Persephone Reading Week : Wrap up

It's the end of the second Persephone Reading Week - I hope you've all enjoyed the opportunity to read Persephone books together and to be inspired to read more from other people's posts and reviews. I'm sorry for my absence over the weekend but Claire has done a sterling job keeping you all up to date. Thanks for your lovely comments on my What a lot of books post!

I'd like to say three big thank yous. Firstly, to Nicola Beaumann at Persephone who kindly gave us the books for our giveaways and without whom there would not have been a Persephone imprint and thus a Persephone Reading Week! Secondly to my wonderful co-host Claire from Paperback Reader who has organised and posted and generally been inspirational. And thirdly to all of you for joining in - it's been fantastic to see quite so many people get involved, especially people whose blogs are new to me.

Finally, the results of the competitions! Claire is announcing hers separately, but the winner of my WW2 themed quiz is HJ Elliot - I had 8 entries and she was the first one drawn! Email your details to me or Claire and we'll get Doreen sent to you.

I had some interesting answers to my film giveaway where I asked you to tell me which Persephone book you'd most like to see filmed and why. Most people agreed that the books are generally quite "internal" and involve focus on individual characters rather than the plot driven books which make good films (obviously not enough people have read Expendable Man or The Hopkins manuscript which I think would be fantastic on the big screen!). Anyway, my favourite answer was Merenia's:

"I think The Village would translate well to screen. It is not terribly 'internal' and the clash of social classes in a small English village would make good viewing. This novel is all about characterisation and would lift easily into a film script. The horrid Mother Wendy, would give some bite to the story. Also the immediate post WW2 time period would be interesting. Ohhhh, I want to shoot the film myself now! "

Email me your address Merenia (verityDOTormeATgmailDOTcom) and I'll get the DVD to you!

Claire and I offered a prize for our favourite post of the week, to win a copy of The closed door and other stories by Dorothy Whipple. We were unanimous in deciding to award it to Thomas from My Porch for his post at the beginning of the week issuing a stern warning to Persephone Books about the unacceptable situation whereby they have only republished 6 of Dorothy Whipple's books. Fittingly Thomas wins the volume of Dorothy Whipple's short stories which I hope you will enjoy! Email one of us with your details.

So that's it for the week! Do stick around on my blog - I'll be reviewing my last Persephone book (The hopkins manuscript), I have a post about baking tomorrow and my Orange Wednesday series will resume on Wednesday.