Joke, courtesy of Mr F!

After three years of marriage, a wife was still questioning her husband about his lurid past. "C'mon, tell me," she asked for the thousandth time, "How many women have you slept with?" "Baby," he protested, "if I told you, you'd throw a fit." The wife promised she wouldn't get angry, and convinced her hubby to tell her.

"Okay," he said, then started to count on his fingers. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven - then there's you - nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen . . . "

Parochial reading?

It was only when I went to fetch The Turn of the Screw yesterday that I realised I had hardly visited the American literature section of the library. I like modern American writers, in particular Harlan Coben and Jeffrey Deaver, but for literature I rarely stray away from British writers. I must be more adventurous!

Another ghost story

I was in the mood for ghost stories once I had read The Mist in the Mirror, so I decided to re-read The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. James is not an easy writer and I really had to concentrate on what he was saying here. It was well worth it though, to try and pick up all the nuances and ambiguities of what he was saying. Are the ghosts really there, or is everything in the imagination of the governess? There is no easy answer, and critics have been debating this for about 80 years . This is a story which repays reading and rereading. It really draws you in.

Day 58; Book 56