Tag Archives: Books

Books, Podcasts

David Sedaris

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I went to An Evening with David Sedaris to see and hear David Sedaris.

I’m never sure what to expect at author evenings… do they read… what do they read… how do they incorporate questions…

In this case, David read a few short stories, and included some new material, threw in a few choice diary entries and answered questions.

I was sitting on my own and by that of course I mean I didn’t sit next to anyone I knew – clearly I wasn’t on my own.

His Majesty’s was full and I was in the last row of the Dress Circle which was irritating because my colleague – a big Sedaris fan only got his ticket that night and ended up with a much better seat.

I am never booking through BOCS again.

You agree with me right?  That’s annoying.

But maybe they sensed his deep passion for the work, I don’t know.

I knew “the work” through This American Life – a podcast I adore.

His short stories occasionally feature and they are always pithy and amusing.

He looks just as he sounds.

Short of stature.

Balding.

Older than me.

My favourite martian ish.

He wore a white shirt, dark trousers and brown shoes (at least I think they were brown… I was a long way back), and stood behind a heavy wooden podium.

Can someone have a short voice?

We-ll it’s kind of Woody Allen ish.

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He described doing book signings and how he likes to ask people random questions so that they can have a conversation rather than the “rehearsed in the line” stilted comments and adoration, for lets face it, you are hardly likely to wait in a queue for a book to be signed if you didn’t really like the work… or the author.

Anyway I went to get a drink before the show and I was behind this girl who was holding a hotel bottle of shampoo.

She was telling her boyfriend that David gave it to her after she told him her story.

I guess being bald, the shampoo was rather redundant and she did have long hair… but after hearing David’s comments about book signings I’m guessing it was payment for the story she told him.

A story that he liked.

A story that he might write down in his diary and read out at another evening somewhere around the world.

A great story.

What did you tell him, I nearly asked, but then the bartender asked for their order and the moment slipped away.

Now THAT’s irritating.

Good show though.

I enjoyed watching him writing notes on his work as he read… I imagined ticks where the audience laughed…

If you’ve seen it – I’d love to know what you think of the single celled organism story – because of all of them I think that will be the one that stays with me.

The story is about single celled organisms who are ignored by all the other cancer cells and germs and they think it is to do with their name so they try unique cells and all sorts of other permutations but nothing works.

And a cancer cell sees them arguing over their name and says that noone will talk to them if they don’t speak the language, but the single celled organisms don’t understand what he’s saying and so don’t pay any attention.

It seemed a rather conservative stance.

But as another colleague who was there (very smart person) said she thought it was an observation rather than a moral tale…

Which of course made me think of petri dishes and conclude that it was very clever indeed.

On the way home I plugged in my ipod and listened to This American Life where David Sedaris wasn’t featured.

Commuting, Extracurricular, Work

Old books and old friends

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If you see me commuting by train this week – oh yes, I’m a train commuter now – you’ll spot me reading an ancient book my mother owned.

Billabong’s Daughter by Mary Grant Bruce.

I love the Billabong books but these days they are a bit politically incorrect.

Make that very non PC and I think the newer editions have been… sanitised.

It’s about a station in northern Victoria (I think) just after the First World War and the story is about the squatter Jim Linton and his family.

They act like the upper class might in England, dispensing largess to the lesser well off or should that be ‘orf’.

Far different to squatters of today who (for the most part) are the lesser well off.

There’s lots of cattle mustering and you do get a feel for the country back at the turn of the last century.

They are… quaint… I guess and part of the attraction to me is the fact that my mum used to love them when she was a gel.

Commuting with Billabong has been great so far, although the walk home can be a bit warm.

The five day liquid only diet has come to an end.

I’m not sure I’ll willingly do it again.

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And I don’t think I’ve lost any weight which I’m disappointed in. I rather hoped I might kick off my new year a bit slimmer. Sigh.

Work has been busy but I must confess sitting the heat out in office air-conditioning has been pleasant.

On the last Sunday before I had to go back to work I went out for drinks at Salt, down at Port Beach with some friends.

The liquid-only diet doesn’t preclude alcohol but I did limit myself to just the one beer. 🙂

We met this couple nearly ten years ago in Bali – we scabbed a lift to Club Med with them – and since then we’ve become close friends.

Salt is great on a sunny Sunday afternoon. They have someone singing… the food is (looks) great and the beer is cold.

They style themselves as a nano-brewery and I tried the wheat beer – the Heifweisen (or something like that).

I enjoyed it.

Next time I want to try the pizza.

Books, PIAF

Justine and the fairy of last minute ideas

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justine larbalestier

Last weekend I spent a quite a bit of time at the Perth Writers Festival.

I got to host a couple of children’s/young adult sessions which are my faves because a) the books are short and I can read them quickly – especially the picture books and b) I love teenage fiction.

This year I met Leigh Hobbs (Old Tom), Carole Wilkinson (Dragonkeeper trilogy), Barry Jonsberg (The Dog that Dumped on my Doona), Justine Larbalestier (How to Ditch Your Fairy) and Tristan Bancks (Coolhunter series).

All very different in their own ways. 🙂 

I liked how Leigh doesn’t draw what he says – and apparently there is a chicken in every book.  Carole began writing at the age of 40 which gives me hope.  Barry’s not afraid of a poo joke, Justine blogs (and you know how I like that) and Tristan seems genuinely interested in everyone he meets and I think that’s a rare thing.

They were fun sessions, and along with some of the other sessions I went to, opened my mind to new ideas and books – which is what you want right?

As always I hit the bookstore limiting myself to only three this year – hey there’s a global recession okay – not to mention a towering stack of unread and overdue library books by my bed: Justine’s “Magic or Madness”, James McBride‘s “The Color of Water”, and James Woodford’s “Real Dirt”.

In many ways an odd mix for me.

The Color of Water I picked out because I met a family friend who recommended it (interesting that family friend always refers to friends of one’s parents no?  I guess family friends of your own would just be… friends) . I also saw James speak at The Moth – the live version of my second favourite podcast (and be warned one day I’m going to make my own version for this little blog).  

I loved James Woodford’s book “The Secret Life of Wombats”.  Have you read that?  “Real Dirt” is his memoir, and while I’m not a big fan of autobiographies or biographies or non-fiction for that matter, as I loved Wombats, I thought I’d give it a go.  Also I liked the first line.

So that’s two memoir/biography books!

And as I enjoyed the fairy book I thought I’d check out Justine’s Magic series… (and I read it in about two hours and will get the rest… I especially like the door that goes between Sydney and NY – I could use one).

Getting Teens to Read

I’ve been trying to expand my teens’ horizons when it comes to fiction.  Dippity reads A LOT of fan fiction and re-reads her faves, Hugamuga tends to stick to his few faves and whatever the school forces him to read (not much).

My strategies in the past have included:

  • Reading the beginning of the book aloud to them and then stopping at an exciting bit… FAIL
    When I read John Marsden’s Tomorrow series to my son, I didn’t even get to the exciting bit before he asked me to stop.  Years later when his mates said it was good he read it, and then ALL the series and the next. 
  • Getting the audio book versions out from the library and playing them in the car… FAIL
    They just get the audio books and listen to them – not reading the books – which is okay… but you need electricity. 
  • Renting the video/seeing the film… FAIL
    Once they know what has happened they don’t want to read the book, and I’m much the same, interesting it doesn’t happen the other way about.
  • Buying the books for myself and laughing at the good bits and then leaving them around the house… OCCASIONAL WIN
    This worked for Scott Westerfield’s Uglies series which I bought in the US and raved about the whole trip, and for Magic and Madness, Randa Abdel-Fattah’s “Does My Head Look Big in This?” and Cassandra Clare’s “Mortal Instruments” series, but not for others. 

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Do you have a strategy that has worked at your place?

As Sebastian Barry said during the Writer’s Festival – Young adults are like dogs – you’ve got to let them come to you (your writing), if you approach them… they may bite.  So true.

Back to the fairy thing

Anyway I was going to tell you about the fairy of last minute ideas.

Justine’s book  – How to Ditch Your Fairy – tells the tale of a teenage girl who has a really lame fairy.  In her world nearly everyone has a fairy, and the fairy gives you a usually fairly lame but very specific superpower.

For example her fairy is a parking fairy – wherever she goes, she finds the perfect park.  Useful perhaps if you drive.  She doesn’t.

Her friend has a much more useful Clothes fairy and always finds perfectly fitted clothes at huge discounts – how I wish I had THAT fairy.

So when Justine asked me what my fairy did I had to think.

In the end I think I’ve got the fairy of last minute ideas because I’m quite good at coming up with good ideas at the very last minute.

It would of course be MUCH more useful if the good ideas came at the start of a project so that I had time to really do some good with them but hey… I’ll take what I’ve got.

Justine didn’t disclose what her fairy might do, but given her bad luck run when it comes to sporting injuries, I’d say she definitely had a writing fairy – a jealous writing fairy that was determined she wasn’t going to be distracted.

I wonder what your fairy might be?

PS:  If you missed the festival, some of the sessions are podcast here:  http://www.abc.net.au/perth/features/writersfestival/

Dippity, Parenting, School

Is fan fiction a bad thing?

Reading Spot

My girl reads a lot of fiction but not books.

She reads fan fiction. Fiction written by fans of an author using the author’s world, and the author’s characters.

In Dippity’s case it’s Harry Potter and Avatar and there is a lot of it.

Fan fiction is not a new thing and I suspect some interesting collaborations have come out of it… so the writing isn’t all bad. And if it inspires someone to write, well, isn’t that a good thing?
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She spends a lot of her free time with her head in a laptop – would I care so much if it was in a book? After all much of my childhood was spent reading. I read everywhere – walking to and from school, in the car, in bed, I didn’t feel dressed unless I was holding a book… so what is the difference?

I guess to be fair she did read the original Harry Potters before going online. I guess what I really hate is her unwillingness to try new authors.

It makes it very boring when going to a bookshop or library.

Should I be concerned? Or should I just be grateful that she’s reading… anything at all?

Books

The Broken Shore by Peter Temple

The Broken ShoreI first heard about Peter Temple on Matilda and then while I was frantically searching for something to read on the plane to Broome, my colleague mentioned him too. So I picked up The Broken Shore and started reading it on the plane.

The story is of a broken cop, “retired” in the town he grew up in, on a property gone to rack and ruin. He is called in to investigate the murder of a local businessman. There are racial tensions in the town, bent cops, it’s grimy, grim and sinister.

Peter Temple writes in a very spare way and after reading the flowery prose of Daphne Du Maurier that took a while to get used to. I found myself getting lost and referring back a bit. It felt like a story I wasn’t going to get into.

But I persevered and you know, I got into it. I was intrigued to find out why this cop was broken. I thought I’d guessed who’d done it and I wanted to be proved right. I wanted to see if he ever was going to restore his grandfather’s house. I guess I started investing in the character. I wanted him to be alright.
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At times it felt a bit “Wire in the Blood” ish. Some really gross stuff happens.

Overall though, I liked it and would probably try another Peter Temple. I like that he is Australian too.

Other reviews:
The Age, Dagger Award, First Tuesday Bookclub Forum, Mostly Fiction, Matilda.

Books, PIAF

Writers and Illustrators – a discussion

Photo by John AndersonAt this year’s writers’ festival I was privileged to witness a discussion between childrens’ book authors and illustrators. Two had worked together on a number of books – pictured in John Anderson’s photo to the right – Anna Fienberg and Kim Gamble. You might have heard or read to your children their popular Tashi series, and just recently I reviewed Horrendo’s Curse (charming).

As well, Bruce Atherton author of The Billycart Ride and Sally Heinrich author and illustrator of The Most Beautiful Lantern were part of the discussion. (I couldn’t find a link to Bruce but I did find that of one of the illustrators of his latest book “Tough Old Teddy”.)

So many interesting stories were told…

Bruce told of how precious his first book was – The Billycart Ride – it had been 12 years in the writing and he found it hard to let it go. He spent two years choosing the illustrator (unheard of – thought Kim – for a first time author but it turns out that Bruce knew Bryce Courtney – and he holds some sway!) and eventually set his sights on Keith McEwen who had illustrated Paul Jennings books – yes I think it was a singenpoo illustration he saw.

Anyway, Keith was going through some stuff and it took him four years to do the illustrations and the first ones to come back he’d made the billy cart as big as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang! Well that wasn’t what Bruce had in mind… He thinks Keith tried to show him what that felt like by suggesting some words to him! In hindsight, Bruce reckons he would have trusted Keith more and he’s definitely held back with his later books. And if you look on one of the illustrations – Keith has written Atherton on one of the bottles of wine!

Interestingly Anna had the opposite experience with one of her books. It was a story about a little boy, Harold, whose mum was a scientist and he’d been taught to test everything. So one day he heard the phrase a cat has nine lives… he found a rough old cat called Balthazar, and proceeded to test his theory… in the end he comes to his senses having grown fond of the old cat and saves him from certain death.

The last page, the text says that now he’s called Balthazar and he’s Harold’s cat and he sleeps on the bed and he has anchovies and milk for dinner. Harold says that he obviously loves the cat and how could he have done that? Obviously it’s more important to love the cat than to experiment on it.

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They were lovely drawings, but the cat was the most vulnerable, winsome little thing and of course he looked like he wouldn’t survive someone breathing on him let alone throwing him out of a plane. So it was reviewed, “What does Anna Fienberg think she’s doing,” and “Don’t stock this in your library or you’ll have everybody catching cats and tying them up.”

Sally Heinrich was really interesting too. She writes and illustrates her own work and being an artist first the story ideas come to her as an image in her mind first. For The Most Beautiful Lantern she painted all the pages first and then looked about for a writer. She was living with a copywriter at the time and thought he’d be the obvious choice but it turns out he wasn’t so engaged in the project and so after realising that she was spending a lot of energy on nagging him, she decided to write it herself.

Now it seems she can’t stop. I’ve just read Hungry Ghosts which is a novel for early teens I guess on making friends and cross-cultural assimilation. Not bad for a painter huh? (my review? – an interesting story – a little bit preachy toward the end but overall entertaining)

Kim Gamble who illustrates it seems all of Anna’s work now plus quite a few others told of one brief he really struggled with. He’d just split up with his wife and he was asked to illustrate a story called Dear Fred about a family split apart between the USA and Australia. He just couldn’t do it, it was too close to what he was going through, until his publisher suggested he change the family into mice.

It was fascinating to hear these behind-the-scenes stories and inspiring too. (you never know… maybe one day…)

And it leads me on to a special plug for Miscellaneous Mum who is in the midst of having her first book published. W00t!

Books

The Uglies Trilogy – a review from an “older teen”

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In a world of extreme beauty, anyone normal is ugly.

cover of scott westerfeld book - ugliesScott Westerfeld‘s trilogy is made up of “Uglies”, “Pretties” and “Specials”.

In this future world everyone has an operation at the age of 16 and is turned into a “pretty”. You get a perfect body, a super-immune system, perfect vision etc and you get to live on a ramped up Ibeza like party-city where life. For the uglies waiting to turn 16 in the dorms on the wrong side of the river it all seems too far away and they spend their time playing around with how they would like to look after the operation and sneaking out and getting into mischief, blowing off a bit of steam.

But what if you don’t want to be turned pretty? And is the pretty operation as innocent as it seems?

This is a fast paced action tale which I enjoyed reading. I loved the way the pretties all talk like 10 yo girls – like totally whatever. And the issues behind the concept are also interesting.
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Would we have depression, anorexia nervosa, self-harm, suicide if the pressures of looking good were taken away from our society – if everyone could look the same – would we have racism?

That is not to say that these books are written in a heavy philosophising manner. They are not. It’s full of hover board chases and rebellion, it just makes you think, possibly even makes teens think. I know I would have eaten these up at school had they been written then.

Have my two picked them up? No. But I am hopeful one day they will.

Oh by the way… Scott has a blog too so he must be okay. 🙂

Books

The Declaration

The Declaration by Gemma Malley.

I was attracted to this novel for teenagers when browsing the shelves for a new author for my kids. I love young adult/teenage fiction and at my son’s age would have devoured this book just as I did yesterday while getting my hair done.

It’s set in the future – 2140. Longevity drugs have been discovered and people don’t die anymore. The world is a very different place. Crime has dropped. Life is very conservative. Decisions take a long time to make because everyone has so much time. Because no one dies the world soon became overcrowded and so countries banded together and signed a declaration that while people took the drugs they couldn’t have kids.

So there are very few young people around. And while the longevity drugs keep you youthful – it can’t stop the effects of gravity and so the undergarments people wear are more like scaffolding… (come back for my next post – more on this).

But “mistakes” are still made. And there are some people who still have kids. These children are called surpluses and are “caught” and sent to Surplus Halls where they learn to be servants – while being brainwashed that they have no rights and are a drain on society.

I loved the concept of this book – an extension of our own over-populated world – energy poor with people living longer. In a way it reminded me a little of Children of Men by PD James – what happens to a civilisation when there are no children?

The story itself revolves around Anna – a surplus – and how her world gets turned upside down when she meets Peter, who brings her news of the world outside the Surplus Hall.
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This is Gemma Malley’s first young adult novel. She paints an interesting world and I think the series (I presume it will become one) will develop.

If your kids liked John Marsden’s Tomorrow series – I think they will enjoy this book. What? They haven’t read the Tomorrow series…?

Guardian review
Bookwyrm Chrysalis Review
Gemma interview

And the best thing is that I’ve learned a new word. How did I get to this age without knowing what a dystopian novel is? I have certainly read a lot of them – in fact they are one of my favourite genres!

A dystopia (from the Greek δυσ- and τόπος, alternatively, cacotopia,[1] kakotopia or anti-utopia) is a fictional society that is the antithesis of utopia. A dystopic society is characterised by negative traits the author chooses to illustrate, such as poverty, dictatorship, violence, and/or pollution. [Wikipedia]

Gemma makes a good point in her list of favourite dystopian novels for young adults – they can be true stories. The Diary of Anna Frank for example…

Books

106 Books

I found this list on Sheep’s Clothing and thought I’d have a go – you might like to as well.

These are the top 106 books most often marked as “unread” by LibraryThing‘s users. Bold what you have read, italicise that you started but couldn’t finish, and strike through what you couldn’t stand. Add an asterisk* to those you’ve read more than once. Underline those on your to-read list.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and punishment
Catch-22
One hundred years of solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: a novel
The name of the rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice*****
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveller’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma**
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius
Atlas shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha*
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury tales
The historian : a novel
A portrait of the artist as a young man
Love in the time of cholera
Brave new world
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A clockwork orange
Anansi boys
The once and future king
The grapes of wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & demons
The inferno
The satanic verses
Sense and sensibility**
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Mansfield Park
One flew over the cuckoo’s nest
To the lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s travels
Les miserables
The corrections
The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The curious incident of the dog in the night-time
Dune
The prince
The sound and the fury
Angela’s ashes : a memoir
The god of small things
A people’s history of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A confederacy of dunces
A short history of nearly everything
Dubliners
The unbearable lightness of being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an Inquiry into Values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit*
In cold blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The three musketeers

You’ll note there are a few on the list that I’ve not been able to finish. I’ve learned from my younger more idealistic days that life is too short to plough through a novel to the bitter end if you’re really not enjoying it.

Interestingly there are not too many on the list I want to read… and Wuthering Heights I’ve been thinking about lately because I’ve just discovered what the lyrics say…

Heathcliff, its me–cathy.
Come home. Im so cold!
Let me in-a-your window.

Not, as I have thought since I first heard it all those years ago in 1978…

“It’s me I’m Cathy I’ve come home- oh woe wo-oh oh – not the antidote!”

Where did that come from?

Books

Kerry Greenwood’s Earthly Delights

1 Comment

Look this is a light mystery romance set in gritty downtown Melbourne. The heroine is an overweight – some might prefer – curvy – baker, who is drawn into two mysteries… one within the apartment block in which she resides and another on the streets of Melbourne. This is actually what provides them an advantage over recommended purchase cheap cialis drugs. The latest research conducted by the group of medications calledselective inhibitors cialis 10 mg pamelaannschoolofdance.com of cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP)-specific phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE5). Licorice root is the excellent blood purifier herbs that can help a woman naturally increase her sexual cialis cost appetite. It can regulate proper digestion, and the balance of beneficial intestinal flora, purchasing viagra online etc. The romance comes in with the tall, dark and handsome bouncer type who drives the soup van for the homeless.

It’s as I say, light, good fun, and a pleasant read. I’ve enjoyed her Phryne Fisher mysteries in the past which is set in the 1930s and I liked her more modern setting too. I even laughed out loud once or twice at her turn of phrase and I can’t say fairer than that.