Category: Fiction

Sorry I’ve missed you guys for a couple of weeks but life has been hectic. Ollie’s rehab walks are going well. He’s still on lead for a couple of more weeks. He can’t be loose for 12 weeks post surgery but he’s doing good walks now. 

I have had a couple of nights out and a couple of lunches. I also spent some time in my back yard with a surprise visitor in our protea bushes. More on that later.  So starting out…

Last week Australian writer Tim Winton was at the Theatre Royal with Tassie garden guru Hannah Maloney interviewing him about his new book of anecdotes and essays Songs From the Firefront. I was surprised Hannah, a garden celebrity was interviewing one of Australia’s most popular authors, but they really hit it off. She is on ABC’s Gardening Australia program at times. Not sure if she presents regularly or not. I don’t watch the show. Everyone is always smiling and grinning. Just once I’d like to see a worm in a tomato or aphids on their lemon tree and they stop smiling.  It is almost annoying. 

They talked a lot about the increased temperatures across Australia especially the northern regions. Global warming was a main topic. However she also quizzed him about how he writes, where does he get his ideas and about his childhood as he grew up.  I thoroughly enjoyed hearing their conversation. Both of them also have a good sense of humour.  I have to say I chuckled when Tim referred to Trump as an orange dumpling with brains like applesauce.  

Tim, the director of Fullers book shop organised with Penguin publishers to slot Tim into Tasmania for a night as it wasn’t originally on the schedule. Well what a good thing that happened as 600 people turned up at the Theatre Royal and many bought the signed copies. What a crowd! Mainlanders really underestimate the book culture in this small state but they are readers! 600 ! The theatre was sold out.

I haven’t read a lot lately but I have spun the wheel a couple of times. I read an hour and a half yesterday of Kitchen Confidential, the story of American chef Anthony Bourdain. It’s always a long wait at the surgeon’s office so I take my kindle, tune out the big number of people sitting around me, staring at the walls, waiting and get a good chunk of a book read. Anthony talks about his training in France as a chef and man is that something I’d hate to do. These chefs are sadists to their students. What a dangerous job what with flaming pans, hot dishes, very crowded working conditions, slippery food that some how manages to land on the floor and a well known chef screaming into their faces whether they do a good job or not.

I also picked the five Text classics I’m starting to read as 2027 arrives. 

Another day or two was lost as I sat in front of the tv watching the American midterm elections. Wow, Texas went blue. Unheard of. I won’t say more as I don’t put politics into my posts. You can guess if I was happy or not.

Another Fullers event featured Leigh Sales, a national ABC television presenter and well known journalist and her fellow friend, cook and writer Gwen Blake as they presented their book The Holiday Kitchen. I thought this book was going to be Christmas things…holiday and all. But it isn’t. It is written for families who go off in caravans, overseas trips, camping. If you are travelling with your kids then you need to organise ways to feed them without having to visit expensive restaurants over time. They talk about recipes that translate into second meals, jars of spice/herb preparations so you don’t need to take the whole jars of everything. Dishes to take- one very sharp knife, two pots only. The two of them were excellent presenters, meaning they know how to speak into a microphone properly. Amazing how many people don’t know it has to go near your mouth.  They had good chemistry between them and had the audience asking interesting questions and laughing. Such a fun hour.  

Now what/who was my backyard visitor? People who don’t live in Australia might enjoy these photos. I was in the back yard. At the top of our yard, it’s on a hill, there is a large protea bush. I’ll find a photo online to show you. Three yellow tailed black cockatoos flew over my head. Three of them! Why bare they special?  These birds are hard to photograph. They are really quite hard to even see. They live up in the mountain. They spend a lot of time in the tops of tall trees.  When the weather changes they come down to our neighbourhood. We are at the base of the mountain. If you see a black cockatoo you know rain or wind is coming and they don’t get it wrong. They are beautiful birds. They are large birds. 

I happened to be outdoors checking my plants when they almost hit my head flying by. They all three landed in the bush and began eating the blossoms. They don’t just eat them. They shred them. Cockatoos have very strong beaks and can shred almost anything. I hope you enjoy the photos.

Last but not least the Penguin and I saw an ad on Instagram of a little wildlife cotton journal cover. It is so cute, I ordered one and it came rather quickly from a business called Frey. Everything they make is handmade and Australian. They have really cute stuff. I asked Penguin to share it with you. I already have my journal and pens popped into it.

Well that’s miscellaneous me for the time being. I’ll be back again soon with more reading information.  Have a good weekend everyone.

Last night a friend and I went to a book event at Fullers Bookshop in Hobart. We go to a lot of events but this really pushed me into a new direction. We listened to two literary authors:

Susan Lever who wrote a biography about the Australian poet A.D. Hope and Susan Wyndham who wrote a biography about novelist Elizabeth Harrower.

Susan Lever is an Australian literary critic, editor and biographer who taught literature at the University of New South Wales in Canberra. She told us how her book came to be, her interviews with A.D. Hope and his poetry that is quite salacious at times. She had a few anecdotes that had the audience chuckling. 

A.D. Hope (1907-2000) was an Australian poet, literary critic and university professor who grew up partly in Tasmania. Known for his wit, elegant verse and outspoken criticism, he wrote about love, desire, nature and the Australian identity, often drawing on classical mythology and European literature. 

Susan Wyndham is an Australian journalist, author and former literary editor of the Sydney Morning Herald. She wrote the biography Elizabeth Harrower: The Woman in the Watch Tower (2025). She explores the novelist’s life, friendships and mysterious withdrawal from writing.

Both authors wrote other works but I am focusing only on these two biographies. 

Elizabeth Harrower (1928 – 2020) was a novelist admired for her psychologically tense fiction, particularly her exploration of difficult relationships and emotional control. Her most popular book was The Watch Tower.  She stopped writing novels in 1970s, leaving a small but highly regarded body of work. She lived a solitary, independent life. She was born in Australia but lived in London a number of years before returning to Sydney in her later years. Susan talked about the interviews with her in her apartment overlooking Sydney Harbour. Those stories were fascinating. 

I was really taken with these two writers and the stories they told of these two past Australian writers. I am looking ahead to a project in 2027 I can really look forward to.

While I’m enjoying the 10 books on the spinning wheel and the Penguin anniversary books I realise I have lived in Australia now since 1988. When I arrived I knew nothing about Australian writers. But having read and listened to mountainous information about Australian writers and books, mostly current ones, I really don’t know much about those writers of the past. I know more about the writers than the stories they told.

Last weekend our main radio broadcaster, the ABC, had a weekend of revealing an Australian project where listeners voted on their all time favourite Australian books. The results of the voting were revealed last weekend in a two day podcast, outlining the winners from no 100 down to 1. 

I have to say, I was a bit disappointed in the books revealed. There were children’s books that grandmother’s voted on more from nostalgia than some quality though there were a few really good ones. (All of this is in my opinion of course). There were a lot of current popular authors of fiction. I’ve read a fair few of them. There were cookbooks. That surprised me and there were historic authors such as Patrick White, Christina Stead but I thought most of the books were books I could pick up in an airport.  I was really hoping there would be more really strong literary fiction. Then I realised I couldn’t name many of those authors except maybe the folksy poets, ballads, humorous authors. 

After listening to the two Susans last night I want to read. More authors of the past.  

I thought where can I get a beginners list of Australian classics that might be on kindle.

One more reason is I am really tired of modern books with inaccurate blurbs on the book covers, stories that don’t appear to be edited well and turn out to be really waffly. 

I want to read books that have been recognised in Australia, at least by a publisher that has produced some interesting works of the past. I don’t want to take random referrals from a lot of different people. Sue and Lisa have written much about Australian writers and they do an excellent job on their blogs: Whispering Gums and ANZ LitLovers Lit Blogs. I think they are serious writers describing Australian works. I don’t have that serious of a nature to go into depth about books as they do. They’ve been doing this for a long time.

I have decided to read more books next year published by Text Classics. I have looked at the entire list of older Australian books that Text Classics have reprinted. Many were out of print for quite awhile. I want to hear the stories of the Australian people of the past. 

I have downloaded the list. There are 143 books listed on their web site so far.  I can still do the spinning wheel, I can still randomise the ones I find. Many are in Kindle format. The library has many. Op shops often have them as these reprints are not that old. I can read them then release them into the wild. 

I love the covers. They are easy to spot. They are inexpensive books. They are not blocky chunksters.  I think if I can’t find the Kindle copies of them I can still read them with my magnifier and brighter light.

After I read them I want to simply write about the stories they tell. I want to talk about the people within the stories. I want to disappear more into the past of this country. I’ve had enough of America and though I love the stories out of the UK I’m happy to start this project. I hope to stick with it throughout 2027. 

Of course I will also need to read my book club reads but I have to say I’ve been disappointed about the choices of those books this year. Oddly, the books I enjoyed the most were a classic book and a Tasmanian historical novel. The modern ones left me cold. 

I apologise for making this so long but it is just what it turned out to be. I’d say, It is what it is, but I really don’t like that phrase so I’ll spare you. 

I have popped a few Text Classic book covers for you throughout this post. I really love the covers. 

I wonder what the Penguin will think about switching to another publisher

I thought the Penguin and I would drop by today just to talk about our relaxing day. What is happening today?

Ollie and I started the day sitting outdoors doing the annual Aussie Bird count. Each year volunteers across the country are asked to sit outdoors at a time of their choosing for 20 minutes for 5 days, if possible. There is an app to download and on it the observer simply records any birds they see or hear in that 20 min. At the end of 20 min., the app stops and the list of birds is uploaded to a national data base. I have participated in this event for several years each spring. Today I saw/heard the Australian magpie, a raven, a currawong, a wattle bird, a grey fantail and a sulphur crested cockatoo and a plover. Plovers can be nasty especially if they have chicks. They have a spur on their feet and they know how to use it. I heard a couple of others but was unable to identify them.

Ollie enjoys sitting outdoors as he is such a little nature boy. We try to get him out of his pen regularly. He is so good natured.

Then I did some journaling. Penguin and I even got out the acrylic markers and coloured a page in our cozy colouring book. I find it really calms the mind.

Yesterday I began a new program at the gym that is all about building strength. Lots of weights so I’m a bit sore today. I need a bit of rest after my gym days. I’ve not been good at going regularly lately and I am going to get back into it. I feel so much better when I do. I need to work on my balance as I fell over twice on my Tarkine photography trip. I felt like a turtle on its back, waving legs in the air. I think it’s the lack of some depth perception from my vision and old age. Just need to keep moving.

I’m back at the gym again tomorrow.

It’s 27 degrees C today. (80.6 degrees F). Just a beautiful day with windows open and little wind. No wind is one big juicy bonus for Tasmania.

I also randomly selected my next book for the Penguin anniversary books challenge. The ‘picker’ picked an Penguin Archive book. Paris France by Gertrude Stein. It was published in 1940 on the day Paris fell to Nazi Germany. It states it is a witty account of Stein’s life in France, and the perfect introduction to her work. Yesterday

I also spun the wheel for my spin challenge and read one hour of Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. He talked about growing up in France after his parents moved there. He was a rough as guts child and quite hard to manage . He did read a lot and his very favourite was all the Tin Tin books and magazines. His parents would spend hours eating in fancy French restaurants and the two brothers would spend that time reading Tin Tin in the car as they were too naughty to take inside. I am looking forward to the next hour with this book.

Well, this little stop in to say “Hello” is over and I’m going to go read a bit. I’ll catch all of you later. I hope your week has started off in good form. Feel free to let me know how you’re going. More later……

MINE