How are you doing after the first week of lockdown easing? It’s been the Easter school holidays here and I’ve taken the week off work in order to be with my daughter E so I’m writing this sitting in the Market Square, waiting for her to come out of dancing class. It’s a warm day… Continue reading Soundtracking
Author: SusanEBarsby
March reading round up
Was it just me or did March feel like about three months long? And it was such an up and down month too, with the anniversary of lockdown casting a shadow over everything and finishing with this glorious spring weather. Still, here is what I read this month: The Heart’s Invisible Furies – John Boyne… Continue reading March reading round up
Writing for wellbeing: Journalling
Last week I was talking about free writing and writing by hand, and I guess the most popular and useful way of putting this into practice regularly is by journalling. Journalling seems to have come into its own recently – a few years back I don’t remember seeing as much about it but I suspect… Continue reading Writing for wellbeing: Journalling
Writing for Wellbeing: free writing
At work recently I’ve been running workshops about Reading and Writing for Wellbeing, an hour-long slot where we explore the concept of bibliotherapy in a basic sense to help you through your daily life. It’s been a while since I’ve done any training or development courses for anyone so it’s been a bit of a… Continue reading Writing for Wellbeing: free writing
Books from my Mother
For Mothers’ Day I thought I’d look at reading and mothers, or to be specific, how my mum is woven into my reading history. To start with there are the books she read to me, especially the ones she read to us over and over again. Beaky the Greedy Duck and Rapunzel, and for my… Continue reading Books from my Mother
Finding focus
How are you doing? It’s March already and I don’t know about you but this year feels utterly odd. Not wasted exactly, but time has a very different meaning these days. My daughter has gone back to school today. She had that one day in January in school, but otherwise has been at home with… Continue reading Finding focus
February: a short month with many books
Somehow I’ve read 11 books this month. And while one of them was a re-read, the others were new. Three of them I read on the Kindle app which means I didn’t read them as thoroughly as I would have done on the page. Still quite pleased with it though. Home Cooking – Laurie Colvin… Continue reading February: a short month with many books
The Duchess of E 95th Street
Over on Twitter, I seem to have spent quite a bit of time recently discussing Helene Hanff with fellow book lovers. I guess it shouldn’t feel strange that book Twitter talks about famous book lovers but Hanff isn’t so well known that she would be mentioned as much as I’ve seen her name pop up… Continue reading The Duchess of E 95th Street
January: a round up of books and assorted nonsense
Is this it now? The passing of each month no longer feels like a mere date change but some kind of endurance test where we stand, licking our wounds and looking uncertainly at the future. How have you got on through this, the longest month? Well, I hope. What has got me through January? What’s… Continue reading January: a round up of books and assorted nonsense
Reading for Wellbeing: Comfort reads
I don’t know about you but this seems the perfect time for some comfort reads. I have a stack of old favourites that I re-read every so often for comfort and companionship but once in a while, it can be good to seek out new comforts too. Today I’m going to discuss two that you… Continue reading Reading for Wellbeing: Comfort reads
Susan E Barsby 