Judith Johnson > Recent Status Updates

I’m well aware of quite a lot of this story - tomorrow will be our 48th fortnightly vigil for Gaza in our small Welsh town - but even so I am having to read this book earlier in the day as if I read it at bedtime I would be too angry to sleep.

It strikes me, reading M. Myriel’s Notes on the Disposal of My Household Expenses, that Monsieur Jeff Bezos might take some good counsel from the Bishop’s good example…

I intended to start reading this great work yesterday, it being the anniversary of Victor Hugo’s birth but was delayed by a nasty virus which, incredibly unusual for this inveterate bookworm, made me too weak to even read! Quel horreur!

It may be great art, but! On page 132 and feeling rather depressed! 🤪

Proving a source of much enjoyment! Our poetry group did a reading this morning in our little wet windy town in Wales, and the audience was much amused by my reading Roger McGough’s poem Dylan the Eavesdrop!

Ffiw! Hanner ffordd trwy'r lyfr nawr!

‘Stories layered with stories, all laid down in the mind to become part of being.’

Sadly, this is a book I’m only reading now to get to the end faster.

McLoving this!

What a stunning poet, whose work is even more powerful when you see him performing it. His poem The First Night on Earth is deeply moving.

It’s remarkable how many protagonists of classic children’s literature are orphans, and also how many authors of these were orphaned themselves (or lost their mothers or fathers) as children, including of course Tolkien and CS Lewis,

I’ve shelved my reading of Tolkien’s letters, and will return to them once I’ve read Carpenter’s biography - it seems a shame, otherwise, to read the letters without a prior understanding of what Tolkien’s life was as he was writing.

What an incredibly hard working life poor Tolkien had! As the mother of a teacher and the wife of a writer I’m amazed he managed to write at all!

Llawer o waith caled! Wff!!