Author: TravellinPenguin

(A review for Storey Publications.)

I requested a few books from Net Galley for young people and a couple for adults. It is quite fun to see what the publishers are offering.

I was accepted to review the book Wild for Horses compiled by Storey Publishers. When I was young I was one of those girls who was horse mad. We all know of them. I adored them and had pictures of horses all over my bedroom wall. My parents finally bought me a horse when I was about 12 or 13 because they wanted to keep me away from boys.

Little did they know when I reached 9th grade I met my future husband in a saddle club. We still love horses but don’t own any.

I would have loved this book.

Storey publishers has this blurb about the book.

This one-of-a-kind book of horse posters and flash cards is packed with stunning images and essential information. Two dozen posters of all-time favorite breeds like Arabian, Shetland Pony, and Lipizzan show off the beauty of these majestic creatures, and kids can show them off, too: these pull-out pages are ready to hang on a bedroom wall, with two additional 12 x 30 posters that capture horses’ grandeur. Finally, each of the 24 punch-out flash cards include a pocketsize photo and fun facts. With both magnificent, ready-to-hang images and portable breed profiles, this unique package offers total immersion for horse-loving kids.  (Children’s non-fiction)

I think young horse lovers, from maybe age 8 or 9 to about 12 or 13 will love these posters and pages. The photography is beautiful featuring various breeds of horses. The horses also feature in various jobs that they perform.

At my age I still enjoyed the photos as they are beautiful. Horses are stunning animals.

The information pages are short blurbs of facts scattered within geometric covered pages of bright colours. I think in this age of short text messages and attention spans the kids are probably more likely to read these snippets than a long narrative on the various breeds  of horses and their uses. (Which of course is sad but hey knowledge is good in all its forms.)

If you have a horse mad child in your family I think this book might be an addition to the collection of books and magazines about horses I know they already own.

o be published 3 March, 2017 Price around 12.98 US.

This year seems to be sailing by. I had hoped it would be slower than 2016 but it doesn’t seem that way.

Last night I finished this book. I read it quickly because I could not put it down. This man can write. This man can think and his education through literature, science and medicine was astounding.  Paul Kalanithi trained for 10 years to become a neurosurgeon. Just as his career is to take off he dies of lung cancer at age 37. The pages of the book cover his journey to the point of diagnosis (Part I) and then the journey of the illness (Part II). His wife writes the final chapter.

He studied literature and talks about the relation between literature, death and science and how he applies it to his own life. I reread several passages. He gets married to another doctor and they have a daughter. His life ends eight months after hers begins.

The book I am referring to is When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. I sat in my chair a few moments after I closed the last page and just could not move. A lot has been written about this book so I won’t add much to what others have written. Suffice to say I loved it.  Whoever coined the phrase, “Only the good die young” knew what they were talking about. This man did so much with the 37 years given to him.

After all of the education, training and work he did for the good of human kind why on earth did this have to happen to him?  He said himself the chance of a 37 year old man getting lung cancer is less than .001 percent. Why him? The injustice of the situation just does not make sense at all. I watch the news in the evening and see the people who murder, maim and make life a misery and they seem to live forever. Again I ask why him?

The cover states when one finishes this book the reader will be left thinking about it for a long time. It is almost traumatising. I loved this book.

It seems this week will be busy. Tuesday I am celebrating the birthday at the cafe at the Tasmanian Museum cafe. A nice quiet cafe we will sit on the deck surrounding the courtyard.

Wednesday night we are joining friends at the State Cinema to see the film Hidden Figures about the three African American women mathematicians that worked for NASA in its early days.

I will not watch the Academy Awards. It is all politics and I find it most exasperating. In my humble opinion it isn’t based on the stories told but the people who are known. I prefer the independent films to the Hollywood blockbusters most days.

The weather is looking good for the week. The mid to high 20’s C for the entire week (70’s to 80’s F). Hopefully the Penguin will join up with a motorbike ride going on.

Saturday night we are riding in a leukaemia fundraiser beginning at 6 pm and ending at a pub around midnight. (Don’t worry, I never drink alcohol when I know I’ll be on my bike). The bikes will be decorated with lights and ridden through town. I think there will be a lot of bikes. Stay tuned for that. It’s part of the Light Up the Night Leukemia Fundraiser.
So again I think this week is going to sail by before I have even adjusted to Monday. Hope all of you have a great week. Let me know what you are reading this week and what are your week’s plan?

Oops, I pushed a wrong button so guess this is a Monday Trivia review instead of a Tuesday one (before any of you wise crackers jump in ).

This week has been a pleasant week. I have decided to resurrect our friend the Penguin that went with us to Great Britain. Both my friend and I have been missing travelling out of the house with him.

On Wednesday we caught the bus into the city for my writing group. Mr. Penguin had the car for the day for his weekly work on a farm with his friend. They work with sheep, cutting wood and storing cheese that his wife makes from the sheep milk.

We headed for our writing group at the Writer’s centre in Salamanca market. I have mentioned this group before. We are eight members of the Domain Writer’s Group. We meet Wednesday afternoons except for our break on the third Wednesday of the month. We range in age from late 50’s to low 90’s.

The assignment for today was to write a piece similar to an Aesop’s Fable. I had great fun with my piece the Fox and the Dog. Others wrote similar pieces of different styles. Each piece had a moral to the story. Everyone seemed to enjoy the session. For next week we each have a newspaper headline and need to incorporate a story around it. I will need to get onto that this weekend.

The Penguin sat silently on the table and listened to the ‘tabled fables’ as we called them.

The following day I met a good friend at Fuller’s Book store for a coffee. Penguin also enjoyed the morning coffee chat and then spent some time with one of the staff members who is a lovely guy. He got right into the spirit of things and photos were taken. We have so much fun in this book store. They are coming on to their 100th anniversary in 2020 and I will be interested in seeing how they celebrate this long term family business.

As for books. Our book group met this week and we all enjoyed a nibble or a bit to drink at the Grand Chancellor hotel on the waterfront where we meet. The Penguin and I shared a light beer as I just wasn’t in the mood for anything else. We talked about the Good People by Hannah Kent. We all enjoyed it very much though some people thought a couple of loose ends weren’t sufficiently tied up and the ending might have been a bit unrealistic. Others disagreed. All who had read her first book, Burial Rites liked that one better. I have not read it yet. Typical book fare conversation. We all rated it 4 or 4.5 out of five.

Next month’s book will be Songs of a War Boy. The April book is going to be the Mothering Sunday. I have just begun listening to the audible version while in the car.  More thoughts on that much later.

I am currently reading Mothering Sunday, When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalinithi and dipping into I, Allan Sealy; The China Sketchbook. More on each of those as I finish them. The Allan Sealy book is a sketchbook he completed on a trip to China.

Mr. Penguin and I have a 17 day trip planned to Japan. We leave the 3rd of April. The Penguin is quite excited. I might make him a kimono or something. Photos will be put on the blog. I want so much to make a sketchbook journal of this trip but I draw like a three year old. However, being of an older age and not caring so much what people think anymore (the benefits of older ages) I might just do a journal anyway with my Crayolas. It isn’t for anyone else to think about anyway and my

three year old neighbour kids might really enjoy it. They are so non-judgemental.  I will never forget the time I drew something in my job with a group of five year olds and one of them laughed so hard at a picture of an animal I drew he had tears running down his cheeks. Then all of us lost it because he couldn’t even breathe he was laughing so hard. It was such joy to laugh as hard as these five year olds did. Well that sums up the last few days of the week. I hope your week is going well and that you enjoy the photos of the Penguin and me.