Books?

Being the cheapskates that we undoubtedly are, we don't buy many books. Although I have bought several over the years that we have been in Luxor, they are mainly tales of olden day Egyptophiles like Edward Lane and Amelia Edwards, and have been bought in order to find out more about the very strange and very different lives of the people and the place!

Nevertheless, since we have moved to Luxor, I have become a "reader", maybe even an "avid reader". We use the hotels as our libraries, mainly the Etap where the stock of books are to be found outside at the corner of the main building, on the way to the pool.

Also, some of our guests leave their "holiday books" behind when they leave, as they wouldn't fash to take them back home. (fash: to "be bothered", as in "'e wadn't fash te carry it 'yem; so 'e hoyed it doon the well". From the NE song "The Lambton Worm".) These also usually end up at the Etap. Tutti Frutti also usually have a selection of reading material, what magazines Freda gets either go there or to our friend Alison at the Nile Palace. Very little is wasted here, it all gets used again and again!

I've no idea why, but I've had three books off the trot about things Shakespearean. The first was called "The Revenger" (cannot remember the author) about court killings and stuff in Shakespeare's time, I found it enthralling and couldn't put it down, really great stuff! The next one was entitled "The Shakespeare Secret" written by J.L. Carrell.(Lauded as an "International phenomenon"!) This was a good story, basically about a modern-day quest for this "secret" by very learned and famous Shakespeare academics, jumping at times between the two time zones. (The story, that is. Not the academics.) Quite thrilling at times, and rather gory, but spoilt by having a Shakespeare brainbox quoting "All that glitters is not gold", which as all my readers will immediately recognise (as did I) is a misquotation of Mr Shakespeare's "All that 'glisters' is not gold". Another unforgivable faux pas was the bit where she likened a certain situation to when Pharaoh's daughter 'hid' Moses in the bulrushes!

Never mind, the story was OK!

The one which I am busy with at the moment, is another by J.L. Carrell, "The Shakespeare Curse" much of the same, with one or two characters revived from the "Secrets", but this time set mainly in Great Britain (mostly Scotland, actually). Still quite gory and fast paced, but it puts in a few minutes here and there in between cleaning and shopping. (And blogging, haha)

Don't worry, I've no ambition to become a literary critic! I know that I make loads of factual errors here in my own little world, but the difference is that nobody is paying me to write this stuff, as well as the fact that very few actually read it!!!