Welcome to Book Week!

Book Week, which runs from 16-22 August, is a time to celebrate everything BOOKS! We in the Starts at Sixty community love our books and so this week we are looking forward to celebrating books and their part in our lives.

Our book section will expand to a daily blog for Book Week – that’s right: 7 different articles for your enjoyment and comment. The variety of subject matter is amazing and is provided by our Book Club regulars and guest contributors.

Program

Day 1, Saturday 16

Don Wallace, author of THE FRENCH HOUSE: An American Family, a Ruined Maison, and the Village that Restored Them All, gets us underway with Are Books the new Yoga?. You might remember we reviewed Don’s book and he kindly provided us with exclusive excerpts to print in our book section.

We asked Don to write an article for us for Book Week and in accepting, he made a very interesting comment; “I’m envious that Australia has Book Week. In Honolulu, we’re down to one bookstore in a city of 800K. Can you imagine the deprivation I go through?”
Day 2, Sunday 17

The beauty queens of the book world are today’s featured stars: coffee table books, those wonderfully illustrated volumes found in most homes. This is the first of two articles written for Book Week  from regular and founding Book Club contributor, Vivienne Beddoe.

Day 3, Monday 18

Knowing many of you read to your grandchildren, we ask the question Which Books Should be on a Child’s Book shelf?. Using research taken from her young friends, Book Club co-ordinator Karen O’Brien-Hall has prepared some recommendations and we know you will have many more.
Day 4, Tuesday 19

Valerie McCrae, writer of last Sunday’s review of The Goldfinch, and a frequent contributor to Starts at Sixty on a variety of subjects, has a given us an insight into her reading habits over the years with The Seven Stages of Woman – A Book Filled Life.

Day 5, Wednesday 20

Vivienne is back with a delightful piece about bookmarks – these little items are such a part of the book culture and she shares some special ones with us.

Day 6, Thursday 21

Last week, we published Away with Words, the first of many articles, we hope, by new contributor Penny Paxman. This time Penny is entertaining us with the “things” she has found in books!

Day 7, Friday 22

We are very privileged to have permission from the Baileys Prize for Women’s Fiction to reprint their recent article about the 20 women writers, and their books, who influenced today’s women authors. Some very interesting choices here!

Day 8, Saturday 23 (we’re a bit cheeky, adding another day, but we had an offer we couldn’t refuse!)

David Michie, author of The Dalai Lama’s Cat and The Art of Purring, both of which have been reviewed on Starts at Sixty, has contributed a thought-provoking article: “Is Mindfulness Better than Chocolate?”

… And so Book Week ends … for the rest of the population. For the Starts at Sixty community… “but wait there’s more”!

What will you be reading for Book Week? What are some of your favourite books?