TravellinPenguin

Weekend Wander- What a mess…

Posted on August 19, 2018August 19, 2018 by TravellinPenguin

Snip20180527_1 I really don’t like to get behind with my posts but so much has been going on with everyone around me I haven’t had the energy to put up much. Bear with me, this may be long. I’ll try to put in photos for interest.

Books read, either finished or not-

I have been reading a lot with both the real thing and listening to audio. No reviews, will just give you a blurb- I’m sure that’s enough anyway.

Madness, Mayhem and Motherhood by Nikki McWatters. No I don’t have kids, I have animals. The choices we make, but I do feel for single mothers and am very interested in how they cope. This young woman’s husband walked out leaving her with two young boys. She’s Australian and lives in the Sydney (Bondi Beach Junction) area. Trials and tribulations. A lot of joy, a lot of poverty, a lot of gumption and success and some very real heartbreak. The writing is good and the story really packs a punch with surprises. A bit of name dropping too re: the Australian music scene. I really enjoyed this and Nikki will stay with me for a long time.

Dancing Home by Paul Collis- I read a review by one of the Australian bloggers, think it was Lisa? Sorry if wasn’t you but I loved this book but it is a tough read. Aboriginals and the police are not a happy mix in this country and the drug use, alcoholism and really tough lives of these good people was a tough read. I will never forget them.

Snip20180819_5 — Don’t you love this cover.

Our Hearts Were Young and Gay by Cornelia Otis Skinner (1942) on audible. Simon of Stuck in a Book talked about this American author and actress who lived from 1899 to 1979. I had never heard of her and so needed to remedy that. This was the only book I could find by her on audible so I’ve listened to her. It’s a memoir of the trip she and her friend took in their twenties to France via New York, the St Lawrence Seaway, London, across the Atlantic on a ship in the 1920s. Although I found the two young women very tedious, especially when they bought two little dogs in a pet shop as fashion accessories, their trip did have some very good humour. It is what I refer to as a ‘fluffy’ book. Lots of natter and nothing that will keep you awake at nights. I was happy to finish it off though. I tired of their silliness.

Snip20180819_6

I have started Educated by Tara Westover, the American woman who escaped from her family who lived as a cult against all government authority in Idaho. Joanne reviewed it on Lakeside Musing (here). I must agree with what she said about it. I have taped an episode of Insight on the ABC tv here about people who deal with aloneness and I noticed this author is on theachael panel but I have yet to finish the book. I will probably read more but I’m not in a hurry.

Snip20180819_1

More interesting is the story Australian journalist Rachael Brown from Victoria has written about a cold case death that happened in Melbourne in 1980. She launched the book Trace, at Fuller’s a couple of weeks ago and my friend and I went along. Fascinating. We bought the book and I have just begun it. It involves some very corrupt Victorian police from that time and the protection at all costs of a group of extremely dodgy priests from the Catholic Church. I continue to be amazed at what crawls out of the woodwork about priests and bishops these days. A gripping story. What a professional journalist with bucketloads of integrity this young woman possesses.

Snip20180819_2

The following week my friend and I went to the launch of The Nowhere Child by Christian White. It was a smaller group of attendees than Trace but we had a fun discussion of this book. The story is fiction but the events throughout the book are based on fact. Like the Pentecostal church members who have ceremonies around rattle snake handling. Australian Kim Leamy is the protagonist and she is approached by a stranger from Kentucky in America who is investigating the disappearance of a child 28 years ago. He believes Kim is the missing child. I have not started this book yet but am looking forward to it. It goes back and forth between Australia and Kentucky.

Snip20180819_7

I will also mention Priestdaddy: A Memoir (memoirs seems to be everywhere these days) by author Patricia Lockwood. I have just rejoined Fuller’s book club after a couple of years break and this is the book for October. I will talk more about it after the group meets in the first week.

Snip20180819_10

We also finished final play of the term in my U3A play reading class, A Taste of Honey by Shelagh Delaney. Set in the 1950’s in North West England, it tells the story of Jo a 17 year old working class girl, and her mother, who is a very crude and sexually indisriminate difficult mother. The things they get up to…. Very much enjoyed by our class reading aloud about a slice of poverty in 1950s England.

Snip20180819_8

Oh Yeah, I’m also listening to A Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield (1890 – 1943) now when I am in the car. I’m getting through it quite quickly and it is gently amusing. It was the August book for the Fuller’s book club so I decided to listen to it with one of my audible credits. It will go towards my Century of Books challenge (1930). It is largely autobiographical told through the pages of a journal, which is a format I dearly enjoy. I heard there were mixed opinions of this novel in the book club group. I’m not sure if I will follow up with the sequels of her story.

Snip20180819_11 — For those of you suffering heat waves I thought I’d share a photo of what Mt. Wellington looks like this week. Beautiful snow.

This kind of catches you up on the bookish side of life in South Hobart. I have three overseas trips coming up between now and May of 2019 and have been spending time wrapping up payments and paperwork for those. The first begins in two weeks when I am heading to the San Francisco area of California to spend three weeks with my sister. I’m hoping photography and books play a part in this trip as well as maybe a short road trip or two. The penguin is going with me and…..wait for this….he may be taking a couple of friends of his…..the Bald Eagle and the American Robin. So stay tuned for that.

I have done some fun photography also and am looking forward to sharing the visit to the Raptor Refuge over the weekend with you. We were trained in what Tasmania has to offer regarding the beautiful raptors and what to do or how to handle if finding an injured one. More on that later and I’ll share the photos of the release we observed of a rehabilitated Peregrine Falcon that is just too stunning for words.

Snip20180819_12

Whew!! I hope this didn’t get too boring. I’ll try to post up again soon and the next six weeks should have a bit of fun as well as some more books, arts, travel and photography.

Have you read any of these books? I’d love to know if you enjoyed them or not. Back soon… gardner

Non Fiction

Homo Deus at Fullers Book shop

Posted on July 29, 2018 by TravellinPenguin

Snip20180729_1 I know I talk about Fuller’s book shop quite a bit here. They have started Philosophy Cafe Evenings. I learned about them recently. I missed the first one but I caught the second one. This one began at 5:30 pm and went for an hour. A friend who was interested in the topic went with me. It ended just after 6:30 and then we went for a Japanese meal around the corner. A fun night.

The book and subject discussed was humanism in the future from the book Home Deus, A Brief History of Tomorrow written by Yuval Noah Harari (Translator- Du’o’ng Ngoc Trà). It was facilitated by Dr Ingo Fanin, from the University of Tasmania.

Good Reads describes this book as:

“Over the past century humankind has managed to do the impossible and rein in famine, plague, and war. This may seem hard to accept, but, as Harari explains in his trademark style—thorough, yet riveting—famine, plague and war have been transformed from incomprehensible and uncontrollable forces of nature into manageable challenges. For the first time ever, more people die from eating too much than from eating too little; more people die from old age than from infectious diseases; and more people commit suicide than are killed by soldiers, terrorists and criminals put together. The average American is a thousand times more likely to die from binging at McDonalds than from being blown up by Al Qaeda.

What then will replace famine, plague, and war at the top of the human agenda? As the self-made gods of planet earth, what destinies will we set ourselves, and which quests will we undertake? Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century—from overcoming death to creating artificial life. It asks the fundamental questions: Where do we go from here? And how will we protect this fragile world from our own destructive powers?”

Mr. Fanin introduced the book and then had some questions he thought of he threw out to the audience. The audience then began a discussion of humanism in the future. Topics covered the environment, technology which took up quite a bit of futuristic thinking, how humans treat each other (war), population, religion versus science and then whatever tangent it went off on before another question was asked by Mr. Fanin.

There were quite a few people there and everyone sat around the tables in the cafe so had a good vantage point to see who was talking. I had read the book in the preceding two weeks and did manage to finish it. At times it went over my head and I had to revisit parts of it. I’m glad I read it in consecutive days as it’s the type of book if you put it down and come back weeks or even too many days later you’d forget what you had read.

I enjoyed the intellectual discussion. I also enjoyed that there were young people and elderly people and every age in between. It was good to hear what others thought of the direction of our future on this planet. Overall I didn’t find it too depressing when when the subject came up “What if technology was developed so people never died?” arose the question was asked, “What is then the significance of being murdered if you had everlasting life on earth.” Or what if you reach a point in your life, such as old and ill and you stay at that stage for another few hundred years. Is that what we want? At what age would our life “freeze” so to speak and we live with that forever. I thought they were interesting thoughts but was also relieved to know I will never deal with any of that. I don’t think I’d want to live forever.

Another topic is what does the world do when technology is taking over all of the jobs in the world. An example of research that stated when doctors diagnosed lunch cancer they got it right 50% of the time but when a programmed robot diagnosed it the diagnosis was correct 100% of the time. There will be a world of billions that all surplus people. We were encouraged to then be happy we’re surplus and to enjoy all the leisure that brings. Study, educate ourselves, travel. My question how does one support themselves over two hundred years of leisure?

Snip20160609_6 — There’s some deep thinking going on here.

There were lots of ideas and opinions in the room and I really enjoyed the evening. All of this in about 70 minutes. The Japanese food was very good afterwards and it gave my friend and I quite a bit to debrief about over dinner. I look forward to the next Philosophy Cafe later in the year.

NB: The author is also known for his previous book, which this one leads on from, Sapiens: A brief history of humankind.

Yuval Noah Harari is an Israeli historian and a tenured professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Wikipedia

Tuesday Trivia

A Little Bit of Winter Fun

Posted on July 24, 2018July 20, 2018 by TravellinPenguin

On these darker, colder, rainy days it is still important for me to get my walks in for some exercise. I have been trying to motivate myself so I find things that are entertaining. Yesterday I went into town to do a couple of errands. Mr. Penguin dropped me in South Hobart and I walked the 20 minutes into town. I took my camera and decided I would look for art work as I went along.

I did my errands and then of course ended up at Fuller’s Book Shop for a hot coffee and a warm apple turnover that was very nice. Their winter guide to books is available now so I sat down with that and ticked the books that looked good. I’ll see if the library has them as there are just too many to buy. I have been reading my TBR from my shelf but I do like to support the library as I believe they are important to a community. Even if I don’t get time to read everything I still like to check the books out.

I digress….. the walk turned up the following photos: