What's with today, today?

A while ago I thought I would write a blog post about my favourite childhood books. But as I came to think about it, I remembered more and more, too many to fit into one blog post. So a whole series of blog posts seems more appropriate. Various happenings (mostly assignments) have conspired to keep me from writing any of them. But today, since fate seems to be conspiring to keep me from my uni work, it seems appropriate to talk about comfort books. When I was in Year 12 at school we had to study speeches, and one of the speeches happened to be by Margaret Attwood talking about writing  and feminism. In it she describes how her young daughter and friend put on a play, in which all they did was eat breakfast, which was pretty dull because narrative needs to be 'more than breakfast'. Well when I was younger I was quite happy to read about 'breakfast'. I remember once complaining to my mum about all the horrible things happening to characters in a book I was reading, to w...

Skimming through the internet the other day I came across a reference to a line of startling familiarity, a line that made me realise some first lines stick in your head forever: "Sing Goddess, the rage of Peleus' son Achilles" (funnily enough,  I can never remember the first line proper until I see it, as my friend and I spent much of year 12 Ancient History misquoting it as "rage Achilles, rage on Agamemnon". We were also amused by the fact that 'Xerxes' backwards spelt 'Sexrex'. Yeah, mature I know.) From Homer, The Illiad Ironically, a first line that I find impossible to remember is one of the most recognisable for me. I'm not usually very good at first lines, but there are a few I'd know anywhere... "Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote" My English classes at university drummed this one into me- the first line of Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales'. I think Chaucer is a genius, but this first line is not quite ...

A while ago I wrote about looking for book review blogs- I love reading blogs, I love reading books, and a blog that helps me find new books has got to be a good thing. I've done a bit of wandering in the blogosphere, which has been good, and I has been reflected in my last trip to the library. Here's what I borrowed: The Summer Book by Tove Jansson . I found this here , and was immediately intrigued. Tove Jansson! Writer of Moomintroll! Writing something completely different! It took me a couple of library visits to find it, but I was not disappointed. What a beautiful book. Set on a Finnish island it tells the story of Grandmother and Sophia with a style that is in fact similar to the Moomintroll books, but without the outlandish adventures and therefore allowing the characters more room to shine.  Moominvalley in November by Tove Jansson. Having been reminded of Tove Jansson I couldn't resist borrowing a Moomin book, especially as I'm not sure I've read this o...

Teaser Tuesday As always- meme hosted by Should be Reading . "Sophia was climbing very slowly now, with long pauses between steps, and Grandmother could see she was scared. The old woman stood up too quickly." - p. 47, 'The Summer Book', Tove Jansson

A while ago I read 'Fire in the Blood' by Irene Nemirovsky, then more picked up 'Madame Bovary' by Gustave Flaubert, and thought "this sounds familiar". Not that I am accusing Flaubert of copying a work written about 90 years after his, or Nemirovsky of copying Flaubert. I just noticed that 'Madame Bovary' is subtitled 'Patterns of Provincial Life', and that's what these two books provide- patterns. It's hard to describe the patterns exactly- there's the obvious (watch out there may be spoilers) pattern of infidelity in young French provincial wives, but that sounds a bit broad. There are the large country weddings, the hope of happiness that turns to discontent- or merely marriage as a chance to get away from home. While these patterns repeat themselves between books, and within books in the case of 'Fire in the Blood', I reacted very differently to the two. 'Fire in the Blood' seems all about patterns. The title...

I'm afraid this is going to be a very short post, because while I have a couple of blog post ideas turning over in my head (French provincial women in 'Madame Bovary' and 'Fire in the Blood', 'memento mori' and celebrity) they are as yet only half-formed.  But I just read a blog post on reading books in translation that struck me as particularly true, and reading through this blog so far I am really liking her observations on many book-related things. So you might like to check out  Book Snob . And I will write a proper blog post of my own soon, honest.

"He asked her to marry him. She giggled, "okay!" Perhaps before realising that he was serious, or that he truly loves her" - BJE May's engagement story "Some people die, just dreaming of the outside world" - Cuban resident on imprisoned defectors, from Frankie "Love is made of differences and suffering and apartness, and of the struggle to overcome this apartness." - Anais Nin, 'The All-Seeing' from Under a Glass Bell The lampshade is torn it lets the light spill out pure and sharp. "You'll be right there beside me when I do it." "Don't do it for me" - Overheard, a couple in a dark alley "You've seen my show more times than I've performed it You may not think I'm splendid anymore" - Pat singing song by his friend Andre "We dream more, change our minds more often and are in love with the little possibilities available to us." "Do I identify with Gen Y? Yeah I do!...

Teaser Tuesday "Cities & Memory - 5. In Maurilia, the traveler is invited to visit the city and, at the same time, to examine some old postcards that show it as it used to be: the same identical square with a hen in the place of the bus station, a bandstand in the place of the overpass, two young ladies with white parasols in the place of the munitions factory." Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino, p. 30

It seems like I've been reading quite a lot of Young Adult books this year, which is not so usual for me lately... There's been some great books ('The Piper's Son' did not disappoint) and some not so great. One of the most intriguing was 'The Hunger Games' by Suzanne Collins, a book which came with significant hype and some different expectations. One friend told me it was pover-rated, another thought it was the best thing ever. In this situation I tend to approach a book with caution, and start out looking for flaws. And there were flaws. But then again I think, is that really fair? Anyway, back to the book... 'The Hunger Games' is set in what appears to be a dystopian future USA, which is divided into a number of 'districts' all ruled by the 'Capitol'. Life in the outer districts is pretty bleak, with little food, hard work and rigid control. To top it off, each year the Capitol takes two children, a boy and a girl (called 'tr...

Having just had a few crazy weeks of assignment writing, conference preparation at work and general hectic-ness, I'm now ready to write another blog post! Woo!  I mentioned a while ago I was interested in writing a blog post about why I love Sydney, and Ronni recently posted a link to a blog project photographing the suburbs of Sydney, which inspired me to do something about it. Incidentally, that blog posted a link to the Dictionary of Sydney , which looks like an interesting place for information on all things related to Sydney. I can't cover all of Sydney in one blog post, I just can't. And my photos are no match for those in 52 suburbs . But here are some things I love: - Festivals in Summer! When the whole city comes into one space and the streets are full of people instead of cars and everything is free. - The coffee! It looks great, it tastes great... It means we have heaps and heaps of little cafes. Everyone I know who travels overseas misses i...

I know there is a lot happening in the world right now: elections, recessions, budgets, not to mention floods and volcanoes and so on. But I am sorry to say I am unable to comment on any of them. I have not really been following the news at all. Last week work was hectic and this week has been very different. This week has been full of libraries!  From Tuesday to today I've been on a study visit for my library course (it's like a school excursion all over again) visiting libraries all over Sydney. Such a variety there were too! There was Ultimo TAFE, doing so much innovative work on a tiny budget, and UTS doing so much innovative work on a much bigger budget. There was the NSW Parliamentary library, which was AMAZING and where the librarians are like researchers, and the Society of Australian Genealogists, where the researchers were like librarians. The Botanical Gardens library had a signed first edition of the Origin of the Species, and the Australian Film, Television and Ra...

Tuesday Teaser I wasn't reading anything last Tuesday. But here we go again... "I moved softly. The water shimmered, giving off a pale light, like a mirror in a dark room." Irene Nemirovsky, Fire in the Blood , p. 37

I feel that after ranting it is good to add some balance to the blog by posting about cheerful things. What the world needs is more colour and cuteness and kindness. These things make me smile: Definitely check it out at Colour Me Katie And Bakerella always appeals to my sweet tooth. Hope all is well with you, readers!

I had an assignment yesterday, and all I wanted to do was write a blog post. Now it's handed in, and my motivation is flagging. Still! I did have all that time to think about what I wanted to say, so here goes... I remember first reading Harry Potter. I believe it was 1999, my parents were in the UK and when I went to visit they had Harry Potter, which was being reviewed at the time in the papers. But I hadn't really heard of it before. To my family, children's and young adult fantasy is pretty standard reading, and it was pretty natural for us to all read any book that came into the house. So, enough of setting the scene, I read Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone and I really enjoyed it. It had a great world, and it was a lot of fun, the language was so bubbly, it had a great humour to it and the story was a great adventure. But then the trouble started- I read the first review. And here follows the account of my continuing encounter with People's Reactions to ...

Tuesday Teaser :  "Everyone looked up. Swooping down in a shadowy cloud of broken umbrellas, Mr Brokkenboll was dropping towards them out of the sky." China Mieville, Un Lun Dun , p. 259

On Monday it was Andrew's and my second wedding anniversary. It was also the Easter long weekend. In celebration, we left town and headed for the mountains, staying in a place just outside Lithgow. It was a really awesome weekend. We got to relax, see some sights, sleep, and eat nice food. So, some highlights... Instead of going to Jenolan Caves, which turned out to be packed, we went for a walk elsewhere, and found this spectacular view. Also a lot of very steep stairs. I read a lot in the leaflets in our cabin about a walk to the 'glow worm tunnel', accessible only after a 37 km drive down a dirt road. Lured by the promise of glow worms, but wary of disappointment, we made the trek and behold! There were glow worms. Unfortunately it's a bit tricky to get a photo of the things, so you will have to make do with these photos of the end of the tunnel, one from the inside and one from the outside. Apparently it is an old mine shaft which the glow worms took a fancy to ...

I came across this meme at The Captive Reader (my exploration of the world of book blogging continues!) which apparently originated with MizB at Should Be Reading , it goes like this:          Grab your current read. Let the book fall open to a random page.  Share with us two (2) “teaser”             sentences from that page. You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given! So here goes:     There was another thing she said, my wife, sympathetically, referring to the way I regarded life on the one hand and film on the other. "Why is it so hard to be serious, so easy to be too serious?" Don DeLillo, Point Omega p. 55

Finding a new blog is usually a fairly haphazard process- it occurs through one of the three following ways: someone I know starts a blog and I find out about it, someone I know recommends a blog/blog post OR I stumble upon it through a trail of links. For that reason the blogs I read represent a fairly diverse (and unrepresentative of me) range of interests, here are some I probably haven't mentioned before: Ronni's blog from Cambridge, which I have just added a link to in my sidebar. Style Bubble - A fashion blog from the UK Pioneer Woman - A blog about life in rural America + cooking + homeschooling Smart Bitches Trashy Books - A blog about Romance novels I enjoy these blogs, I really do, different as they are. Though they don't have much in common, I guess I could say that a good blog has personality, and these do. But I feel there is something missing in my life, and that something is book reviews. I can't seem to find them on online newspaper sites (or even i...

I panned 'The Slap' in my last blog post, having not finished it, but now that I have I feel I may have been a little unfair. In the last few chapters of the book I came to care about the characters, I feel a lot of the threads pulled together, and the hopeful notes toward the end redeemed what would otherwise have been a very bleak book. It ended on a good note, with a sense of satisfaction as well as a tantalising glimpse toward the future. As I theorised back in my early adolescence, a bleak story should always end on a hopeful note. That was my formula, and I was reminded of it here. But I do not feel I can really be entirely positive about this book. I mean it took me until the last few chapters to feel anything much other than annoyance to the characters, to feel that I understood them at all, and to actually enjoy this book. Sure, a good ending is a good thing to pull off, but if you don't enjoy the rest of the book then there is still a problem there. I think ...

I was surprised to learn the other day that 'The Elegance of the Hedgehog' was being made into a movie, and slightly less surprised to find out that 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' was too. The surprise came with a certain feeling of frustration- why these books? Although this was tempered by the thought that perhaps an adaptation of a book you don't like is likely to be less frustrating than an adaptation of one you do. I'm saying right now that I have no intention of ever watching 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'- it was violent on the page, on the screen that will surely be unbearable. I've said something on this blog about it already, and while it was quite a page-turner I was glad to put it down. 'The Elegance of the Hedgehog' is a different kettle of fish (well, it is a totally different book), and something I haven't already addressed here. It's a much more gentle books, really about the inner lives of a middle-aged Pa...