Holiday Reading 21

As the end of the year looms, this may well be some of the last reading blogs, but I promised myself that the holiday year will only end upon return to the college on 27^th January, 2015.

The Reef by Di Morrissey 621 pages. I remember the dilemma facing me when I selected this book to swap in Mackay. Which one of these broad works should be my sampling of this author? I was quite intrigued by the one featuring references to Hawaii, but because of our extended time near said, great barrier reef, why not this title.

Result: Having made a sample of Morrissey’s work I will probably not put her on the – must read more – list. I can see why a good many women enjoy them, gripping tales, characters without complexity, but really do the men have to be such “pigs”. I looked back at the date of publication a few times 2006, surely husbands don’t act like that anymore? Surely the TV personality doesn’t expect to get away with sexual abuse? I find myself angry with Rod in response, unfair, he isn’t to blame. Lucky reading this isn’t time consuming.

Trading Reality by Michael Ridpath 391 pages. A book to bridge the new year. Found alone in the facilities at Mt Gambier library, then adopted and moved with the mini library to Sydney. Numbers are getting down to a reasonable reading list now. I will be able to start using the library again soon without feeling guilty.

Result: On the back cover …’the thriller everyone has been waiting for…’ while this is a reference to another Ridpath book – Free to Trade, this is relevant to what I just finished. Classic thriller, murder, corporate manipulation, with the added dimension of virtual reality technology, just the ticket to take me away from the everyday.

Which brings me to the point I have decided to end this record of books read on my year away from the classroom. The total being 26,299 pages since the end of the 2013 academic year. Being that it is now 2015 time to close off the total. There was also the heated exchange between Rod and myself the crux of which seemed to be the “you read books, I enjoy the garden” that made me ponder why do I need the escape into novels?

There are still six novels left from my travel library. Entertainment for those times of waiting or a few pages to induce sleep. I will get to them. Considering that Bookfest 2014 saw a purchase of some 13 titles, I feel affirmed at reducing that by half while still managing to swap titles for most of the year. Perhaps I will offer some of the present completed collection to my nephew about to tour the globe for several years. Who knows where they will end up?

The poor bedraggled bookmark only just survived. I should preserve it under glass, as a souvenir of 2014.

Holiday Reading 20

The Olive Grove by Patrice Newell 279 pages. After food, cooking and Paris in A Love Story with Recipes I am following on with another warm, easy memoir genre book. Adopted all the way up in Mission Beach this book has come south, then been out west through South Australia and along the Victorian South coast in my little travel library.

Result: No chapters? Some serious comments about agricultural chemicals; fertilizers and herbicides. All sorts of dramas with olive trees. A glimpse of the olive industry in various countries. Not quite as warm and fuzzy as I was anticipating. I understand why people move to the country.

Depths by Henning Mankell 518 pages. (this one is part of the cover image!) Another adoptee from FNQ (far North Queensland). Swapped for a fellow Scandinavian crime works on our northward visit through Mission Beach. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder where the swap-ees, or those that have been passed onto libraries are now, or will go?

Result: The blurb said, Terse, gripping… tick, absolutely correct. Short concise sentences, but I wonder about the translator’s input. So close to the dates of Christmas, interesting to follow the same time of the year in the early 1900s. All the ice and snow, so Stockholm, northern hemisphere.

At this rate I will definitely make the quarter million pages by the New Year. No you wont! Note to self – that is only 25,000, a long way short of ¼ million. But just for the cycle I will keep the tally and records until I return to school for the new academic year. Then what?

Anyway I will think about that later – time to move closer to home.

The Picador Book of the Beach edited by Robert Drewe, various writers 444 pages. Picked this up in Port Fairy, Great Ocean Road Victoria. Inspired by listening to the editor’s memoir – Montebello. Wish I’d kept title of what was swapped. Will anyone notice that those books travelled far?

Result: Some of these offerings I really enjoy, others …not so much…But I do get seriously distracted by a Fast Back offering at the library, so the Beach stories will have to be consumed in two pieces.

This is a good point to engage with another reading issue – I am still using that same post-card bookmark all through these pages, which is closing in fast on the half million pages. Wow I have a really inflated sense of numbers, peg that back a bit. 25,000 is the mileage marker ahead! This poor bashed up bookmark is now in two pieces. So time to plan a new year’s gift to myself something different to mark my reading progress. But wait! What do I receive in a Christmas cracker at the College Christmas party? (I decided to enjoy my one chance to celebrate the end of an academic year when I haven’t been at my desk) Is it ironic? The cracker gift is a book mark! I shall use it in memory of the 2014 holiday readings.

Amnesia by Peter Carey 377 pages. Seen as a Fast Back offering at Engadine Library: 10 days, no renewals, no holds. Only days after a review was noticed in one of the flight magazines Natasha brought down from Brisbane. Carey is one of those “boyfriends” I have enjoyed a relationship with in the past. His Bliss sits on the treasured books to keep shelf as part of my family that stays instead of being sent back out into the world. Fortuitous that I have a book mark in two sections, then it can be used to mark the place in two different books, handy at the moment.

Result: A struggle at first, which often seems the case, but at some point a switch flicks and I get caught into the story. Really enjoyed the familiarity of the settings; I know Merri Creek, I lived nearby, drove past most workdays. Nostalgia is great propelling force. All the satire and events make perfect sense to me.

The library has a summer reading club, with prizes for reviews, so I decided to fill in a slip of paper for the barrel about this book.

Holiday Reading 19

Sleep, Pale Sister by Joanne Harris 394 pages. After encountering other stories from Joanne Harris of Chocolat fame; this was the selection to see me back to Sydney. I swapped an earlier Harris at a favorite book shop, Big B Books in Burleigh, so this gothic novel has done several thousand kilometers since.

Result: I’ve given part of this away by reference to the book as Gothic. Once initial feelings of annoyance at the writer telling me how this book came to be in print (am I interested?) and that floundering while you think who these people are and what is happening (every reader’s book beginning experience, maybe?) Sleep, Pale Sister is gripping escapism. Just the tonic for a world that seems a little too sad right now. But I am left wondering how did Harris transition from this to Chocolate?

Celebration of the Senses by Eric Rolls 259 pages. Still one of the Bookfest 2014 adoptees. Thinking this was familiar, I think I have read it before. Perhaps it is a collections of stories, and I didn’t get to it sooner because I preferred to engage with a novel. Also I had in my mind that Eric Rolls was one of the Monty Python guys, when that is Eric Idle. He wasn’t a comedian, but poet and noteworthy nonfiction writer.

Result: So it wasn’t stories, but rather a collection of reflections loosely grouped around the “Senses”. Why more writers haven’t done this? But give a male the notion, and of course many of the images related to sight, sound, taste, and even hearing are going to be connected with his own and maybe a woman’s genitalia. I am stunned that the preface mentions …’given her last copy to her ten-year-old granddaughter to show her what life should be like. ..’ Poor kid, all the penis and c-word stuff must have scared her.

Lunch in Paris by Elizabeth Band 374 pages. Is that like the prerequisite film duration? Looking back on my long list of titles I find two books add up to close to 600 pages. They are either high 200s or 300s and lately in one short – one long routine. This title was adopted in Queenscliff, Victoria: I figure when a well-stocked apartment has two copies, it’s OK to release one of the twins.

Result: A love story with Recipes – Not my usual fare, but lighthearted entertainment. One American trying to deal with complexities of living and enjoying food in Paris. Perfect timing with tales of organizing a wedding, just when my daughter has begun that process.

With less car time, now that we are back in Sydney, there is more reading, so maybe it’s time to turn to the next entry. Those few recent books were warmly received by the Cronulla branch of Sutherland Library staff. Compared with the last donation where I was told, ‘they don’t always go in the collection, you know…’ Most probably they finish up at the Bookfest for people like me to buy for $2.50.

Holiday Reading 18

Boy, Lost by Kristina Olsson 258 pages. Swapped at Cayman Quay’s Noosa coming out of the too many books for travelling phase. Had to scan the heavy romance and thriller shelves for quite some time to find anything I consider read-worthy.

Result: Yet another measure of domestic violence again. Sub titled – A family Memoir, so the impact on the group is recorded. Two separate lives, and the inevitable reconciliation laced with reality. Even once mother and son meet again nearly 40 years later, everything isn’t happy ever after. Olsson also deals with the Greek cultural influences with aplomb.

Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan 374 pages. Adopted at the Captain’s Cottage Port Fairy, Victoria. Had a completed swap book in my bag, so I did the exchange while we looked at this potential accommodation. Deciding that something more scenic, waterfront and tasteful was where we would stay. Why am I reading a cold war tale now?

Result: At times I find McEwan’s approach frustrating, I want to cry, get on with it, why are you taking us into the situation in Ireland, or the Kremlin, or the problems with the sister? Much of this tale is the recounting of short stories; does he wish this was a collection of stories? Parallels between the targeted novelist’s work and McCarthy’s The Road are frightening.

I find a reference to Ian McEwan in later reading… I have been reading him for decades, ever since his first collection of short stories it’s become a family joke. ‘Reading your boyfriend again, I see,’ Phillip will observe when he sees a McEwan book lying around, which is often because I always read books I like more than once, And when he finds me reading someone else, he says, ‘Christ Ian will be upset.’… from Patrice Newell’s Olive Grove. Who would Rod say is my boyfriend? Winton: my husband has insured I have copies, kept treasured. But my loyalty is shifting – new favorite, looks like Robert Drewe. So why any of the boyfriends aren’t also travel buddies? Too precious?

Seen on Facebook ..I know money can’t buy me happiness, but it can buy me books which is the same thing…. True, pleasure, for me is tied up with the written word. Escapism, emotions; be they euphoric, or aggression, happy and sad. Surely that complexity is all about contentment.

This is a good point leading to my next book.

Running with the Pack by Mark Rowlands 215 pages. I picked this slim text thinking that whatever is being read will have to carry me all the way home. Why not a short non-fiction? But it seems this book is too short for the over a week remaining.

Result: Many useful nibs of knowledge about the life-running relationship. I share many anecdotes about running with Rowland’s various dogs with Rod. I am engrossed and is a happy place (to paraphrase that Facebook quote) – until – the U.S required detour into Satan and creationism. And I aren’t sure if I understand the philosophy of thermodynamics. Well, never mind, I am sure Rowland will get back to running soon.

How that I have located the page count of the audio book, Robert Drewe’s Montebello I am closing on 23,000 pages.

Holiday Reading 17

Double Fault by Lionel Shriver including reading group notes 342 pages. I put off reading this Bookfest adoptee because Shriver often has a bee in her bonnet about something. Telling others ‘she will be angry, you have to be in the right mood for a dose of Lionel.’ Thought it was about sporting parents but then I see from the blurb…examines a modern marriage…

Result: It has been such hard going. I often find feelings from my reading bleed over into real life. Imagine what it is like to read about this competitive sporting couple and be embroiled in a relationship of similar qualities? I have been critical of Rod, and a terror of emotions because of Shriver’s characters. Finally finished, hurrah, something more fun next.

darkness on the edge of town by Jessie Cole 327 pages. After gobbling a follow up novel, Deeper Water found at the Mullumbimby bookshop as part of a local writer selection, I was delighted to find Cole’s debut nestled amongst the shelves of Magpie Books Woolgoolga. Of all the books, all the possibilities, I find exactly the desired title, and am happy with the store owner’s options regarding my available swap. Mysteriously it bears a ‘advanced reading copy not for sale’ insignia.

Result: Much more fun, much more readable, much less angry than Shriver. But still tackling meaty issues like domestic violence, trauma and loss. Overwhelming response – That character was one stupid girl!

Moving Among Strangers by Gabrielle Carey 228 pages. Found amid the quality offerings at the Mullumbimby bookshop. Stickers to indicate price rather than written on the books. Packaged in brown paper bags (of course no plastic) with a tiny tab of colored tape. Tasteful. I know Carey as half of the Puberty Blues duo. In the book a mention of a journalist friend walking on a beach discussing what they were writing – Lette perhaps?

Result: Generous dose of nostalgia for west Australia again. Geraldton and the Swan Valley, in particular Guildford Grammar featured highly. Reassurance about the familiarity with Randolph Stow who is the central figure around which family and memories, plus even the nature of writing are observed.

This little title brings the progressive total over 21,000! Even if slightly stalled with the Shriver problem.

Montebello by Robert Drewe. Listening to this on audio. Purchased full priced from the ABC shop in the skeletal Miranda Westfield Shopping Centre – but with the added tourist value of new sections especially the fresh food court. As soon as I am able to find the print version, or can search the page count I am going to add this to page counts. 304 pages.

Result: Infuriating problems with the CD player in the car. This C D was intended to keep us entertained during the crossing of the Hay Plains. Yet to the discs kept being ejected and stubbornly refusing to become audible. Eventually, at about the third attempt the dulcet tones and intriguing twists between Drewe’s youth in Perth, Fremantle, Cottesloe and Rottnest with the trip to the Montebello Islands. Another dose of nostalgia, and clashing wonderfully (the few minor pieces we heard) with the empty Hay Plains.

Holiday Reading 16

The progressive total has not passed the 20,000 pages mark. I reached this total in early October, which with my limited mathematical skills would be keeping up the average completion of a 300 page book a week. Variant on print size and as noted on my last blog, complexity.

As I return home to Sydney after 6 months travel and survey my bookshelves now swollen with the Great Travelling Library there are so many requiring reading. I wonder what will be left at the beginning of the school year. Do I include reading necessary for the 2015 courses? Perhaps this will be an adjunct to holiday reading, under a new heading of returning to a new academic year and curriculum reading.

Great relevant quote from The House of Rumour by Jake Arnott …we cherish all books, especially the unread ones, for who knows what secrets they might yield one day? As we count the world our book, might not other worlds be other books, strange and unprecedented?

So I have tried to cherish my next novel. The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal, 354 pages. A retired neighbour recommended this book, ‘it’s wonderfully written, you would enjoy it…’ Ever wary, I didn’t like to take a book someone else obviously treasured on our extended travels. What if I lost it? Like the time I left a school library novel on the plane. Or I inadvertently swapped it, or passed it on forgetting it belonged to another? So The Hare… was left safe on my bookshelf at home. Good job too, as there was at least one concerned text message, and I could not remember, had Andy lent the book to me, and where had I put it?

Result: I did eventually get to enjoy The Hare… but initially found it hard going wading through the sheer affluence of wealthy bank owning Jews in Vienna and Paris during the late 1800s, and knowing what is coming. But I had no idea of the extent of persecution even prior to the 1^st World War. A weird connection between narrator/researcher and reader,…It looks as if I am going to spend another winter reading about anti-Semitism…The way treasured objects were sort and denied after the Nazi’s pillaged, and even the tiny sculpture’s return to Japan were much more interesting.

The Lace Maker’s Daughter by Gary Crew, 249 pages. Swapped for a Bookfest book, exchanged from the shelves in our Port Douglas accommodation; The Mango Tree. So this little gem has travelled several thousand kms southward down the Australian east coast.

Result: How nice to have Australian vernacular again! But a bit heavy handed with the brackets. Several different narratives; explores the gap between truth and fiction. I note my reading list also includes several other titles that involve dressmakers, lace makers, or their daughters. Hmmm is this precedence?

Just to buck that trend I borrow a thriller currently showing as a Nicole Kidman movie from the library. Unlike the other recent book to film appropriation I was interested in – Gone Girl which had 22 requests no one seems to have discovered this one yet. Sitting nicely on the shelves, even at the Engadine branch was my next target.

Before I go to Sleep by S.J. Watson 366 pages. Seeing a promo for the film and knowing that we won’t be catching much at the cinema, I am surprised to find this book unmolested on library shelves.

Result: Wow! Short intense sentences. Lots of tension. And “what ifs…” Not going to do a spoiler-alert, but did you ever wonder what it would be like to wake up and not remember?

Holiday Reading 15 – Or what does an English Teacher do on a year off?

What is the progressive page tally, I hear you ask? Page number now is in the high 18,000s

Heart Songs by E. Annie Proulx 182 pages. Again a thin volume, and back with the Bookfest offerings now. Short stories even though I’d like to commit to a novel.

Result: The author’s interests are listed as – cooking, wine, fly fishing, good conversation, canoeing, gardening, carpentry and painting, and the phrase “omnivorous reader” is used descriptively. Proulx has also ‘lived most of her life in Vermont.’ So this is the world of her stories. Again I am gripped by the contrast with tall beachside towers of the Gold Coast and the rural seasons, hunt’n and music of the back woods. This is another world for my mind to inhabit.

Jigs and Reels by Joanne Harris 273 pages, as well as 15 in the PS section – including those in book total = 289. Back into my Bookfest mini travelling library. To think these titles have gone the length of Queensland’s coast from the city to Cooktown and now back again. With recent purchases and swaps I shall be bringing more home than were adopted at the Bookfest.

Result: Harris is the creator of Chocolat and I was inspired to search for other titles finding one at Burleigh’s Big B Books. The Proulx for a Harris, is that upward? Regardless I applaud my success. If this seems minor well try a specific. But back to the stories, they motivate my creative spirit, and make me swell with jealousy. She gets these published because she has an international best seller, and film of a book. Don’t like the italics at the beginning of each story about where the idea came from.

Deeper Water by Jessie Cole 346 pages. From the Mullumbimby book shop’s local writers offerings. Ah -a new book, that smell, that newness, there is nothing like it. I challenge those electronic readers to get the same sensation.

Result: Seemingly simple, yet complex. This book was so apt with the Northern Rivers of New South Wales setting. Our location made it so easy to picture the farm, the potter, the kids, the aftermath of hippies and the town. The only factor that gives me a problem is the age of the protagonist; she is too old for her virginity and innocence. But still I will get over it. It was full of fantastic water imagery.

The House of Rumour by Jake Arnott 401 pages. Picked up at one of those cheap “nothing over $6 bookshops” I wasn’t going to frequent. The cover caption got me – …’ideal holiday read for those who like to take their brains with them on vacation’… Well I do, and wanted to exercise it.

Result: At first I felt the brain activity was way too much. Was this a collection of short stories? If so there might be a connection? Nope nothing established this was not a novel. So many perspectives, so many styles, I was confused. Eventually the pieces fell together. It’s all rockets; proposing what happened with some high ranking Nazi officials after the war; obscure occult; religious fanatics and transsexuals. I learnt that the pace of my page consumption is proportional to size of print and complexity of ideas.

The title – apparently from Ovid’s Metamorphoses …At the centre of the world where everything can be seen is a tower of sounding bronze that hums and echoes, repeating all it hears, mixing truth with fiction… Who would have thought that way back in Ovid’s era the lines between fiction and non-fiction were already blurred.

Holiday Reading 14

The Long Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan, 467 pages. This book jumped out at me from the topsy-turvy shelves of Hervey Bay Book Exchange. Everywhere were books he could browse; books in teetering piles books in boxes, books jammed and leaning at contrary angles like ilk-disciplined militia on floor-to-ceiling shelves that ran the length of the far side wall. I wonder did Flanagan visit Doyles bookshop in King Street, Newtown (Sydney). Even though the Hervey Bay shop embodied this description I could see an alphabetical system, and the shop-owner went straight to G-J to check if my exchange offerings were not in stock. Lucky I had lacked the confidence to negotiate an exchange at the bookshop in Bargara (Bundaberg). When I reasoned this was a shop, rather than welcoming an exchange. Another 2014 lesson learnt.

I’d wanted to read this and even contemplated making a purchase with the several I brought at the Kinokuniya Bookshop before Christmas. Rod had instructed Natasha to sneak this book home as a Christmas gift, but when she saw what I’d already brought, that gift didn’t happen. So here I am setting aside all the Bookfest library, proper reading order and getting into the Richard Flanagan.

Result: Like watching a train wreck; those poor men suffering on building the Burma death Railway, an experience so vastly different from my relaxed beach-side holiday mode. Some epic moments, like the school-boy game of kick-to-kick, the South Australian coastal hotel and even the jungle description all so real, so intense. The frequent repeating of key words, lists, and several time-frames don’t detract from the story. You have to finish it to see who lives or dies.

He pulled out a book here and there, but what kept catching his attention were the diagonal tunnels of sunlight rolling in through the dormer windows. Flanagan – The Narrow Road to the Deep North: Shades of the surroundings being a greater work of art than the titles. Plus this book is festered with the idea that scenery has taken precedence over written words. When I can look out onto a perfect beach scene, and yet find more solace in what is being read. Plus a reminder of all those bookshops I found nothing that might equate to being readable.

Hanna’s Daughters by Marianne Fredriksson, 314 pages. Back to the Bookfest Brisbane collection. I am getting through the novels, and apprehensive of the short story anthologies as these tales are bound to be far superior to those from my pen. This title was absolutely nothing to do with the Woody Allen film with a similar title, thank goodness.

Result: Thoroughly enjoyed the change, yet consistency of women’s roles. History becomes a minor thing compared to the troubles of Hanna, Anna and Johanna. Reading the words of a woman attempting to write of several maternal generations – ah bliss.

The Russia House by John le Carre 426 pages, from the bookshelves of 42 Southern Cross Apartments, Burleigh Qld. Very minimum choices, usual offering, murder or romance. But this gem is hidden amongst the bedraggled offerings. I remember the film with Michelle Pfeiffer, and being lost in the Tom Stoppard screen play, so relish the chance to read. Added research for English Extension genre study unit –after the bomb not that I am going to teach that while Catch 22 is on the reading list.

Result: Being frustrated by how much detail and reams of discussions about do we spy or not spy. This is also an interesting historical perspective on that era that I can now appreciate. Find myself swept along wondering will they get away? Did I recall a drive overland in central Europe, or was that another story? Vague familiarity, perhaps I remember more than I give myself credit, or I have read this before, who knows?

The World of Nagaraj by R.K.Narayan 185 pages, add 1 if you include the glossary. It has been a while since one of those was encountered. The only time I had cause to check the meaning of word, it was not listed. Narayan I had already encountered in studies of postcolonial literature, as well as his being a set text for study in Singapore. Now nestled on the shelves amid the paltry offering at apartment 42 I thought why not? Even if the page count from this book is not going to take the yearly tally far.

Result: It takes only one trip to the city, and some beach time to get through this slim volume. Entrenched sexism, arranged marriages and father authority figures do match hearing that in spite of a nearly completed new house that must be lived in for six months to keep their first home buyer’s grant intact the army has decided to post my daughter’s partner after less than two years in his current position. Good on the green machine, they lack just as much compassion and empathy as an Indian fictional realm called Malgudi.

Holiday Reading 13

An interesting place to break and go to Holiday Reading 13.

I find an interesting quote – reading had established great expectation: books lead her to believe that adventure was everywhere to be had, that catastrophes, coincidences and conjugal excitations abounded, that lives were melodramatically enhanced and symbolically under written. These words lead me to at least give a passing thought to the purpose of reading, and the selection of novels – a means to escape, to secure myself in a secret world like that within a clandestine love letter. To bask in a lack of understanding for how characters and plots evoke moods, another secret thing. To use the novels to ask the question – could I endure that? Reading is definitely another way to examine catastrophes.

The Spare Room by Helen Garner, 195 pages. From Bookfest Brisbane 2014. I have done at least one workshop which included an excerpt from her writing, and distinctly remember one of my fellow participant said, “Oh Helen Garner always makes everything she writes all about HER!” So I began this offering with heathy curiosity, and continued to be gripped for all of the two days it took to consume.

Result: Certainly in keeping with the Jones’s words, adventure in her sick friend’s visit. Melodramatic – again – a tick. But it gave me a chance to remember our neighbor Colin’s illness. And to examine, could I do that, could I endure the practicalities of a terminally ill person in the house? But yes, Ms. Garner did make it about her.

Wonderboy by Stephen Cummings 299 pages. From Bookfest Brisbane 2014. My little travelling library. Had I began this reading alphabetically all those weeks (and kms) ago, this would have been the first offering, sometimes it is better to wait. Stephen Cummings, maybe that name is familiar, yes the musician and song writer. Who listens to the Radio?… one I can remember vividly. Who knew he also wrote books?

Result: Quick trip through Vietnam to match our progress down the Queensland coast. Only one quandary – how did Charles and Max get from a precisely described Melbourne flat (in Lovetown – also a Cumming’s Album) to the reunified Vietnam? Seems a magic night train is out there, to match a Harry Potter night express. Oh well, good to suspend disbelief occasionally.

The Spare Room and Sixty Lights were swapped for the next title to be eagerly consumed in my reading quest. Both cost me $2 each at the Bookfest. So to be able to get $5 reduction on the documented price for my purchase meant a substantial profit. Should I tell the proprietor that both books had now been defaced (or kissed) with a note to record their journey?

After several such exchanges of books that I have marked with adoption details and the blog address that must either be invisible or not important to the person behind the wall of books taking money, exchanges or negotiating on these two. Surely they must see what I have written, but want my wares regardless

Holiday Reading 12

The Dancer Upstairs by Nicholas Shakespeare, 244 pages. The chance to lay those trinkets, bright baubles, gleaned from Bookfest out again, different short list, but still a trio jumped out from the crowd. The final selection because I was influenced by the cove note saying, ‘now a major film. Directed by Malkovich and starring Javier Bandem’ two my all-time favorites. And probably a major factor why I adopted this book at the Bookfest.

Result: Maybe the film actor influence was misplaced, because this little volume has been the greatest struggle with reading material since page 1 of the 2014 challenge. I have come the closest yet to rejection of a book. Told myself a few times that I need to let the characters settle, but then I am distanced again with yet another politically motived heinous murder. South American revolution novel deserve a separate genre! I have been fuelled by trying to picture the content of the film, surely some of the beheadings and stuffing a priest full of bible pages until he chokes did not make the visual – but then Bandem was in No Country for Old Men.

Takes the progressive total to almost 16,000 pages. Leaving Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow behind in our Mission Beach Shack, exchanging her for another Scandinavian crime novel. Plus The Dancer Upstairs has been swapped for a Garry Drew in Port Douglas, until someone else take possession it will be on the shelves of At The Mango Tree holiday apartments. I wonder if anyone will note my blog, or be amused by details of the book’s travels as they appear inside the cover. No matter, I am having my own little setting-the-book-free events.

The Dressmaker by Rosalie Ham, 296 pages. From the Bookfest 2014, Brisbane. Swapped for another Australian writer – Gary Crew on the shelves of At The Mango Tree Port Douglas Far North Queensland.

Result: Gripping, easy to read, refreshing after the hard slog of the South American politics. The cover said “gothic” and yes that’s correct, eventually. Perhaps it was the familiarity of dressmaking terminology that motivated and enthralled.

The Lemon Tree by Rae Desmond Jones, 394 pages. From the Bookfest 2014, Brisbane. When this title was selected from my travelling library motivation was the like-titled film but I do not find this a tale featuring heavily symbolic or even literal citrus groves.

Result: Yes there is a passing reference to lemon trees, but that is all. I am left questioning – is this what the contents of young men’s lives? I have always been told that in the course of a novel a character should develop – young John – he seems the same all his pitiful life. Except for becoming a reader in spite of chronic dyslexia making his primary school years hell, and forcing him to leave school. When did that magically vanish? Somewhere in the couple 100 pages of drinking, shooting and transient employment?

Sixty Lights by Gail Jones, 249 pages. From Bookfest 2014, Brisbane. Definitely a re-read, but that’s OK, I can’t remember how it ended. Plus Jones’s imagery is complex and gives further dimensions. Should have suspected I’d already encountered this novel, being that it made the reading list for recent curriculum inclusions.

Result:  Gambit of emotions, refreshing after the superficial nature of the previous Jones novel. No relative I am sure. I note some books engross, some books are a torment, and this one was definitely the former. I also remember that on my previous reading the character Lucy’s demise inspired my treatment of a character Gwen in my own short story, Foraging. Now I find more inspirational details. Thank you Ms. Jones.