The Penguin and I returned from California in one piece and it was good to get home. I had two dogs that exploded when they saw me. Love an exploding dog. It’s as though they forget you and then remember and then explode.    I had lots of well wishes for my travels. I always laugh a bit when people wish me a safe trip.  As if I can control what happens with the pilot and our plane. But I know their intentions are good.

Today I went into the city and picked up some library books I had on hold. I suspended my holds while away so of course once I returned and took the suspension off them they all came in at once.  I got two photography books that I won’t display here but I am enjoying them.

The books I picked up today have a funny tale.  The one book I have been waiting for is The Totem Pole by Paul Pritchard. The Totem Pole is a very tall rock formation on the east coast of Tasmania. Here is the blurb.

“Climbing defined Paul Pritchard’s existence and signposted his horizons. From his Snowdonia base he gained a reputation for routes of extreme technical difficulty and meagre protection.”

“He’s climbed in the mountain ranges from the Hiumalayas to the Andes, Baffin Island to the Pamirs.  When climbing the totem pole in Tasmania a falling boulder inflicted such terrible head injuries that at the hospital they thought he might never walk or speak again.”  He spent the next year fighting his hemiplegia, his memory and speech disorders. This is his story. He does come back from all of this.

I was waiting in line for the bus today. A hippie type man was standing next to me also waiting to board the bus. He saw this book on the top of my pile and said, “He’s a good friend of mine. I was just at his place yesterday.  We actually like him more since he’s had his head injury. You’ll enjoy this book. It’s just been reprinted in a new format.” I was told I don’t have the ‘new’ one.

People in Tasmania get teased a lot because everyone is supposed to be related to everyone else and have two heads. Of course with the great rise in cultural events here now we don’t hear that as much now our state has been discovered by the world. However, you have heard the saying, “six degrees of separation.” Well Tassie has two degrees of separation and we do witness this all the time. So today I was only two degrees from meeting the author of this book.

Other books I picked up were:

Red Dirt by E.M. Reapy. I saw this one in City Lights Book Shop in San Francisco and made a note to check our local library for it. The blurb from the back:

“Hopper, out of his head on acid, is left for dead in the outback.  Fiona has fled an abusive relationship that shattered her self-respect.

Murphy’s family lost a fortune when the Celtic Tiger collapsed. In Australia’s vast promised land, these three young people try to escape their past.”  This is the author’s debut novel and I’m hoping I don’t run out of time to read it.

The next book is Girl With Dove: A Life Built by Books by Sally Bayley.  It is a story of how one girl’s life was shaped by books.  I always love a book about books and reading. I think I heard about this from a fellow blogger but for the life of me I can’t remember who.

The last book is much more serious. Home: Drawings by Syrian Children edited by Ben Quilty and a Foreword by Tasmania’s own Richard Flanagan.

It is a very large book full of drawings by children who have survived the war in Syria, still reside in refugee camps or have escaped to other countries.  It is important to keep these issues in the mainstream especially when the Australian government treats refugees, many of them sick children, so cruelly in off shore detention centres   that are below third world conditions.  Shame is the main word I use to describe our politicians in leadership at the moment. I can’t print what I really think of them. I will put up a couple of drawings from the book.  If I had lots of money I would send this book to every politician in the federal parliament.

I have read several books over the past month but I will mention them another time in a list.  I have a book club meeting tonight at Fuller’s Book Store and will add that one to the pile. This post is long enough for today.  Let me know if you have read any of these books. I’m not sure which one I will begin with.

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