Recent Book Activity

"In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others."
Andre Maurois
(This quatation was stolen from Hendrickje's profile and it is SO true).

Bookcrossing sounded like a fun way of getting rid of books I no longer read or have never read, but when I got addicted to RABCKs I knew I was a gonner...

I like to read biographies in general and veterinary biographies in particular. George Mikes makes me smile or laugh aloud each and every time. Susan Allen Toth has visited all the same odd and unlikely places in Britain where I have been and all those I never reached + curiouser and curiouser: she has even bought the same books!! How many of you can claim having "Down among the Donkeys" in your shelf or have visited Ken Jones's seal hospital in Gweek, Cornwall? (That was one of the places I didn't get to). I love her travel books England as You Like It, England For All Seasons and My Love Affair With England.
Occasionally I have the urge to read detective stories.

I used to work in a bookshop and even got a diploma to prove I'm a qualified book-seller, but in that trade you also have to sell the not-so-good books and in the end I changed careers into vet nursing.
My alias "Kirjakko" dates from that time. In Finnish Karjakko is a person who looks after cattle (karja) and thus Kirjakko has to be a person who looks after books (kirja).

I love to travel in Britain, where second hand and charity bookshops are plentiful and even if Amazon has made it all too simple to find out-of-print books, there is nothing quite so exciting as to find a much craved book or even a book you didn't know existed from the shelves of a nice sh-bookshop. Hay-On-Wye is a heaven, but the prices are a bit dear.

At home I have Glenda the Glen of Imaal Terrier who loves to roll on her back and have her tummy scrached while I read... An ideal companion! Edit 2nd Sept 2011: I now also have Glenda's granddaughter Manne, who at the moment looks like a b-class black giant schnauzer puppy (with legs missing)...

I don't mind at all if you decide to keep a book that has travelled through my hands. Bookcrossing is about not losing track of the books that have left your nest and if they find a loving home, all the better. To have and to hold, to love and to cherish - that is what books are for!

I descend from a long line of hamsters and apart from books I collect get-well-soon cards where the patient is an animal (occupational oddity). And Thomas Kinkade cards are always appriciated.

"One way to fill your life
is to spend it
reading about how
other people filled theirs."
- Ashleigh Brilliant -