Author: TravellinPenguin

Shaun Bythell is a bookseller. Not just any bookseller. He is wry, sardonic, sarcastic and sometimes just a rude man who owns a house that is his shop in Wigtown Scotland. Wigtown is in the southwest part of Scotland. I am sure it is a beautiful area. He has an appreciation for the trade though that has kept him going quite a few years.

His mentor seems to be George Orwell. He refers to Memories of a Bookseller, an essay by Orwell, quite a few times.  I want to read that essay as well as it too is very humorous. The two of them have a lot in common when it comes to the second hand book business.

If you are the type of person who does not deal with fools gladly you will love him. If you are a proper, upstanding individual who doesn’t appreciate rudeness when it is due you might want to read something else.

This is Shaun’s diary during 2014.  I found it to be very funny. There are moments when I laughed out loud.  The people around him are also very entertaining.  Shaun does have a soft spot for some people, though I doubt he likes to admit it. For example people who find a book they have been searching for everywhere for years. He discounts it or gives it to them.  Children whose eyes light up when they discuss books.

I also enjoyed his assistant, Nicky, a very eccentric, quirky young woman.

Every Friday Nicky raids the bin behind Morrison’s. (I assume that is a restaurant or bakery.) She finds goodies that are still wrapped but past their use by date. That girl will eat anything. Not only will she eat the stuff she scrounges she will offer it to others. She updates their facebook page and doesn’t seem to have a lot of boundaries. Their facebook page by the way is here.

If a customer rings Shaun wanting the name of a book he/she saw earlier on a shelf he won’t tell them. When they ask why he tells them, “You’ll only look it up on Amazon and buy it from them.”   “I know what book you are talking about. We have it here. I can put it aside for you.”  They usually hang up on him.

If someone carries a book around the shop, coveting it so to speak, but Shaun won’t lower the price on it, they leave it behind. When they return later in the day or the next day and decide to buy it they will find the price has gone up a couple of pounds. They often leave in disgust.

Shaun fights a continual war with Amazon.  There is a lot of factual information he offers about Amazon that helps the reader understand why. Though most of us know the reasons why.

He has a kindle hanging in the shop that has been shot. You can see the bullet holes in it.

I loved this book and it is something I would read again.  I have already listened to the same parts of it more than once.

I bought the book but I have the audible version as well and I read it as I listen to it. The narrator of the audible version is Robin Laing. He does a brilliant job of voicing the conversations of the customers.

I would recommend this book highly. But only if you need a good laugh.

Sample entry follows:

“Monday, 12 May

Online orders: 5

Books found: 3

After lunch I was accosted by a man in a cagoule with a terrible lisp, who came over to my side of the counter, uncomfortably close, and asked ‘Now what do you specialise in?’ to which I replied, ‘Books’, which was, I admit fatuous. Predictably, he was not impressed and replied, ‘Do not be smart with me.’ In a pointless continuation of my previous fatuous comment I replied, ‘Why not?’ Needless to say, the conversation did not end well. In fact, he became so odious that I had to pull rank and make Nicky deal with him. 

Till total £84.50

14 customers”

Noted on a Century of Books challenge- 2017

The 4 of Hearts came up for the first Deal Me In Challenge of the year.  I had not heard of this story by Charles Dickens.

This short story had the Penguin and I visiting a ghost. I have not read a ghost tale since those scary tales by Edgar Allan Poe in Grade 12. It is not a genre I am drawn to.

The characters in this short story are few: The Narrator (a man), The Signal Man who works on the railroad and the ghost.

The Narrator is out walking one day. He looks down at the railroad tracks and sees the Signal man along the tracks. He calls out, ” Halloa! Below!”. The Narrator wants to go below and visit the Signal Man.  The Signal Man freezes but finally talks the Narrator down the zig zagged track below.

He is a very nervous Signal-man. Why?  Because he believes he has seen a ghost by the tunnel near where he is standing.  The ghost has said that very same phrase to him, “Halloa! Below!”  while wildly gesticulating, waving his arms. It is a warning.  He has see this a couple of times and there have been deaths related to the train after each appearance.  He hasn’t told anyone about these experiences.

At first the Signal Man doesn’t say much to the narrator because he is nervous of him. He is not sure he is a real man instead of a ghost.

When the Narrator asks if he can visit a second time the Signal Man reluctantly agrees. But he tells the Narrator to not call out upon his arrival.  Just show up, no announcement.  The Narrator doesn’t yet know the greeting he used before is the one the ghost uses.

On the next visit the Highway man, after much small talk in front of the fire in his shed, finally discusses what he has seen with the Narrator. He finally explains why he was reticent the night before to talk to him.

“One moonlight night,” said the man, “I was sitting here, when I heard a voice cry ‘Halloa! Below there!’  I started up, looked from that door and saw this Someone else standing by the red light near the tunnel, waving as I just now showed you. The voice seemed hoarse with shouting, and it cried, ‘Look out! Look out!’ And then again, ‘Halloa! Below there! Look out!” I caught up my lamp, turned it on red, and ran towards the figure, calling, ‘What’s wrong? What has happened? Where?’ It stood just outside the blackness of the tunnel. I advanced so close upon it that I wondered at its keeping the sleeve across its eyes. I ran right up at it, and had my hand stretched out to pull the sleeve away, when it was gone.” 

The story continues and it becomes clear the Signal Man knows he has seen a ghost. The Narrator does not believe in ghosts at all and is very sceptical. He thinks the Signal Man may be losing his mind and wonders if he is safe to work for the railroad. He thinks about reporting the incident to his superiors but he holds off. He wants to meet with the Signal Man again before making a decision.

In researching this story it appears the themes around it are do we only, as humans, believe in what our five senses tell us or is there another plane where things happen that can’t be explained.  There are people who believe in the supernatural completely while others shun it all together. Personally I don’t believe in much that can’t be seen, felt, smelled, heard or tasted. I am a complete sceptic though every once in awhile I have had experiences that I cannot explain. So who knows.

Read on only if you want to know how this story continues as it is a spoiler. You can read the full story here if you’d like. I really enjoyed it and was delighted to have found it. When I think of Dickens I don’t think of him with his short stories.  I will stay tuned in the future for more I might come across.

But…….-S P O I L E R   A L E R T-  here:

(The Penguin leaves the room)

I remain to see what happens.

The story continues…

Continue reading “The Signal-Man by Charles Dickens” →

This book was so much fun.  I bought a pressure cooker several months ago. I do not have a lot of recipes and I haven’t a history of using one.  I was talking to a friend about my purchase and she had just read a review on this book.  Our State Library had it so I checked it out. Oddly enough it is my first book of 2018.  I started it last year but put it down to read Orwell and then picked it up again when finished.  The State Library summary of the book is as follows:

When Juanita Phillips stumbled on an old pressure cooker in an op shop, it changed her life. As a frantically busy working mother, she was desperate for solutions to that modern dilemma: how to juggle kids, career, housework and marriage. The pressure cooker helped her solve one of the biggest problems – preparing daily healthy meals – but that was just the beginning. She and her husband decided to transform their chaotic life in other ways too, and where it led them was surprising. This candid confession of a failed supermum offers practical tips for anyone searching for a calmer, simpler, healthier life. Includes: The Amazing 7-Minute Risotto and other pressure cooker recipes How to find more than 24 hours in a day, role reversal: the pros and cons of house-husbandry. This is the guilt-free guide to cutting housework.  (Tasmania State Library Summary)

Juanita Phillips, the author, was working as a newsreader for ABC broadcasting in Sydney., Australia she had over an hour commute to work, two small children at home, a busy husband and was working full time.  She had a nervous breakdown on air and knew she had to do something to change her life.

There is a lot of discussion in this book wondering if women can in fact ‘have it all’.  It is biographical in nature. She focuses on succeeding in a busy profession, feeding her kids, how to achieve sharing household duties with her husband more fairly and the general problems they had coming to terms with running a household fairly. Quite a bit had to change and she discusses it at length.

She discusses the history of women’s issues going back to the 1950’s and their role in marriage, employment and raising children.  This isn’t usually the type of book I go for but I really enjoyed it. One of the more pleasant aspects of this book is it is a big book with whole pages devoted to illustrations from the past. When I say a ‘big book’, I mean the pages are big. The print is large. It is fun.

Unfortunately I had to take this book back to the library and did not remember to photograph these pages. There are advertisements from the 50’s and 60’s and posters of women that have been published over the years along with pages of quotations scattered amongst pages of text.

There are some recipes but one would not buy this book as a recipe book.  She does talk about how she learned to use her pressure cooker. It was great in fixing multiple meals to later take to work for lunches and to feed her young children during the week.  She made lots of meals, popped them into the freezer and then had them available when getting home late from work.

There was an interesting chapter or two on the different ways her husband cared for the children on his days home as compared to hers and how she had to get used it.  She spends a bit of time talking about the differences between men and women raising children.

There is a good bibliography, the book is Australian and Juanita is a good writer.  I think people who like recipes, household management, time management and have a family would enjoy this book.

I am not a big recipe hound, I don’t have a large household, my time management has always been very good but I barely need it now I’m retired and I really enjoyed reading about the practical application of so many skills in this.

As for using the pressure cooker in my own home, I just got this book in the post today

and look forward to looking at it. It is an American book, chock a block with recipes for pressure cookers and I look forward to learning to use this contraption without jumping six feet in the air and running out of the kitchen when I release the pressure at the end of a cooking cycle.   The downside of this book is being American the measurements are all pounds and ounces.  Having been in Australia now 30 years I am more accustomed to using metric measurements which I LOVE as it is so much easier to do conversions.  But I do have apps on my tablet and conversion tables on my fridge so it will only be a minor annoyance.

Do any of you use a pressure cooker? Do any of you read books about them?  (chuckle here).

This book counts for 2010 in the Century of Challenges.