Saturday haul

We had our habitual trawl of the charity shops over in Evesham this afternoon, and certainly had a very successful trip. M found a copy of 'Chocolat' (on good old fashioned video for 20p) that we have been searching for for several months now, and Tish blew some more dosh in La Senza, on pretty but totally superfluous items of underwear. I came home with a few books:

• 'Notes from an Exhibition' by Patrick Gale, a title I have read about in several places, enough for it to stick in my mind.
• 'A Quiet Belief in Angels' by R.J. Ellory, on my 'to find at the library' list, but I had failed to write down the author so could not find it, and there it was for a mere £2.
• 'Mary Reilly' by Valerie Martin, picked out because of 'Property', that I read and reviewed back in February
• 'The Clothes of their Backs' by Linda Grant, picked out because of 'When I lived in Modern Times', that I also read and reviewed back in February.
• Finally, 'Uncommon Reader' by Alan Bennett, because I have nearly bought it on numerous occasions, I like the idea of someone writing a story about the queen, making her more real, and it was only one pound.
• The other book in the stack is 'The Rehearsal' by Eleanor Catton that arrived by post this morning from my mum, for me and M to read together.

Apart from 'The Rehearsal' these will all be going to the bottom of the TBR pile as I am working on some blokes at the moment. I confess to tending rather heavily towards women writers, so when Gerry (at book club) suggested Philip Roth I was definitely up for the challenge, and we are reading 'American Pastoral' (currently very slow going). I also have J.P. Donleavy's 'The Ginger Man' next in the heap.

Then this evening M and I had a nostalgia evening and watched 'The Breakfast Club'. Well nostalgia for me anyway, since it is a very 1980's film. For those of you unfortunate enough to have never seen this film it follows one Saturday in the lives of five disparate young people, obliged to attend a tedious school detention, for disparate reasons that are revealed as the day progresses. From their scattered corners of the adolescent universe they find themselves colliding with each other as they share thoughts, change attitudes and discover new experiences. There are some wonderfully funny moments, and the resident teacher is as foul and objectionable as they are permitted to portray, and apart from the terrible makeover Molly Ringwald gives to Ally Sheedy, you get a very satisfying ending. (DVD available from any decent charity shop near you.)

And finally I have to just send you over to The Felting Needle, where my blog title has inspired some wonderful creativity .... it's nice to think that people get their food for thought in all sorts of different ways.