MarysLibrary

I Discover Enid Blyton

Recently one of my bookish on-line British friends mentioned, and not for the first time, her love when young of Enid Blyton books. This time I decided to find out what the fuss was all about and so I bought the first of the Malory series, First Term at Malory Towers for the Kindle.

So I got it and I read through it quickly as it's a book apparently aimed at girls 9 to 12 years old. And it was delightful. Comfort reading for lockdown days.

I thought I'd go ahead and read the other 5 or 6 books in the Malory series, but the Kindle versions do not exist. Nor, it would seem, does the Kindle version I bought a week ago. 

Now if this were a Harry Potter book I'd know what happened - Hermione decided these books were taking up valuable time and space and deleted them. But Malory isn't that sort of school. 

So where did they go? The old cloth and paper copies are in the three figures - all those old girls who are now grown and can afford to pay hundreds of pounds or dollars for childhood memories I guess. 

So back to binge reading Agatha Christie.

 

 

Quarantine Reading

In the last few weeks I've been reviewing the books I'v'e read over the years concerning viruses, epidemics, quarantines, and the history of plagues. 

The best? The must-read for those quarantined?

Daniel Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year (published in 1772, but describing the plague year of 1665) You will be shocked at how much the experience of the middle classes in London during that terrible outbreak of Yersinia pestis resembles our experience with the Wuhan virus. It, too, came from China; the bacteria just took longer to get to Europe than our virus.

I first read this many years ago, say 50 or 60 years ago . . . and it was not boring exactly, but I didn't find myself breathlessly turning pages. This time through it's gripping. Defoe's brother and his family hightailed it to the countryside to avoid city contagion. But Defoe decided to stay in the city and watch over their warehouses and other property. 

So did he catch the plague? Read it and find out.

(Yes, I've been away for a while. But a virtual poke in the ribs by Margaret Simpson has me thinking about all the books I've been reading and enjoying for the past while and those that I should share. Thank you, MS.)