Next Shelf of Books

This is a slightly random selection, but that's how I read them, I try to put some proper brainfood between the lighter ones.

      Cecelia Aherne:If You Could See Me Now  is a light hearted novel Laura suggested, about a child and his    invisible friend, from the friend’s point of view. A network of Ifs support troubled children or terminally ill adults.  All goes well until the I.F.  falls in love with Mother. Probably not great literature but a charming story.

 Dalrymple:Nine Lives is an unusual anthology of lives of fringe religious figures in India, many started as outcasts and became highly respected and influential figures.

Davies:The Origin of Live is a fairly erudite book, with many theories on how and where we all started, possibly from space in comets, safely protected from harmful radiation, possibly deep underground, or around black smokers. He covers the evolution of complex molecules, membranes, RNA & DNA. As in later evolution all is driven by cut-throat competition.  The problem of the origin of the first life however was not solved, that’s a bit of a tall order.

     Garfield:Just My type sounds a bit daunting, a history of fonts and typefaces, but it is fascinating. Another treasure trove for QI geeks!  I was intrigued to find how old some of our fonts are, for example Bodoni is from the early eighteenth century, Garamond almost from the birth of printing in the sixteenth.
 & was first used by Marcus Tiro in 63BC,  @, the sign for an amphora dates from around the same time and has changed interestingly through unit price to our familiar email meaning .

    

Better late...

At last a real tomato!

Ladakh 11 Dragons and Quirky!

Doesn't need much explanation. It's a real treasure trove for the dragon hunter.

In some cases, something is definitely found in the translation

and the decorated lorries artistic gluttony is a treat.

The last few are Nek Chand's famous Rock Garden in Chandigarh, I saw the beginnings when I was there in 1978, but it now covers many acres, and in the filed of "outsider Art", i.e. untrained, he's quite renowned. The whole thing is made from broken fragments of glass bangles, china, household goods and a huge imagination. Antoni Gaudi would have been proud of him, and I think Lewis Carroll would have loved the green-eyed cat

Ladakh 10 River Crossings

We had many river crossings, occasionally even on bridges. The most intrepid was thigh deep, 1/2 hour off a glacier, bracing. 

Ladakh 9 Shopaholics?

What me?

...but the smells, colour and just differentness are very appealing.

Ladakh 8 Camp

The walking was hard, but the camping pretty luxurious, a brilliant team set up camp and looked after us with hot drinks soon after arrival, supper of soup, variety of main courses and a pud. Given the portable kitchen, the cuisine was spectacular, including Birthday cake and momos (Tibetan steamed dumplings)

Lunch was usually a pre-cooked picnic, with a giant Thermos of soup to start, a good way to get some of the 4 litres you need to drink in the high dry air.

Just occasionally the weather was unkind to us!