Of Mice and Maltesers - the new thread for Round Two

[artifarti]

Hello everyone and welcome to the new thread for Round Two!

To recap, the basic rules are:
No chicklit
No abuse memoir type stuff
No horror
No hardbacks

Auto/biography is allowed as long as it?s not anything too obscure (or crap, obviously).

Chocolate to the value of about £2 each time.

Here is the list:
artifarti
aristocat
Dysgu
PistachioLemon
TheBuggerofSuburbia
stickylittlefingers
AgentProvocateur
LolaLadyBird
Itsjustafleshwound
pooter
muddleduck
LadyBee
FlyingMonkey
Maria2007
johnworf

johnworf is a new member so be nice!

As before, please email me at artifarti at hotmail dot co dot uk with the initials of your chosen book and author (e.g. ROTN by TH for Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy) so I can check there are no duplicates. I will assume all your name, address and chocolate details remain the same unless you tell me otherwise (johnworf, please send me yours)

Please do this on or before July 10th. Then I will email you all with the name of the new person you are to post the books to (we are reversing, for anyone that hasn't picked that up.)

No-one has indicated that they want to drop out so I am assuming not at the moment.
I have now read all the books so I am thinking about which was my favourite - so many good ones, a difficult choice.

aah, I think I got the wrong end of the stick... Pooter may not have sent the books on yet. That would be a much better scenario !

I have been carrying on the spirit of M&M though - eating lots of chocolate and reading outside my comfort zone a bit. I read another of John Worf's author's books last month and enjoyed that. Made me realise I haven't been to a museum in Paris since I was a teenager tho. My DC are aged 4 and 7 - how long do you reckon til it's worth taking them? I want to goooo...

Sorry everyone, life has got a bit distracting recently and I haven't been on here in ages. I have just posted a book on this week (Respects). JohnW's will be the last book I receive before my own.

I'm happy to try and email everyone but didn't get much response last time I tried from some people.

aristocat - JohnWorf's
artifarti - no book

Hope you're all well. I didn't read a book at all for about three months but am now back into the swing of things! Reading Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty at the moment and enjoying it.

AP - none
SLF - none
Dysgu - ???
aristocat - JohnWorf
artifarti - none

Any more for any more??

HI ladies,

I've not had books for two months. Probably a good job seeing as maria already has 3 stacked up

Can't remember who posts to me. Arti if you can recall who posts to me then they have x 2 to post on to me.

xxx

There seem to be a lot of missing MNers in this book swap. Should we think about calling it a day and starting another one with those who are still posting - what do you all think?

Artifarti, if you want a break from the admin side of things, I'm happy to do it. I'm going on holiday soon - no sign of this heatwave in Glasgow. It's been cold and wet since about the end of April - but just PM me if you want me to do anything.

There seem to be a lot of missing MNers in this book swap. Should we think about calling it a day and starting another one with those who are still posting - what do you all think?

Artifarti, if you want a break from the admin side of things, I'm happy to do it. I'm going on holiday soon - no sign of this heatwave in Glasgow. It's been cold and wet since about the end of April - but just PM me if you want me to do anything.

hi AP - weirdly and coincidentally, I had thought this morning that a book I'd been reading might be to your taste, and since neither of us has had a sniff of a book in months I might just send it to you with some choc! So yes, given that I was going to be all rebellious and just start sending books and choc to random people, perhaps a new bookswap list would be a better idea. I'm certainly in, given that I have clearly developed a strange compulsion to send books and chocolate to people, thanks to this group... better keep it under control

Well, that's me and you then! I am going to France on Monday with a pile of books - including some (A Fine Balance) that I took last year, and maybe the year before, but didn't read. I'm also going to read my first Thomas Hardy in solidarity with my oldest DS who has to read it over the summer for Higher English.

Hopefully, when I come back in mid-July, there will be more people interested in re-starting this circle.

I'd still like to be involved. I've been a bit rubbish over the last few months after a shitty start to the year but rediscovered my love of reading whilst on holiday - hurray and phew!

How about I send a bcc email out to everyone, basically saying, okay, let's call this one a day, please please let me know if you have a book and we will try and get them all back to their owners. I suspect some may be lost forever but so be it.

Then we can get this show on the road again!

So that's three of us! aristocat where are you? I'll bet you're in!

Email duly sent.

ap - if you would like to take over admin duties, that would be great. I did so well the first year... Hopefully we will have rounded a few up by the time you get from hols.

I might email the people from the first round, as I promised I would but unless anyone violently disagrees, I can't be bothered with new people. [does that make me horrible?]

I was in the first round and would love to rejoin (Have actually quite missed it!!) - can I be included????

Hello fleshy - welcome back (although I am a little spooked by how you turned up before I'd sent the email! Are you psychically channelling me?!)

Happy to do admin, and happy sticking with those from rounds 1 & 2 only. It doesn't matter if we don't get 12 people - quality not quantity!

I've not got a book at the moment, and if I don't get my original book back, it's no big deal. Looking forward to starting again!

arti of course i want to be in ...... this second circle did go crazy didnt it? as AP wrote i am not bothered if my book doesnt make its way back to me either.

the book i have ATM is JohnWorfs however i am a RL friend (through MN) and i have her postal address so can easily send it directly to her.

:: salutes AP:: our new organiser

Hello ladies,

I would like to be counted in for the next round if that is ok.

thanks in advance aristo for getting my book back to me - MWAH!

Hurray, lots of people! So far that makes:

(captain) AgentProvocateur
aristocat
artifarti
johnworf
stickylittlefingers
ItsJustaFleshWound
Dysgu (emailed me to say she's in)

Hi All - long time, no (virtual) see!! Would love to be back in for the next round. I have definitely missed the monthly arrival of new book and chocolate (hope you're still doing the choc by the way or may reconsider?!!)

Itsjusta - I still have your book from round one and will send to you, I promise. Have been meaning to return it with chocolate for the past year but never quite made it .

Oh, how exciting {easily pleased emoticon} ....

hello Lola and itsjusta welcome back ladies

yes, chocolate is still a priority!

The sad thing is that I left because I wanted to start some of the books on my bookshelf, but all I have seemed to do is just add to the pile !!

Looking forward to getting going!

Thanks!!

well that's good news :)

AP - have a lovely holiday! Hope you enjoy losing your Hardy virginity (tee hee!)

Welcome back Lola.

Ooh, yes, enjoy Hardy. I love him, he's one of my favourites. Even the misery-fest ones are great.

Shall we aim for an August 1 posting date? That gives us a month to round people up, decide on books, email out details etc. AP - how does that fit in with your hols? I am happy to send out details as one last duty if you can't do it. Or if everyone is okay, I will forward my table (I know, I'm sad) to AP and she can do the do.

Have already chosen my book!

Hi Arti. Would it be a huge faff to list the books you had in round two to make sure that Itsjusta and I don't replicate any with our choices this time round?

Sounds good. Though I must admit that I will be most surprised if my choice was on the list ! DISCLAIMER: It isn't too obscure (I think!!)

I can't, I'm afraid, post a full list - people only sent me the initials and I haven't received all of the books to read. I'll start a list of the ones I remember and then other people can add to it:

My Cleaner by Maggie Gee
One Day by David Nicholls
The Children's Book by AS Byatt
The Post Office Girl by Stefan Zweig
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
Island Madness by Tim Binding
The Way Home by George Pelecanos
The Catastrophist by Ronan Bennett

Two others that I remember are:

I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith
The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh.

A posting date of 1 Aug is fine by me. I'll be back by 20 July so will have time to get things organised by then.

Will we have the same rules as before - no chicklit, no abuse, no horror, no hardbacks?

So far, there are eight of us:

AgentProvocateur
aristocat
artifarti
johnworf
stickylittlefingers
ItsJustaFleshWound
Dysgu
LolaLadybird.

If you could email me the initials of your chosen book and author, and your MN name, by 20 July, I'll make sure there are no duplicates then let you know the name and address and - most importantly - the chocolate preferences of the person you are sending to. The email account I'll use for this is ali41w at googlemail dot com.

Arti, if you could forward me your table (that sounds very organised - I'm not sure that I'm worthy of filling your head prefect shoes!) that would be great.

I'll start a new thread for round 3 now.

Can't wait to get a book and chocolate again - I've really missed it.