Category: Fiction

The week is off to a good start so far. Although our shared reading group of our big Russian novel, Life and Fate was put off another week due to illness of our facilitator. We were assigned more pages to read in preparation for next week. We will soon be approaching the page 300 mark of this 900+ chunkster.

I have some other books on the go as well. I am reading just some light crime novels in the evenings as the Russian book is too much to read late at night. I have also begun the book by Cherie Jones, How the One Armed Sister Sweeps Her House.

The Good Reads blurb states:

A debut novel in the tradition of Zadie Smith and Marlon James, from a brilliant Caribbean writer, set in Barbados, about four people each desperate to escape their legacy of violence in a so-called “paradise.”

In Baxter Beach, Barbados, moneyed ex-pats clash with the locals who often end up serving them: braiding their hair, minding their children, and selling them drugs. Lala lives on the beach with her husband, Adan, a petty criminal with endless charisma whose thwarted burglary of one of the Baxter Beach mansions sets off a chain of events with terrible consequences. A gunshot no one was meant to witness. A new mother whose baby is found lifeless on the beach. A woman torn between two worlds and incapacitated by grief. And two men driven by desperation and greed who attempt a crime that will risk their freedom — and their lives.

Cherie Jones is an award-winning author from Barbados. Her debut novel How the One Armed Sister Sweeps Her House has been critically acclaimed by several publications including the The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Washington Post . Cherie’s past publication credits include PANK, The Feminist Wire and Eclectica. She is a past fellowship awardee of the Vermont Studio Centre and a recipient of the Archie Markham Award and A.M. Heath Prize from Sheffield Hallam University (UK).

It doesn’t take long to get into this book that was short listed for the Women’s Prize for fiction. I had to settle into the dialect of the characters but that didn’t take long. I don’t think this book will be a walk in the park but so far I’m enjoying the diversity of it from other books on my shelf at the moment.

I have also done a book shelf cull this week, as many of the books I have finished or they are ones I picked up in thrift shops and probably won’t get too as moods change over time related to what we like to read.

I have a cute photo that Kerri, my photography friend from the Cradle Mountain photography drew for my blog. She draws characters and is quite talented. She sent this photo to me after she learned about my blog. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. She even matched the clothes of the Penguin and the Bear to what we wore at Cradle Mountain as we hiked around the rainy terrain taking photos. I was very touched by it.

Today I’m keeping it short and sweet so that’s it for now.

How I admire this woman. Really…….admire……her.

Dervla Murphy is no doubt familiar to anyone who reads a lot. However if one reads a great deal of travel writing she is one of the very best.

I have heard of her for years. Maybe even read one of her books years ago but not sure. Maybe I just think I have read her as I have read a lot of travel writing in my life.

I downloaded this book as an Audible last week as I was becoming tired of books about books, readers on trains, readers in libraries and it all became a bit of a melting pot that seemed to wear thin as the quality of some of these books were less than ideal.

I have always enjoyed Travel writing or diaries the most as an audible format. I have come to the conclusion unless one sits right down and listens or is confined to a space, novels seem to be harder to follow as an audible text. That could be me though as I do get distracted much more with audible anything than written words.

So on to Dervla. I am listening to her 1965 published book Full Tilt. She buys a bicycle and names it Rozinante (Ros for short) after Don Quixote’s horse. She is Irish and living in Ireland. In 1963 she decides to set off riding Ros from Ireland to India going eastwards across Europe.

In 1963 single women didn’t do things like this. No mobile phones, no internet, no money to speak of.

Dervla Murphy grew up poor. She left school at age 14 to care for her disabled mother. At the age of 10 her parents gave her a second hand bicycle and her grandfather sent her a second hand atlas of the world (Wikipedia).

She later stated in life she was never afraid of her trips though she did have some pretty harrowing experience. Over the years she was attacked by wolves in the former Yugoslavia, (this happens in Full Tilt and she pulls her pistol out of her pocket and shoots one, killing it and scaring the other two away); threatened by soldiers in Ethiopia, and robbed in Siberia. In Full Tilt she awakes one night in her small accommodation and finds a very large muslim man uncovering her in bed and as he climbs in beside her, again she pulls her pistol from under her pillow and shoots into the ceiling and watches him leave the room very quickly.

She had her critics in life. She had a child in 1968 and chose to raise her daughter alone. This was not an acceptable practice in Ireland. She made enough money from her writing she didn’t care and she her daughter travelled more as her daughter aged.

She was also quite political regarding activities in Ireland, women’s rights and regarding the plight of refugees.

Evidently she wrote an autobiographical book called Wheels Within Wheels in 1979 and I will certainly be following up with that one if I can find it.

The guardian featured her towards her later years once she decided to give up travel writing. She is celebrating her 90th birthday next month at the end of November. What an incredible life she has had. The link to the Guardian article is here.

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Other news in Tasmania? Not much. Spring has arrived with a bit of fanfare. Lots of wind and rain. More rain expected in the next few days. Enough to cause floods I understand. The temperatures are still chilly with bits of sun here and there but not enough to get used to. So doing a lot of reading and have continued with walking and exercise.

I have had some good news on the photography front but will discuss that later. An excursion, a competition win I hadn’t expected, a new illustration of the Penguin and a friend from a fellow photography friend. Will share that in the next post.

Dogs are fine but Ollie wants to go out every ten minutes to see if the sun is out and he can lie next to his fence and warm himself in the sun. He comes back to the house ten minutes later and bangs on the door to come in. He loves lying outdoors in the sun but hates the cold grass. Not a weather tolerant dog at all. Peanut seems more outdoorsy than Ollie at times. She never cares how muddy she gets and I recently submitted a photo of her to the Sydney Morning Herald Weekend magazine. They have a type of good news gallery and their email about the article happened to arrive in my inbox at the time I was looking at a photo of Peanut with mud on her face. The article was saying to people send in any photos or other items that are ‘feel good’ items. So I popped Peanut’s photo in and received an email back a couple of days later they will definitely put it in their gallery. The journalist thought it was cute so I will finish on that note.

Until next time…….stay well and keep smiling even if you do have to grit your teeth!!