I doubt there is a book set precisely in the suburb where I live but there are books set in the state so that will have to do Vanessa.
Do you know Colin Thiele? He's the most obvious choice. Colin was an amazing man. He was a friend of the Senior Cat. They knew one another from the time they went to teacher training college together.
And Colin wrote books. The three best known books for children were "Sun on the Stubble" a poignant and funny semi-autobiographical episodic book of growing up in the Barossa Valley in the period between the two world wars. It is a reflection of rural life with a strong Germanic influence - so common in that part of the world.
Then there was February Dragon - bushfires are all too common here and that dragon is merely sleeping. And then there was Storm Boy - barely long enough to be considered a novel but a brilliant piece of writing about the Coorong, about loneliness, about the environment and so much more. Find them for yourselves if you can and read them.
Colin was very generous about giving children time. I once took a small group of children to meet him. By then he was principal of a teacher training college himself. His arthritis was so bad that he was having difficulty getting around so we went to him. He had taken the trouble to organise very grown up tea and biscuits and he patiently answered all their many questions. They talked about it for months afterwards - and years later I saw one of the children, now very much an adult, and he said, "Remember when we went to see Mr Thiele...?"
He did a great deal for children's literature in this state.
And there is another book very worthy of mention that I found out about through his recommendation, "Always Bells (Life with Ali)" by Winifred Stegar. It is an autobiography of a woman who, in the early part of last century, married an Afghan cameleer who lived in the far north of the state. He was a Muslim. She was a Christian. It was a stormy and often difficult marriage. They made a trip to Mecca with their children at a time when it was nothing like it is now. They lived in appalling conditions.
After he died "Winnie the Washerwoman" wrote a regular column for a rural newspaper. Some of it and some of her recollections may be less than accurate but the book is still fascinating. If you can find a copy (and it is, sadly, out of print) I recommend it too.
But, apart from that, I am sure you can find plenty of Downunder literature for yourselves.
Monday, 21 December 2015
Sunday, 20 December 2015
Book I've read more than three times????
Oh dear where do I start on that one? How long have you got?
You see I was a teacher in another life. We have to read books more than once as part of our work - well, I did.
I once worked in a school for children who were profoundly physically and intellectually disabled - or so their assessments would have had me believe. Some of the children were more intellectually able than their assessments made out. There is always a problem with trying to assess children who can't hold anything, who may have a problem holding their heads steady even when they are being held in a sitting position with numerous bits of tape and velcro.
I read a lot of books to such children. They were simple picture books. The simplest Dr Seuss books were favourites. I read those hundreds of times - and no, I don't exaggerate.
And I read slightly longer books to some of the more able children. We read nursery rhymes and we read "The Story About Ping" and "Make Way for Ducklings", "Whistle for Willie" and "Where the Wild Things Are", "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and "Madeline".
And in other schools I read other books to other children. I read Alan Marshall's "I can jump puddles" and Colin Thiele's "Sun on the Stubble". I read "The Hobbit" and "The Dolphin Crossing" and "Goodnight Mr Tom" to one class after another...and other books too. When we did the Boxer rebellion I read them "Tulku" - a book brought sharply into mind with the recent death of the wonderful Peter Dickinson.
Friday afternoons were sacred. It didn't matter what else had happened during the week we had "a chapter" (or perhaps two if they were very short). They would sit there in absolute silence unless there was a joke being told by the author.
Did I find it dull to read these books over and over again? No, because the reaction to them was always new. The book would be new to the class or comfortingly familiar for some.
And I always made sure that somewhere along the way I read them Randolph Stow's book, "Midnite".
And there were lines in there that never failed to raise a laugh. Midnite, a not very bright Colonial cowboy, asks Khat - a very bright Siamese cat - what a typewriter is. Khat replies, "It is a machine for writing books. A hundred years from now people will be preposterously lazy."
Now, isn't that worth reading three times - or even more?
You see I was a teacher in another life. We have to read books more than once as part of our work - well, I did.
I once worked in a school for children who were profoundly physically and intellectually disabled - or so their assessments would have had me believe. Some of the children were more intellectually able than their assessments made out. There is always a problem with trying to assess children who can't hold anything, who may have a problem holding their heads steady even when they are being held in a sitting position with numerous bits of tape and velcro.
I read a lot of books to such children. They were simple picture books. The simplest Dr Seuss books were favourites. I read those hundreds of times - and no, I don't exaggerate.
And I read slightly longer books to some of the more able children. We read nursery rhymes and we read "The Story About Ping" and "Make Way for Ducklings", "Whistle for Willie" and "Where the Wild Things Are", "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and "Madeline".
And in other schools I read other books to other children. I read Alan Marshall's "I can jump puddles" and Colin Thiele's "Sun on the Stubble". I read "The Hobbit" and "The Dolphin Crossing" and "Goodnight Mr Tom" to one class after another...and other books too. When we did the Boxer rebellion I read them "Tulku" - a book brought sharply into mind with the recent death of the wonderful Peter Dickinson.
Friday afternoons were sacred. It didn't matter what else had happened during the week we had "a chapter" (or perhaps two if they were very short). They would sit there in absolute silence unless there was a joke being told by the author.
Did I find it dull to read these books over and over again? No, because the reaction to them was always new. The book would be new to the class or comfortingly familiar for some.
And I always made sure that somewhere along the way I read them Randolph Stow's book, "Midnite".
And there were lines in there that never failed to raise a laugh. Midnite, a not very bright Colonial cowboy, asks Khat - a very bright Siamese cat - what a typewriter is. Khat replies, "It is a machine for writing books. A hundred years from now people will be preposterously lazy."
Now, isn't that worth reading three times - or even more?
Saturday, 19 December 2015
"Book that made me laugh"????
Oh - this is going to be difficult? Just one? No. I must have more than one Vanessa.
You see one of them was written by a rather remarkable person we both "know". You know her in real life. I only know her "virtually" but we have exchanged things over the years and we have both come across some of those customers.
Yes, "Weird things customers say in bookshops" by Jen Campbell is very definitely a book which made me laugh - and sigh. It is so very true. I have had my own experiences with such stories in our local bookshop - and similar experiences in the library.
Yes, if anyone else is reading this and has not read Jen's book then please buy a copy and read it now. It will lighten your day.
I will lighten your day with my own experience. I was "minding the shop" for our local indie bookshop owner one day. I was standing behind the counter and feeling important - perhaps. Actually I was hoping the phone would not ring and that nobody would expect me to know how to use the till.
A potential customer strolled in and looked at me and then asked, "Do you know anything about books?"
Another book is a very old one indeed. "The Devil's Dictionary" by Ambrose Bierce. It started life in the 19thC and became a book in the 20thC.
Bierce wrote it over many years and the definitions first appeared in newspapers where he was employed as a journalist and then as an editor.
The first book appeared in 1906 and there have been a number of versions since then with some "lost" definitions being included in the most recent versions culminating in the Unabridged Devil's Dictionary.
Some of the definitions are old now but many of them are still as cutting and funny as they were when they were first published.
"Lawyer (n) One skilled in circumvention of the law" and "Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage" being just two which are still, to my mind, funny now.
And, should you want a slightly more modern version of the same type of thing then try Peter Bowler's "The Superior Person's Book of Words". It is an equally wicked and deliciously funny book by an Australian lexicographer.
Or what about Asterix? Oh yes, I know. It's a comic strip sort of book but it IS funny.
Have I made you laugh?
You see one of them was written by a rather remarkable person we both "know". You know her in real life. I only know her "virtually" but we have exchanged things over the years and we have both come across some of those customers.
Yes, "Weird things customers say in bookshops" by Jen Campbell is very definitely a book which made me laugh - and sigh. It is so very true. I have had my own experiences with such stories in our local bookshop - and similar experiences in the library.
Yes, if anyone else is reading this and has not read Jen's book then please buy a copy and read it now. It will lighten your day.
I will lighten your day with my own experience. I was "minding the shop" for our local indie bookshop owner one day. I was standing behind the counter and feeling important - perhaps. Actually I was hoping the phone would not ring and that nobody would expect me to know how to use the till.
A potential customer strolled in and looked at me and then asked, "Do you know anything about books?"
Another book is a very old one indeed. "The Devil's Dictionary" by Ambrose Bierce. It started life in the 19thC and became a book in the 20thC.
Bierce wrote it over many years and the definitions first appeared in newspapers where he was employed as a journalist and then as an editor.
The first book appeared in 1906 and there have been a number of versions since then with some "lost" definitions being included in the most recent versions culminating in the Unabridged Devil's Dictionary.
Some of the definitions are old now but many of them are still as cutting and funny as they were when they were first published.
"Lawyer (n) One skilled in circumvention of the law" and "Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage" being just two which are still, to my mind, funny now.
And, should you want a slightly more modern version of the same type of thing then try Peter Bowler's "The Superior Person's Book of Words". It is an equally wicked and deliciously funny book by an Australian lexicographer.
Or what about Asterix? Oh yes, I know. It's a comic strip sort of book but it IS funny.
Have I made you laugh?
Friday, 18 December 2015
Most underrated book or author????
Ooh...I could be naughty here Vanessa and say, "Me!"
I mean, let's face it, I write don't I? But I am not published so I must be underrated? It really means I can't be rated at all.
But that's not what you meant? No, of course it isn't and there are some published authors who are definitely underrated.
John Verney is - or was - one such author. "Going to the wars" is one of the best war memoirs ever written but I doubt there is a copy on any library shelf in the entire state I live in. It is funny and yet kind and essentially very human. It should be better known.
But John Verney also wrote for children and I fell a little in love with the Callender family when I was just a kitten. What's not to love about a family where the children get called things like "Friday" and "February"? Their father, "Gus Callender" is a "left winger" - and this was before it became popular to have such characters in books. He's a journalist - enough said. And then there is "Lord Sprockett" in "Friday's Tunnel". He is an undesirable piece of work - a thinly disguised Tory peer perhaps but also more than that.
"Friday's Tunnel" and "February's Road", "Ismo" and "Seven Sunflower Seeds" and "Samson's Hoard" would perhaps be considered a little old fashioned now. The setting is old fashioned I suppose.
The Callenders live in a large house. They are upper class (the older children are away at boarding school part of the time) and slightly bohemian at home. The older children know their classics and their reference books. (Does a modern child even know what "Who's who" is?)
But, like Going to the Wars" these books are funny as well. There's resourcefulness as well as chaos and they care about people.
And John Verney once wrote a long and passionate letter about International Literacy Year for me to the relevant United Nations official. He was a remarkable man - an author who should be much more widely appreciated.
I mean, let's face it, I write don't I? But I am not published so I must be underrated? It really means I can't be rated at all.
But that's not what you meant? No, of course it isn't and there are some published authors who are definitely underrated.
John Verney is - or was - one such author. "Going to the wars" is one of the best war memoirs ever written but I doubt there is a copy on any library shelf in the entire state I live in. It is funny and yet kind and essentially very human. It should be better known.
But John Verney also wrote for children and I fell a little in love with the Callender family when I was just a kitten. What's not to love about a family where the children get called things like "Friday" and "February"? Their father, "Gus Callender" is a "left winger" - and this was before it became popular to have such characters in books. He's a journalist - enough said. And then there is "Lord Sprockett" in "Friday's Tunnel". He is an undesirable piece of work - a thinly disguised Tory peer perhaps but also more than that.
"Friday's Tunnel" and "February's Road", "Ismo" and "Seven Sunflower Seeds" and "Samson's Hoard" would perhaps be considered a little old fashioned now. The setting is old fashioned I suppose.
The Callenders live in a large house. They are upper class (the older children are away at boarding school part of the time) and slightly bohemian at home. The older children know their classics and their reference books. (Does a modern child even know what "Who's who" is?)
But, like Going to the Wars" these books are funny as well. There's resourcefulness as well as chaos and they care about people.
And John Verney once wrote a long and passionate letter about International Literacy Year for me to the relevant United Nations official. He was a remarkable man - an author who should be much more widely appreciated.
Thursday, 17 December 2015
My favourite comfort read?????
Oh...."comfort read"?
That's difficult. If I need to ignore the world for a while then I'll try and find an undemanding sort of read - a whodunit possibly.
A tough time over work...being told about the almost unbearable situations some of my colleagues find themselves in or, worse still, losing one of them out in the field due to violence? I'll go back to some things I have already mentioned Hammarskjold, a book of "meditations" or quotations or something similar. It will be something that reminds me that other people have been there in that place too - and that they have come through it.
Once in a while I may re-read something familiar. I sometimes re-read a book a child has been reading so that we can talk about it - and going back to childhood favourites can be comforting. There is a sense of safety about some of them.
But a real comfort read? It will only take a few minutes but - should an ancient cat admit this? I love picture books...I'll pick up a picture book and read that. I'll prowl through the familiar pages and pictures and get stroked by the sheer simplicity of them. What does it say about me? I don't know. I still love "The Story About Ping" and "Make Way for Ducklings" and many more.
If you really want a comfort read pick up one of the Katie Morag books by Mairi Hedderwick. There's a wonderful sense of family and community in those books. The illustrations are marvellous. Granny Island and Granny Mainland are wonderful. Katie Morag is just delicious. The books remind me of life in small communities here - and the island we once lived on.
Yes, yes I know this is possibly not quite what you meant Vanessa but I think you have to admit it's a pretty good comfort read.
That's difficult. If I need to ignore the world for a while then I'll try and find an undemanding sort of read - a whodunit possibly.
A tough time over work...being told about the almost unbearable situations some of my colleagues find themselves in or, worse still, losing one of them out in the field due to violence? I'll go back to some things I have already mentioned Hammarskjold, a book of "meditations" or quotations or something similar. It will be something that reminds me that other people have been there in that place too - and that they have come through it.
Once in a while I may re-read something familiar. I sometimes re-read a book a child has been reading so that we can talk about it - and going back to childhood favourites can be comforting. There is a sense of safety about some of them.
But a real comfort read? It will only take a few minutes but - should an ancient cat admit this? I love picture books...I'll pick up a picture book and read that. I'll prowl through the familiar pages and pictures and get stroked by the sheer simplicity of them. What does it say about me? I don't know. I still love "The Story About Ping" and "Make Way for Ducklings" and many more.
If you really want a comfort read pick up one of the Katie Morag books by Mairi Hedderwick. There's a wonderful sense of family and community in those books. The illustrations are marvellous. Granny Island and Granny Mainland are wonderful. Katie Morag is just delicious. The books remind me of life in small communities here - and the island we once lived on.
Yes, yes I know this is possibly not quite what you meant Vanessa but I think you have to admit it's a pretty good comfort read.
Wednesday, 16 December 2015
Most recent (book) purchase????
Ah now Vanessa, I'll have to be careful that none of the people on my Christmas and birthday list are reading this....because I am not sure in which order I decided on the following...
(1) Another copy of Big Blue Sky by Peter Garrett. I am not sure how well people in Upover know Peter Garrett. He was the lead man in the group known as "Midnight Oil" and he was also a Senator in the previous government. One of my claims to (non)fame is that I went to the same law school as he did - and we were never allowed to forget he went there.
The sort of music "Midnight Oil" went for is not mine but he has led an interesting life in other ways and his autobiography is intended as a birthday present.
(2) "The believing brain" by Michael Shermer is a stocking filler for the Senior Cat. It's a psychology book about why people believe things - a companion to his "Why people believe weird things" which the Senior Cat found fascinating. I know, a little odd to be giving someone as a Christmas present but - believe me - he will be pleased.
(3) I also bought him "Confessions of a Conjurer" by Derren Brown - an autobiography of a fellow magician.
(4) And I bought one of my nephews "What If..." by Randall Munroe. It is the quirky sort of thing he will enjoy dipping into in the rare moments he has time to read anything.
(5) And three more copies of "Captain Beastlie's Pirate Party by Lucy Coats - at the request of a friend unable to get to a bookshop She has three nephews she thinks will appreciate the story. I know they will - they are dirt magnetised.
I think that's a pretty good haul.
(1) Another copy of Big Blue Sky by Peter Garrett. I am not sure how well people in Upover know Peter Garrett. He was the lead man in the group known as "Midnight Oil" and he was also a Senator in the previous government. One of my claims to (non)fame is that I went to the same law school as he did - and we were never allowed to forget he went there.
The sort of music "Midnight Oil" went for is not mine but he has led an interesting life in other ways and his autobiography is intended as a birthday present.
(2) "The believing brain" by Michael Shermer is a stocking filler for the Senior Cat. It's a psychology book about why people believe things - a companion to his "Why people believe weird things" which the Senior Cat found fascinating. I know, a little odd to be giving someone as a Christmas present but - believe me - he will be pleased.
(3) I also bought him "Confessions of a Conjurer" by Derren Brown - an autobiography of a fellow magician.
(4) And I bought one of my nephews "What If..." by Randall Munroe. It is the quirky sort of thing he will enjoy dipping into in the rare moments he has time to read anything.
(5) And three more copies of "Captain Beastlie's Pirate Party by Lucy Coats - at the request of a friend unable to get to a bookshop She has three nephews she thinks will appreciate the story. I know they will - they are dirt magnetised.
I think that's a pretty good haul.
Tuesday, 15 December 2015
Own more than one copy (of this book)????
I have multiple copies of more than one book - some of them are "loan" copies - but there is one book I will never loan although I own two copies of it.
One copy is rather too tattered to loan to anyone. The other is one of my most treasured possessions.
In my last year at school other people decided I should be a teacher. I didn't know what I wanted to do - or rather, I think I did but it wasn't possible.
Given the choice I think I would have gone off to university and studied linguistics. I would probably have been an academic of some sort at the other end. I think I would have enjoyed it. Yes, some of it would have been teaching. There would have been some research too - which I ended up doing anyway but in a rather different sort of way.
But, I went to teachers' college instead. Not everyone wanted me at teachers' college. It was thought I wouldn't cope with teaching, especially in a "normal" school. I was shunted into "special" education but I actually left college better qualified than most of my contemporaries. They had two years there and I had three. I did an extra "special education" course. Some people thought I might manage that - not realising that it is actually much more physically demanding.
In the middle of all this there was an art lecturer who thought I do it - and made sure I did. He was married to a rather wonderful woman who, on going to see her son in New Guinea, phoned me from there and said, "B....would like to take you out to see a film but he knows you won't go unless I tell you it's fine with me. Well, it is fine with me and will you please accept the invitation so that he stops bothering me. You can trust him."
I went to the film with him - and he acted like the gentleman he was. I visited their home on a fairly regular basis and we got to know one another well. He liked some of the things I was writing at the time. He encouraged me to look to the future - and university in a back to front sort of way. (I did get there.)
And then, on the morning of my 21st birthday - the very early morning, he appeared on my doorstep. He was holding a small parcel in his hand. He couldn't wait a moment longer. He handed it over almost shyly. "P... (his wife) hid it so I wouldn't give it to you early."
In it was a book - but not just any book. It is small. It has a dark green leatherette cover. Inside is a remarkable piece of artwork. It is a copy of TS Eliot's "Four Quartets" - handwritten with an illustration for each part.
I don't know how many hours it took B... to make that book. P... told me later that there were "much muttered cursing" as he did it. I do know that the Art Gallery here would like to own it - but I am not parting with it.
It sits there by my bed. Sometimes I take it out of the cloth I keep it in and I wonder at it and the work that went into it. If I want to go back to that poetry I pull out the battered, annotated copy and read that. This one however is to held gently and treasured...and treasured.
It was a book made for me.
One copy is rather too tattered to loan to anyone. The other is one of my most treasured possessions.
In my last year at school other people decided I should be a teacher. I didn't know what I wanted to do - or rather, I think I did but it wasn't possible.
Given the choice I think I would have gone off to university and studied linguistics. I would probably have been an academic of some sort at the other end. I think I would have enjoyed it. Yes, some of it would have been teaching. There would have been some research too - which I ended up doing anyway but in a rather different sort of way.
But, I went to teachers' college instead. Not everyone wanted me at teachers' college. It was thought I wouldn't cope with teaching, especially in a "normal" school. I was shunted into "special" education but I actually left college better qualified than most of my contemporaries. They had two years there and I had three. I did an extra "special education" course. Some people thought I might manage that - not realising that it is actually much more physically demanding.
In the middle of all this there was an art lecturer who thought I do it - and made sure I did. He was married to a rather wonderful woman who, on going to see her son in New Guinea, phoned me from there and said, "B....would like to take you out to see a film but he knows you won't go unless I tell you it's fine with me. Well, it is fine with me and will you please accept the invitation so that he stops bothering me. You can trust him."
I went to the film with him - and he acted like the gentleman he was. I visited their home on a fairly regular basis and we got to know one another well. He liked some of the things I was writing at the time. He encouraged me to look to the future - and university in a back to front sort of way. (I did get there.)
And then, on the morning of my 21st birthday - the very early morning, he appeared on my doorstep. He was holding a small parcel in his hand. He couldn't wait a moment longer. He handed it over almost shyly. "P... (his wife) hid it so I wouldn't give it to you early."
In it was a book - but not just any book. It is small. It has a dark green leatherette cover. Inside is a remarkable piece of artwork. It is a copy of TS Eliot's "Four Quartets" - handwritten with an illustration for each part.
I don't know how many hours it took B... to make that book. P... told me later that there were "much muttered cursing" as he did it. I do know that the Art Gallery here would like to own it - but I am not parting with it.
It sits there by my bed. Sometimes I take it out of the cloth I keep it in and I wonder at it and the work that went into it. If I want to go back to that poetry I pull out the battered, annotated copy and read that. This one however is to held gently and treasured...and treasured.
It was a book made for me.
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