Let's hear it for.....

.......our wonderful independent bookseller. Hooray!

In Hexham we are lucky to have Cogito, a family business, selling new books. We do also have a Waterstones, but the discerning among us don't frequent it. I love this shop and try to buy there when I can. Moving over to a Kindle has reduced my actual book buying of course......

I wonder how many of the books on the recommended list you know or have read? You need to go large. I've just finished The Goldfinch, which I thought was an excellent read, with flawed characters and plenty of time to consider them and the twists in the plot. I haven't read the others. My other recent favourite is Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo.

At the bottom right of the window you can see the first book by Will Nicholls, just 18, and a very keen wildlife photographer. I sat in his hide to see red squirrels a while ago. Next to that is a book of paintings by Paul Stangrom. These are landscapes, but I photographed one of his Whitby Abbey series last year too.

I'm always interested in other people's book recommendations. Do you have any good ones to share?

PS Managed to go to Photo Club tonight and it was good to see the range of work in our O competition entries. A fabulous shot of a red shoe won the colour and an excellent shot of a stile leading into a strong landscape won the mono.