Reading matter

Sometimes you can get a lucky break, and that's what happened on Sunday night when I stumbled on coverage of BBC 4's Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction. I remember watching it a couple of years ago and getting some excellent pointers to some good reads, so I settled down to watch. I was naturally delighted to see that Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise was on the shortlist, since I've already blogged about reading that recently at the speed of light. Apart from that, my pick, judging by the excerpts and discussion was The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, by Kate Summerscale, and I was delighted when it won. I took a note of it, and set off on a mission this afternoon to track down a copy. It took a while, since trying to find it on the shelves in the first two places was a nightmare (is it Crime, or Biography, or History?) and they both fessed up to its being out of stock when I gave up and went to the enquiry desk. Fortunately, the unlikely option of DuBray Books in Grafton Street came up with the goods, and I came home with the second hardback book I've bought in a very short space of time (almost unheard of for me to get anything but paperbacks).

Anyway, I look forward to a good read.

In the mean time, I downloaded and installed Movable Type to investigate its suitability as replacement blogging software instead of Wordpress which caused me so much hassle yesterday. After hours and hours of struggle, I think I'll stick with WP. Movable Type may be more secure, may well have greater potential, and may be the choice of large corporations and the like -- but I can't see it going down well with my Music Group members. It's not at all intuitive, and even with the reasonable working version which I've now got set up I don''t think it will prove suitable.

In the mean time I have now (writing this on Wednesday) back-blipped Saturday, Sunday and Monday as well.