Come In, Spinner

My amble through the odd, haunting and sometimes downright "difficult" Eucalyptus ended last night - time for something a little lighter, perhaps? I'll get stuck into Come in, Spinner. It's a chunky little read at 711 pages...

Sarajevo Haggadah

I really enjoyed People of the Book, by the way. It provided some good light relief in the breaks during the tutorial I attended. The lobby at the Westin Hotel had a cosy fire and warm sunny spots to read in, as well as something of a library of books surrounding the fire. The inspiration for Geraldine Brook's story was the Sarajevo Haggadah, pictured.

That book sure had a very long and incredible journey. Reading such a book as People is totally transporting, giving glimpses of histories I never knew existed. Magical.

Books in Melbourne

I attended a cytology tutorial in Melbourne last week, at a hotel in Collins St. Keith tipped me off about the Kay Craddock Antiquarian Bookseller just a few clicks up the street. So I dashed over on one lunch break. There were shelves devoted to Australian literature and several of the list of 290 were in stock. Most of those books seemed to be first editions and have been nicely covered

with a description of the book's condition tucked into the front cover. I bought The Long Prospect by Elizabeth Borrower, a first edition from 1958.

I'm now reading Eucalyptus by Murray Bail after finishing People of the Book last night. There was a first edition of Eucalyptus in the rare book shop but at a purchase price of $150, I passed that one over! I like the cover of The Long Prospect and it was a third of the price.


I could have spent hours in Kay Craddock's book shop - it's in one of Melbourne's many beautiful old buildings, The Assembly Hall Building.

Next, please!

Finished Rabbit Proof Fence last night and have read the first couple of pages of People of the Book. It should be a good "holiday" read so will pack it to go to Melbourne. Along with a couple of others, in case I get lots of reading time. But I'm going to Melbourne to learn cytology so it's something of a busman's holiday ...

The Books are Still Piling Up

But I'm whizzing through Rabbit Proof Fence which is a slight read but no less an incredible story. More Christmas purchases arrived. The Ada Cambridge was wrote in 1890! Which is why it's been jolly hard to find. Which is why I ended up ordering it from Amazon. It looks odd, like a text book.

This copy is from the BiblioBazaar Reproduction Series, the goal of which is to bring back into print hard-to-find original publications at a reasonable price, at the same time preserving the legacy of literary history. Write on!!

And I got Murray Bail's Eucalypt, which comes recommended by Anna and which has been really hard to reserve again at the library. I had it out at one stage but didn't get around to reading it in the short loan time I had it for; it's clearly in demand.

We're off to Melbourne for a week on Monday, so will be packing plenty of books to keep me going. Or maybe just one big fat, juicy one ... decisions, decisions ...

Rabbit Proof Fence

Finished For Love Alone last night; scary book. Started Rabbit Proof Fence, which if it's a true story isn't really a novel, is it? Not going to stop me reading it though!

The 40s and 50s

Another book in my Christmas order arrived today. It was published in 1952. My current read, For Love Alone was published in 1945. And how language has moved on since then. I keep coming across quite a few words that I think have fallen out of common usage - I sure don't know what they mean, anyway. I'd pull out the dictionary and check them out as I'm going but we've packed the dictionaries away! How about this for an example: "I am not enceinte with any instincts. I am austere." Well, I think I know what austere means... When I read material like this, I worry that we are losing our grip on the language, losing our words, like losing marbles if you like. But surely language is evolving, new words are added to dictionaries all the time. But the "old" words seem to carry more value, somehow, then all the new-fangled, sometimes slightly silly and sometimes almost "non" words we keep adding to our vocabulary... But it's not just the words that have changed so much in just a few decades. It's all the social stuff too, the manoeuvering between men and women, which is what For Love Alone is all about, really. It's another dense read, 502 pages long and I'm just scratching the half way mark. With my stack of books to read continuing to mount up, I do realise it's a huge task ahead to read all the books I want to. Luckily, they're all different and so far, have all been mostly very enjoyable to read.