Taking a (temporary) break from lambasting you-know-who..!!!
Reading for pleasure is something I still do from time to time; all the while trying not to feel guilty about neglecting the other stuff that needs attention.
Still, a few of those ‘lighter-weight’ authors do come up with some absolute nuggets from time to time – as well as more heavy-hitters like Taylor Caldwell.
M C Beaton often puts interesting quotes at the beginning of the chapters in her Hamish MacBeth series, Rita Mae Brown has had me delving back in time to look at the American Constitution and last (although not least), Lilian Jackson Braun recently had me running for my late father’s Royal Readers books to check out something one of her characters (Jim Qwilleran) had said. (The Cat Who Saw Stars)…
Anyway – and I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t know this – the title of Thomas Hardy’s book ‘Far From The Madding Crowd’ was influenced by a line in Thomas Gray’s ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ – written over a century before.
One lives and learns.. 🙂
(Mind you, it doesn’t take much to plunge down rabbit holes; oh, the hours I waste on the internet looking up miscellaneous bits of information that only just occasionally are actually useful).