Author: TravellinPenguin

…is the ability to plug into the shared wisdom of mankind.

I had a very bookish week this past week. I began the book Flights by Olga Tokarczuk. It won the International Booker in 2018. As I began it I immediately became confused so had to google a few reviews. From that I learned the book is comprised of 116 vignettes if the world of travel and those who are constantly on the move in our world. Knowing this I am now sorted. I need to finish it for Feb book group so I will stroll through this book to uncover its secrets. I have not read this author’s work before but the Guardian states that she is a household name in Poland.

I attended a book launch of Ian Terry’s photographic historical trip of George Augustus Robinson at Fullers during the week. Uninnocent Landscapes.

Together with over fifty sharply observed and carefully crafted black and white tritone images, Uninnocent Landscapes features an introduction by Tasmanian art historian, curator and essayist Greg Lehman and essays by Rebecca Digney, Roderic O’Connor, Nunami Sculthorpe-Green and Ian himself. These provide an invitation for open and honest dialogue to better understand the past and current impacts of invasion and colonisation of lutruwita in general and of George Augustus Robinson’s ‘Friendly Mission’ in particular. The conversation was facilitated by Stephanie Cahalan, non-fiction writer and researcher. (Fullers event blurb)

For more than two years Ian Terry followed the route of George Augustus Robinson’s 1831 Big River Mission, which is credited with ending frontier violence in Van Diemen’s Land. Accompanied by 13 Aboriginal envoys, Robinson walked around central Van Dieman’s Land before meeting 26 survivors of the Lairmerrener and Paredarerme people. He promised them safety if they stopped fighting the colonists. They met with Governor Arthur in Hobart shortly after and were transferred to Flinders Island, where almost all died.

Ian’s project was to photograph the landscapes Robinson passed through as an act of truth-telling about colonisation and dispossession, and acknowledgement that his fortunate life in lutruwita/Tasmania comes at the expense of Aboriginal Tasmanians. (Tas Museum)

It was a very well attended, interesting evening.

I also went to Theatre Royal Thursday evening with a friend to see another bit of history from Tasmania.

Jane Franklin and the Rajah quilt, the story of ex governor Sir John Franklin and his wife Lady Jane Franklin.

Another enjoyable evening.

Other things to share below:

A bit of Hygge set up at home next to my reading chair to get me through dreary days.

And…

Photography this week was a bit limited by life being too busy and unpredictable weather. I had watched a you tuber photographer, Mark Denny talking about making photos into stories. The main photo is the overall landscape and the follow up 2 or 3 photos make up the parts. I will leave you here with the story of the reserve behind our house.

Stop and notice the tiny items in the world.

What fun thing did you do this week week? 🌲🌲🌲

……a reader finishes it. (Samuel Johnson)

These lovely bookish quotes I’ve been starting my posts with are randomly picked from a little book entitled The Book lover’s treasury of quotations by Hatherleigh Press, 2016. It is a lovely little book.

I continue to stay busy with my books and photography as spring weather is definitely all over the place, as usual.

READING- Audio is the latest book by Julia Baird called Bright Shining narrated by Julia Bear.

I enjoyed her last book Phosphorescence so much I had to snap this one up as soon as I heard of its release. This one speaks of ‘grace’.

The blurb….

“Grace is both mysterious and hard to define. It can be found when we create ways to find meaning and dignity in connection with each other, building on our shared humanity, being kinder, bigger, better with each other. If, in its crudest interpretation, karma is getting what you deserve, then grace is the opposite: forgiving the unforgivable, favouring the undeserving, loving the unlovable.

But we live in an era when grace is an increasingly rare currency. The silos in which we consume information dot the media landscape like skyscrapers, and our growing distrust of the media, politicians and public figures has choked our ability to cut each other slack, to allow each other to stumble, to forgive one another.

So what does grace look like in our world, and how do we recognise it, nurture it in ourselves and express it, even in the darkest of times?

From award-winning journalist Julia Baird, author of the acclaimed national bestseller Phosphorescence, comes Bright Shining, a luminously beautiful, deeply insightful and most timely exploration of grace.”

The book I have just begun is Flights by Polish writer, Olga Tokarczuk.

The blurb-

“Flights is a series of imaginative and mesmerising meditations on travel in all its forms, not only the philosophy and meaning of travel, but also fascinating anecdotes that take us out of ourselves, and back to ourselves.

Olga Tokarczuk brilliantly connects travel with spellbinding anecdotes about anatomy, about life and death, about the very nature of humankind. Thrilling characters and stories abound: the Russian sect who escape the devil by remaining constantly in motion; the anatomist Verheyen who writes letters to his amputated leg; the story of Chopin’s heart as it makes its journey from Paris to Warsaw, stored in a tightly sealed jar beneath his sister’s skirt; the quest of a Polish woman who emigrated to New Zealand as a teen but must now return in order to poison her terminally ill high-school sweetheart…”

We will be discussing this book in our The books you wanted to read but haven’t book group in March. It is 452 pgs so thought I’d better get into it.

Other ideas…

I was just reading the latest post from Booker Talk (https://bookertalk.com) about the success of her book jar. She has found her new set up of randomly choosing three titles from her book jar, then choosing one to read within the next two months. If she finds she doesn’t want to read it then she gets rid of it.

I recently downloaded the app BookBuddy. It lets you scan your books easily, much like the Library Thing site but has more features.

I closed my Library Thing account and scanned my entire library into this app. I think I will follow Booker Talk in the new year to get fired up about reading more of my TBR stack. We’ll see how that goes. I have a few boxed sets of the Penguin anniversary sets (the 70s and 80s) and I have included them too. Might be fun.

I upgraded my camera gear recently and am having great fun learning how to remember all the settings and learning the new features. I am posting more and more of my photos on Instagram. My instagram site is called Travellin_Penguin. Feel free to follow if you wish to see kore of my photos. I am leaning more and more into photography at that site and following other photographers more and more as it is a great place to showcase photos.

I think this is now long enough so I will leave you for now. Stay well everyone and do something you enjoy whenever you can.

…….to fill up and live. (Anne Dillard)

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This past week went quickly as this whole year seems to have disappeared. Here are some highlights.

For one thing I am looking forward to Wednesday as blogger Sue, from Whispering Gums (https://whisperinggums.com is going to be in town from Canberra and we are meeting for a coffee at Fullers Book shop. My home away from home. After following her blog for several years it will be fun to meet up.

I just finished an audible book I’ve been listening to. In search of greener grass by Graham Field. He rode his motorbike from the UK eastwards to Mongolia. He described the trip in detail. He wrote of the trials with his bike, wild camping, the people he met up with, the joy and the hardship. One of the best motorbike travel books I’ve come across. I absolutely love travel writing of people motorbiking, bicycling or walking to distant places. There was lots of information about Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Mongolia, the three countries he spent the most time in over four years.

I’m currently listening to Through sand and snow by bicyclist, Charlie Walker. Also from the UK he has bicycled to Kathmandu from England and then sneaked into Tibet and rode across it in winter, almost dying in a blizzard. He doesn’t seem as sensible as Graham Field was. He is quote foolhardy in his travels. He has just now been caught out in Tibet by the police and is trying to tell them he thought a Chinese visa was good in Tibet as it is ruled by China now. Even I know that isn’t going to work. Since I can’t do these trips I love travelling vicariously through others.

I also finished the book club read due next week of On a bright hillside in Paradise by Annette Higgs. it is the Tasmanian book I mentioned last post. I enjoyed it quite a bit. The only down side is it became a little too repetitious as the each part of the book is a different family character discussing their reaction to the same life events however they did tack on something new at the end of each part specific to them. . It is a pleasant read and would be a good long plane ride book as easy to remember what is going on with all one gets from interruptions travelling. I will look forward to what others thought of it.

On a walk to an Op shop I found an Agatha Christie book, Mrs. McGinty’s dead, I’d not seen before. I’ll have to get onto it as the cover does make me want to read it. It is obviously an old edition by Funlane of which I have not heard of. It is a slim book and would be a fun read on a bad weather day of which we seem to be getting a lot lately. Book groups end in November and are probably stopped until March so summer has a lot of time to read my TBR books.

Our photography group had a fun day Saturday when 10 of us hit the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens for the morning. 9:30 coffee got everyone fired up in the gardens restaurant which is very nice.

We took photos for the next two hours and then met for lunch. I had a Korean chicken dish with ginger on a bed of light noodles. It was quite good and the presentation required a photo. I will leave you with a couple of photos from the gardens. Considering our spring weather has been sideways rain, a bit of sleet and winds from the southern ocean with 137 kph gusts off the mountain, we were so lucky to finally get a lovely, no jacket but long sleeve day. Just perfect.

I will also leave you with a little exercise to share for fun.

I grabbed Frankenstein. “She died calmly; and her countenance expressed affection even in death. ” Be sure to mention the name of the book.

Now, onto the gardens…..