So I mentioned the other day that four weeks into my first online course on the Coursera platform I'm having a few doubts. That's not the whole story though, I've been exploring other possible courses, helped signed up my housemate onto a very different course to the one I'm doing and I've really changed my mind about just which subjects I'd be interested in studying with them...

I am currently reading five books at the same time, a rare state of affairs for me. I'm usually a one-book-at-a-time type reader so it's slightly disorientating to have this choice and juggle the different themes in my head when I reach for the next installment of whichever book is top of the pile. I confess I have no idea how people do this on a regular basis and enjoy it!

Perhaps it's something to do with the fact that all five books I am juggling are rather episodic that led to this situation but I'll be glad to return to one book alone once I finish this little assortment. Full reviews to come but here's what I've got a bookmark in currently...

Life has been good and busy but mostly, I've not been here on the blog because I've been busy in my newly organised kitchen. Sorry.

The backstory: I love cooking but in the last couple of years the kitchen had turned into a bit of a battleground because I was forced to share it with my ex - the most disorganised, messy and I'll-do-it-later cook I have ever met. Now that the kitchen is all spangly, has better storage and is separated up though I can't help grinning from ear to ear and just messing about making chocolate and kirsch cakes and digging out all my cookbooks...

I'm working longer hours and have spent more time than usual outdoors, sniffing magnolia trees and checking out the progress of my roses, but it's the kitchen that seduced me away from the blog rather than the garden this year. I'd say I'm sorry but with a mouthful of chocolate cake it probably wouldn't sound very sincere. ;)

I am still reading though and I am back with book reviews and bookish thoughts as of tomorrow along with an update on how the Coursera experience is working out for me. I just might start sharing recipes again too though, once I've practiced my food photography a bit more.

Hope you're enjoying spring as much as I am this year!

The 'Queens of the Circulating Libraries' is a wonderful phrase used to group together the (actually rather diverse bunch) of female authors who dominated the lending libraries of Victorian Britain and whose fans adored them. Beginning with the morally sound (and very safe) Charlotte M Yonge writing in the 1850s and continuing all the way up to the shockingly scandalous works of Marie Corelli and Ouida in the 1890s, the collection offers an introduction to each of the nine authors and then three or four snippets from each one's works to show changing attitudes to love, sex, family and issues like female education...

April has been a busy month but so many good things have happened reading-wise. Let me tell you all about the joy of book jar videos, re-visiting Zola and my rather ambitious plans for May...

Good morning all. I'm just about to start my 24 hour readathon at 11:00 BST. It's a bit late for me and a bit early for the official start time but I'm just going with the flow after a week of insomnia and migraine. It seems to have been the right call as I'm feeling wonderfully spangly right now. :)

I have fresh coffee and newly baked bread to start the day with and I have some great books to consider for today's reading - for once I haven't made a pile of books in advance. Instead I'm going to let it be my first task of the day...

So, now the housekeeping is done, I'd like to tell you a little bit about starting my first Coursera course. I've been thinking about signing up for an online course for a while but my focus is on literature, art and classics subjects and there's less courses in those subjects so I've had to wait a while to find a good fit. As is often the way though I signed up for two in February... and they overlap. Ah well, I'll cope I'm sure.

The course that began yesterday is Greek and Roman Mythology and is taught by Peter Struck of the University of Pennsylvania. Here's the introduction video...

My first online course with Coursera began yesterday and I'm going to be writing about it here under a new category so I need to do a little housekeeping...

The Fortune of the Rougons is the first book in Émile Zola's Les Rougon-Macquart series of novels, there are twenty in all. In the preface Zola said that this book should more scientifically be called Origins and it's true: there's a lot of foundation that needs to be laid for this complex house of cards. Set in 1852 and looking back to recent events, the story juggles revolutionary politics, internal family struggles, love and loss and sets in motion several relationships and conflicts that will be spun out in other, later books in the series...