Category: Fiction

The Penguin and I have had a very bookish week and it is about to continue.

Wednesday was book club. The Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima. The tale of a young man during the mid 1940s war time in Japan coming to terms with his conflict between his homosexuality and the love of a woman who he felt no attraction for but could give him a family life. The discussion we had amongst our 6 members, (2 women, 4 men) was really interesting. He dealt with so many mental conflicts. We all got a lot out of this Penguin Modern Classic.

Thursday evening had us at the Hobart Town Hall for the launch of Robbie Arnott’s book Dusk.. He was interviewed by the wonderful Rachel Edwards. Rachel is a content maker with ABC Hobart. She has worked as a publisher and editor and most recently she has been producing the ABC Hobart Breakfast program and also works with Transportation Press in Tasmania. It was a full house as Tasmanians definitely claim Robbie as one of our own.

Locations in the book are not mentioned but it is based on the highlands of Tasmania. Robbie said the area is one he remembered spending time in as a child.

***********************

Today was Love Your Bookshop Day across Australia. I went down to Fullers first thing this morning as Penguin had a deal going I wanted to participate with. Buy two Penguin books and receive a small boxed figurine of a Penguin. I really like Penguin ephemera and still have some from when I was collecting their vintage books.

I also wanted to see if by chance I came across the hidden Golden Ticket which gave the finder 12 months of free Libro Audio books. I didn’t find the golden ticket; it was found by another, but I did get two of the Penguins I’ve had my eye on for a while. I also picked up a Japanese book I’d ordered a few days ago. The boxed penguin is cute but small.

I can’t wait to read of the musings between a Japanese woman and her cat who she shares 20 yrs of her life with.

It is good to support the bookshops on their special days and I understand from a later fb post that they did quite a trade.

Monday evening we will once again be at Fullers for

I am currently listening to this on Audible.

What it’s about…

I am really looking forward to our free glass of wine and book launch interview all for $10.00.

Have you had any unusual or exceptional bookish experiences this week?

Let our little Tassie Penguin know. Until next time🌻

PS The Penguin is getting a bit of an upgrade in future months. He will be integrated more into the theme of the life posts of reading, travelling and taking photographs.

We have returned from our cruise down the Mekong in Cambodia and Vietnam then a week long recovery period at a lovely hotel.

It was really interesting and fun. One of the more interesting excursions was visiting the facility that trains these big African rats how to sniff out the Cambodian land mines scattered throughout Cambodia in the thousands left from the days of war. We saw how they are trained and how they work and got to hold one. They are trained similarly to the customs and airport dogs. They have saved thousands of lives.

I know! Rats but they were very domesticated, soft and gentle. The trainers were very strict as to how we held them.

We enjoyed a lot of food and drink and made new friends which was fun. But always good to be home.

************

We had to have a little talk with our dog Ollie. He is always glad to go to the vets as he loves the girls there. They really fuss over him. He gets so excited he often has a little wee.

So we are sitting in Saigon about to go to the airport to fly to DaNang and we get a message the kennel hand has rung and Ollie has a bit of an upset tummy and is off his food. And is this normal? Of course they transport him to the vet. Of course all the girls are there. Of course he got his own way and is socialising non stop- as he does. He had a bit of gastro, probably from his change in diet. He gets checked over, stays overnight for observation. Next morning, all his girls are there. My good friend is the vet and she sends text he is pretty much swanning around wagging his tail, socialising with everyone, before the kennel hand picks him up and tales him back. Of course there is a $50.00 transport fee each way.

When we got home I asked him if he was just faking it. He looked straight at me and wagged his tail. You tell me! We noticed he didn’t require any medications.

************

I finished the book Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout. Olive Kitteridge is in it at age 90 now. I enjoyed the book. A good holiday read but felt it wasn’t the best of her work. I kind of felt Olive was in it here and there as well as the other characters from her previous books to kind of stretch out the series. But like I said I did enjoy it though Lucy Barton annoyed me a couple of times. The plot wasn’t overly strong but it was ok and an easy read.

I am currently reading a very short Japanese book for book club next week. Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima. Published in 1949, my copy is a 2017 Penguin Modern Classic.

The dawning of a young man’s homosexual and sadistic desires

A Japanese teenager is overcome with longing for his male classmate. Each night he imagines his body punctured with arrows, like the body of St Sebastian in Guido Reni’s painting; the objects of our hero’s desire are tortured, killed and maimed, over and over again each night in his private fantasies. He must hide his lust from a homophobic and stiflingly conventional Japan. Self-loathing and desperate, he begins acting out a love affair with the sister of a school friend, while grappling with his hidden desires under the shadow of a Japan under threat from WorldWar Two.

I have to say I’m struggling with it a bit but it is short and for book club so I will finish it. The writing is very good but I don’t have a lot of interest in the subject. But I am interested in how this young lad progresses.

Well this is long enough. I am glad to be home and back to normal activities. I started back at the gym today and no doubt will be sore tomorrow but I gained almost 2 kgs on the trip. Too much cold beer in a tropical hot climate and way too many desserts and other wonderful food on the ship and at our follow up hotel . So food austerity is the plan for a couple of weeks. Ha!

All the best to everyone this week.

What with some dodgy internet and being exhausted at the end of the day I didn’t post anything but then I hadn’t really planned to.

 We are currently in DaNang  but will be home at the end of the week. I’ll post a few dot points.

 *** The Travel Marvel boat cruise from Siem Reap to Ho Chi Minh city was a lot of fun. We certainly heard about a lot of history and made some friends. The history is so tragic and the guides who took us through it were victims of the Killing Fields during Pol Pot’s reign through the death of their parents. They really wanted all of us to understand what the Cambodians and Vietnamese went through during the war years over several decades and it was quite confronting at times.

 All was balanced out though by a sense of camaraderie with fellow travellers, some lovely people gathered together around some delicious food. It was a good balance.

 The ship had about 60 people on it, almost all couples, so about thirty couples and a few travelling independently that were all invited as part of the family. The ship was divided into the “blue family” and the “yellow family” for ease of transport for various excursions. This made for smaller groups.

 We are now in DaNang at a large hotel for 7 days and ready to finish up and get home.

The kennel that Ollie is in rang us and told us he wasn’t feeling all that good but they jumped right on it and took him to his vet, Dr Jane, who he loves and all “his girls.” He gets so excited to see “his girls” he usually has a little wee.

He had a good check up. He stayed over night and given some TLC and sent back to the kennel the next day. We are told he and Peanut (Peanny) are doing well. It was good to have someone taking care of them that were so quick to notice that something wasn’t quite right.

 I finished an interesting book while lounging by our pool here. There isn’t much to do here except lounge by the infinity pool that is right on the ocean’s edge and eat some amazing food.  I am actually looking forward to getting home and shedding a couple of kilos.

 In the meantime we hear Hobart has gale force winds and is still quite cold so we aren’t missing a lot.

 The book I finished is called 600 Hours of Edward by Craig Lancaster. There are three books in the series but I will stop at this first one. The sequels don’t appeal. Edward is a 39 yr old man with Asperger’s syndrome (neuro divergent by today’s terminology) His father is a big shot councillor and developer/investor. Very right winged Republican. They all live in Billings Montana. His father can’t cope with Edward at all as his only son is not really the son he expected. He bought a house for Edward to get him out of the family home and only deals with him through his lawyer. Though he loves his son he doesn’t have the emotional strength to ever let him know.

 On the other hand Edward records the weather every morning. He looks at the forecast then verifies it the next day to see if it was correct or not. He doesn’t deal in assumptions, he only deals in facts. He goes to psychologist, Dr Buckley every week at 10 am on Tuesday morning . While he waits he sorts the waiting room magazines chronologically each week. He doesn’t like mess.

 At 10 pm every night he watches the 40 yr old tv program Dragnet. He loves Jack Webb as he only deals in facts and he enjoys the stories and the moral compass the two police officers bring to the show. I watched a little of Dragnet back in the 70s 😀.

 Through his psychologist, he has learned not to “go off” at people. He had a habit of sending vitriolic letters to people he thought wronged him. Now he writes one letter of complaint each night to anyone who has annoyed him during the day , but he files it away in his organised file cabinet. (I quite liked this idea as I can certainly relate to this).

 He has other issues to deal with. He tries internet dating. He also makes friends with the neighbour woman who is a single mother of a 9 yr old boy.

He talks about the words he likes. Agog, ostentatious, flummoxed, voluminous.

I loved this book. I really liked Edward and I loved the way he learned to deal with living life on his own. I thought the portrayal of him was quite realistic and I could relate to him a lot, having my own compulsions in life I’m dealing with.

 I am starting the new Elizabeth Strout book today- Tell Me Everything. Old Olive Kitteridge is 90 ! in this story. I love her so much. So stay tuned. I think I’ll like it though I’ve not read the Lucy Barton book I am assured it isn’t necessary.

 When I looked up the books that follow Edward there was too much information and I’m sure they would be pretty much the same format and I don’t think I would enjoy them. Think the Rosie Project and it’s sequel.

 Well I see this is very long and I do want to put a couple of photos into this and also see if DaNang’s internet can cope with sending it out.

 Until later….bye for now