Looking Forward

Hello! I’m Amanda Brown and I am taking over the Books At Bibby Line blog from Mark Till. This is an extremely hard act to follow: I have found Mark’s choice of text consistently stimulating, while his comments have been both illuminating and great fun. Undaunted, I am very much looking [...]

Poem of the Week

This week’s poem has been suggested to me by several BLG employees, including Katie Todd from BFS and Mark Cardwell from MHL Support. It’s a wonderful evocation of Christmas night, describing “children nestled snug in their beds” dreaming of “sugar-plums”, whilst the “chubby and plump” St Nicholas bounds down the chimney to “fill all the [...]

Poetry Advent Calendar: 23rd December

The words below are familiar to us in their carol version. However, in 1872, the lyrics were originally published as poem by Christina Rossetti (a Victorian poet) in the magazine Scribner’s Monthly, after she was asked to write something for Christmas.  
 
I like the last line: what can you give if you have nothing? – [...]

Poetry Advent Calendar: 22nd December

It’s not quite a poem – but it’s definitely a Christmas classic. Enjoy! (And sing along here)
 
 
Fairytale of New York
 
It was Christmas Eve babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, “won’t see another one”
And then he sang a song
The Rare Old Mountain Dew
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you
 
Got on a [...]

Poetry Advent Calendar: 21st December

The Ox-and-the-Ass’s Story
 
We were just about fed-up with dossers and layabouts
Making free, overnight with our stable and our straw –
Some of them plunked themselves down right under our hooves,
Half of them drunk, and twanging their guitars –
Why can’t they cuddle their kids and just keep quiet?
 
Come to think of it, this particular couple tonight
Did [...]

Poetry Advent Calendar: 20th December

The Crib
 
They are making a crèche at the Saturday morning classes
For the Christmas party: scissors and paper vie
With fingers and plasticine until there are masses
Of sheep and shepherds that kneel and stand and lie,
 
And cotton-batting angels with cellophane wings
And a golded cardboard star and string to guide it
And pipe-cleaner camels carrying tinfoil kings
And a real [...]

Poem of the Week

I’ve read this poem with a couple of groups this week. Everyone loved it, and I hope you do too. I don’t think you’ll hear anything funnier today than the lines ‘turkeys just wanna play reggae / turkeys just wanna hip-hop’. It’s brilliant if you read it aloud, so try reading it out to someone [...]

This Christmas…

The book I will be reading….
 Persuasion by Jane Austen
 
Although I love Pride and Prejudice for Elizabeth Bennett’s dancing wit, Sense and Sensibility for Marianne Dashwood’s passionate romanticism, it is Persuasion’s Anne Elliot whom I most admire. As a girl she is convinced to throw away her own happiness; as a young woman, in spite of [...]

Poetry Advent Calendar: 19th December

Although I love classics like Wham’s Last Christmas and Merry Christmas Everyone by Shakin’ Stevens, without a doubt my favourite Christmas song is Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas when sung by Frank Sinatra. The lyrics are quite poetic I think; and the refrain ‘have yourself a merry little Christmas’ is powerful in its simplicity. [...]

A Christmas Carol

Since the beginning of December, my reading groups in Liverpool, Manchester, Leicester, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Banbury have been reading a selection of Christmassy poems and stories to raise everyone’s festive spirits. One of the most popular texts has been A Christmas Carol, written by Charles Dickens in 1843. This book tells the tale of miserly Mr [...]