a reward rather than a replacement for completing his homework.

We are now seeing the results of this style of upbringing. Our 14-year-old – the one who read to his baby brother – is fairly academic, although just like great-aunt hermaj was, I bit too laid back when it comes to subjects he finds relatively easy. He’s also good at sport and is doing GCSE music, in other words a good all-rounder. He’s also a very nice young guy and if I were a 14-year-old girl I’d fancy him rotten!

Last year, I took him to the theatre as a birthday treat. We travelled most of the way by tube, which is far too noisy for conversation, so I read my kindle and he took out his book. I was reading William Boyd’s Waiting for Sunrise – highly recommended by the way – whose hero is called Lysander. Suddenly, young sir leaned over and looked at my “book” asking: “Are you reading Shakespeare?” I explained that I wasn’t, it was just the name of the guy in the book, whose parents were actors and so decided to give their son a theatrical name. Then I thought to myself a) he knows the name of a Shakespearian character and b) he saw nothing strange in his old auntie reading Shakespeare on the London Undergound. Having taught 14-year-olds who wouldn’t know Shakespeare from a hole in the ground, I was impressed.

It does sound like we were, doesn’t it! My French teacher got particularly annoyed with me. A for achievement, B for effort. I had the good fortune to take to French like a duck to water, largely thanks to my mum who as a teenager had spent holidays with extended family in France – her aunt, my great-aunt, had eloped with a Frenchman, but that’s another story – and taught me as much as she knew when I was still quite small.

Never let me go Kazuo Ishiguro. Wow.

Mulville, hello. Thought Never Let Me Go was a the most depressing book since 1984. Sorry to hear you were ill, hope you’re now well and strong. Not read The Luminaries, but it would have to be some book to keep me tied to it for 800 pages! Good luck with it and let us know how it is. Happy fasting.

‘Eck means Hell in Yorkshire dialect USA. Just checked to make sure was giving the correct info.

Haven’t read much of the thread on here but just have to say Wuthering heights seemed the least appealing book before i read it, but it is currently my favorite ever book EVER!

I read continually too. can get through one book in 24 hours so partner bought me kindle this xmas and this has helped the reading addiction. Just read 20 years a slave – felt it was an important voice coming to me from a long time ago and I felt honoured I could hear his words travelling to us through time, telling us how it was ( beyond awful in a word);

Then read sebastian faults “a possible life” which had me in tears at the last page, and i cannot recall crying over a book before, then a non stop thriller which was the last book my dad was reading before he died a month ago, and so is precious to me – he got me into crime novels when I was a kid. so what to read next? any suggestions? x

USA, never let me go – a brilliant book, please do read it. I don’t necessarily like depressing books, but they have to make me think really and that one did. Have you read Orwells 1984?
I loved it, but really it is depressing. Anyway, went to the theatre last night to see War Horse. The cleverest theatre production I have seen. Brilliant! Fasting Monday, OH away for work, really he has lost the 4 lbs he gained over Christmas break. I have not. It’s not fair!!

Kateis48, Wuthering Heights, how did a chaste clergy mans daughter ever learn to write with the passion expressed in that book. I had forgotten how good it was. Am on Jane Eyre now, want to re read a few at the moment. Will try a possible life next. Have you read Birdsong by him? Excellent.

toms mantis-yes, I am back in fasting mode, I completed yesterday on 500 cals. and feeling so much more clear headed. As for my cat, he disappeared last Sunday, some kind neighbors put up pictures and posters, and we were afraid he was
trapped or worse (we’ve had coyote sightings) Days past, then I got a call: “I have Jack only I call him —-?, ” I couldn’t
understand the name, but said I’m so happy he’s safe. Then she proceeded to tell me she’d decided he should stay in her house, he had his own room, she was taking him to the vets, and maybe he could come for a supervised visit in 2 months.
I nearly fell over when she said that, Jack is my dearest non-human pal. I was advised to go to the police, but after some less hostile negotiations she agreed to “release him”. Husband and I went over, got a tour of his elegant quarters and shook hands. Anyway Jack has been sticking close to home. So that’s the saga of Jack.

katie, I’m a big Sebastian Faulks fan and have “A Possible Life” on the shelf waiting to be read. I share you and your dad’s love of detective fiction. I have favourites among British, American and European writers. Which authors did each of you enjoy most?

And seeing your review of “Wuthering Heights”, I guess it’s about time I read it. I’m an avid reader but I’m ashamed to say too many English and European classics are sitting there as yet unread.

Kateis48, crime authors – Henning Mankell, Linda la Plant, Ian Rankin are my favourites. Read some other Scandinavian authors, but sometimes seems like they are just trying to outdo each other with more and more horrible ways to die!! Too much gore for my taste.

Hermaj, not read some of your authors. Tried PD James, wasn’t that enamoured really. So many books to read, so little time! Thanks for your kind words re my grandson. Your great nephew will love War Horse and so, I think, will you. Can’t shut up about it really. A lot of people think of a pantomime horse when you mention puppet. Nothing could be further from the truth. You do need to remember that it is a children’s story though.

Hi sylvestra,

I’m working late tonight, partly because I’ve got a lot of work to do for the day job, but mainly to take my mind off the fact I’m so expletive deleted hungry. Many fast days pass almost unnoticed but occasionally you get one like this!

Peter May’s “Lewis Trilogy” was one of my major discoveries last year. I read all three in a row and loved them, especially the way the crime investigation seemed to take second place to the relationships between people on and off the island. “Saints of the Shadow Bible” is on my Kindle waiting to be read. I haven’t read any of the ones with the new “hero”, Malcolm Fox, but didn’t he turn up in “Standing in Another Man’s Grave”? I seem to remember he and dear old Rebus did NOT get on. According to Ian Rankin in an interview with the Scotsman online today he is going to give them equal billing in his next book. Should be fun! http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/books/rankin-to-rehabilitate-malcolm-fox-rebus-character-1-3120037

BTW, I’m so enjoying wearing the lovely earrings you created and my OH bought me for Christmas. Every pair’s a winner.