And now for something completely different ...

At least, I think it will be different from the crazy read, The Godson, that I've just finished!

Christmas Comes Early

We're moving house in November and have a couple of trips away before then so we're making sure Christmas present buying is all done and out of the way. I've ordered a few books for my pressies and the first arrived from Fishpond yesterday!

The Godson

I am tearing into The Godson. Gotta love an author who was, according to his bio inside the front cover of the book, a butcher from Bondi and has been in films and TV but prefers to write. And his writing is colourful, rough and ready; bit of a boys-own sort of bodice ripper style.

His colourful side is evident in his website and I LOVE the technicolour of his many book covers!

Library Run

Godson is one of two Robert G. Barrett books on the list and I think I'll read it next; just about finished The Idea of Perfection.

Why you are Australian is written by Nikki Gemmell who has four novels on the list. The non fiction book is somewhat pertinent to our situation, waiting to apply for Australian citizenship, bringing up a child born in NZ but who's now lived longer in Australia. And Keith, on a UK passport but who's lived most of his life in NZ, is a nowhere citizen, or perhaps an "everywhere citizen" - lucky to have the choice, so as to be able often to claim ties to whichever team is winning a major sporting event!

Waiting for The Hairdresser

What to do with 10 minutes before one's hairdresser is ready to cut? Pop next door to the second-hand book shop and browse the Australiana section!

The Idea of Perfection

This is Kate Grenville. She won the Orange Prize in 2001 for the book I started reading last night, The Idea of Perfection.

I don't know anything about the Orange Prize, except that Grenville's website describes it as Britain's richest literary prize. I notice her website has a link to The Orange Prize so I will do some research.

The book somehow brings together the topics of engineering and quilting as well as being a story about a very unlikely friendship between two fairly odd characters.

This quote from Leonardo da Vinci gives a clue as to why and how: "An arch is two weaknesses which together make a strength."

Books Across the Border

Just remembered I hadn't put the couple of photos on here from our holiday in Nth NSW, Yamba and environs with a visit to Maclean, "the Scottish town" nearby. As mentioned, I bought myself People of the Book. But I am still reading my way through The Tree of Man - it's a dense read but enjoyable. It's got a lovely quiet style about it, a gentle portrait of a marriage which began in the isolation of the Australian bush and with time, the community grew around the couple; there was a war and children and now they are heading into old age, with all the creaks and groans that places on a relationship.

This was a nice sign on the bookshop in Maclean.