Bookish Fun

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I was having a chat the other night to my lovely friend Natasha, and we were bemoaning the lack of really good 'book chat' in our lives. She was looking for a course to attend where she could study literature, but didn't want to enrol in an university course due to cost and time commitments.

So, I thought I'd gather all my favourite bookish resources together if you're interested in having more high-quality book time in your lives. Please feel free to add any you find interesting in the comments, and I'll update it.

If you're keen to have a study experience, you must have a look at Yale Open University's courses. Yale provide audio, video and written transcripts of a few of their first year courses, and they are so wonderful. I'm halfway through listening to The American Novel Since 1945 and it's excellent: the lecturer is so articulate and insightful. A mindblowingly great free resource.

If that's a bit hardcore, you might like to listen to Slate's Audio Book Club. I like to pretend the critics and I are sitting at a coffee table and chatting - they are just so personable and deliciously clever. I've already raved about KCRW's Bookworm before - it's a must-listen.

Lastly, I have also really enjoyed this podcast on creative writing - it's really helping so far.

I usually try to buy my books second-hand or on eBay. But when I can't find them or they're new, I go to Book Depository. I am a new but fervent convert - they have free shipping anywhere in the world and are quicker and cheaper than Amazon. Yippeee!

By the way, my Every Day in May today might well be some creative writing. I'll see how I go!