Author: TravellinPenguin

Where else can a person with two happy dogs go to the beach in winter?  We just had a couple of sunny days and I decided to take the dogs to the beach. They have been pretty goofy and needed a good run.  So off we went. They love a day at the beach with a side trip to Mc Donalds to share a few fries afterwards. They only get three each.

What else happened over the weekend? Well, I am almost finished with part II of War and Peace. It will be a long haul but I am enjoying it. The narrator of the book is very good speaking several voices in various tones. It must be a job to read this book out loud perfectly.  He does an excellent job and I keep up okay with the kindle version.

I haven’t started reading anything else yet but will do. I can’t just have a life of W and P.

We did get to see the film Kedi about the street cats in Istanbul.  It is a lovely film. The photography was excellent and much of Istanbul was shown from various angles. The personalities of the cats was caught on film and we enjoyed getting to meet them.

The week before us will see the play The God of Carnage on Wednesday. I have no idea what it is about.

On Thursday Robert Dessaix is being interviewed at Fuller’s Book Shop. I will be attending this.

Evidently all of his books are being reissued.  The interview later in the week will see him discussing why he wrote them and other information about them.  I have read several of his books and enjoyed them all. I also ran into him once in the grocery store with his partner Peter Timms and helped them pick out some yoghurt. My claim to fame.

Monica McInerney was at Fullers the other day and the book shop decorated their window with her new book. I was going to see her but then I heard her interviewed on ABC Radio National for an hour so I decided not to go. The authors tend to repeat themselves as they do their book blurbs around the country. I have only read one of her books and I did enjoy it. I would like to read more of her.

Fuller’s Book Shop just won a national award for Best Independent bookshop of Australia beating out contenders in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. Such an honour for them and their manager Catherine Schultz took out the best book seller award nationally. They were stoked as they should be. A trip to Hobart is not complete for the wild and wooly bookish people out there without a visit to Fuller’s. They have a lovely cafe too.

I guess that wraps up the weekend for another week. I’ll be back before long. In the meantime enjoy the Kingston Dog Winter Beach photos. (There aren’t many.)

This week has been pretty busy. Our Play Reading class on Tuesday continued with our Oscar Wilde theme. Not having been exposed to a lot of his work I have been enjoying it. We finished the play The Importance of Being Ernest which we all enjoyed. Then we watched the DVD of the play. It has so much humour in it. We are looking at the various types of writing Oscar Wilde produced. Serious, biblical, children’s writing to very funny and entertaining. We are really having an Oscar Wilde fest this term. We are currently reading Salome’.

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I have begun War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. What a genius this man was.  I downloaded the audible version of it from audible.com and as I had a vintage Penguin Classics copy I thought I would read a long. However the two translations were very different with the Penguin Classic being much wordier.

I found the same translator on Kindle books and downloaded that copy for 99cents. Now we are in sync.  I must say I am enjoying it quite a bit.  Although I am only into Part II.  The Napoleonic wars have just begun. I didn’t expect the humour from some of the characters and it hasn’t taken me long to jump into and start caring about everyone. A long ways to go yet.

(Narrated by Frederick Davidson, translated by Constance Garnett)

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Wednesday was our writing class. I took the bus into Hobart and walked down to the Tasmanian Writer’s Centre where our weekly (except the third Wed of each month) group is held. It is school holidays, it was sunny and a very pleasant day, though chilly, down on the waterfront. People everywhere.  The best thing about the winters in Hobart is the sun shines almost every day. Really puts a different perspective on things. I noticed the big ice breaker Aurora Australis ship was in port. It is a large orange ship that goes regularly to Antarctica taking people and supplies. It is such an icon on our waterfront and I always enjoy seeing it when it is in port.

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I finished the Australian novel of The Golden Child by Wendy James. It is for our end of July book club meeting and I really enjoyed it. I will be looking forward to what the others thought of it. Lots of points for discussion.  I had not heard of it before. It is about the bullying done online in a high school setting between so called friends. The ending really packed a wallop so I will say no more.  It touched on many social issues that young people must deal with today and having read it I am glad there was no social media when I was in high school.  I thought the book was well written, the characters very believable and as I said, I loved the ending. If you get a chance to have a quick read I can certainly recommend it.

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The weekend ahead is looking a bit quiet at this point. There is currently a documentary called Kedi, about seven cats in Istanbul whose lives are followed around the city. It is playing at our local State Cinema in Hobart. Having visited Istanbul not that many years ago and seen all the street cats I am looking forward to seeing how this film goes. We ate outdoors at many restaurants while there and often ended up putting half our plate of food on the ground under the table for the cats while the waiters backs were turned. I hope to see this very soon.

Winter continues here. I am planning to keep reading War and Peace at least an hour a day until I finish it. So far so good.

How did your week go?  Any good books happening this week?

Until next time, the Penguin and I wish you well. 

When I was overseas visiting family I finally got to Salinas to the John Steinbeck Centre. It isn’t as large as the Jack London Ranch north of San Francisco but it was every bit as interesting. I thought I would share some of the photos.

The museum is set up with little nooks and crannies one can walk through. Each area represents one of his major books. There is information to read about the publishing of the book, a screen with the film version screening with benches to sit and watch parts of them. Photos, quotations and trivia.

I enjoyed passing through The Grapes of Wrath section, East of Eden and Travels with Charlie. Travels with Charlie and the Grapes of Wrath are my favourite books by Steinbeck. I remember I went on a Steinbeck kick in the early 70’s and read five or six of his books in quick succession. It is time to revisit those books again I think. The museum certainly inspired us to do so.

The gift shop was full of Steinbeck memorabilia but the only thing I bought was the T shirt with a list of all of his books on the back.  Enjoy the photos.

What Steinbeck books have you read?  What is your favourite Steinbeck book?

If you get anywhere near Salinas this is a happy way to spend an hour or so.