Wow! Another week has gone by and I’ve got new books! (Yes, this is not another puppy post).
The Fullers Bookshop Reading Group email came out this past week and the first three books of 2020 are here so I have picked them up to get started. The long hot days of an Australian summer with their horrendous fires will be upon us soon enough so I wanted to start my reading while confined to a cool indoors.
Below are the February, March and April books in no particular order.
I have never read this book and have always meant to so I will begin with this one.
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton:
The blurb on the back (for those who haven’t read it) states:
“When the Countess Ellen Olenska returns from Europe, fleeing her brutish husband, her rebellious independence and passionate awareness of life stir the educated sensitivity of Newland Archers, already engaged to be married to the Countess’s cousin May Welland, “that terrifying product of the social system he belonged to and believed in, the young girl who knew nothing and expected everything.”
I think we can see where this one is going.
*******************************************************
The Godmother- A Crime Novel by Hannelore Cayre. This book won the European
Fiction Prize and the Grand Prix de Literature Policière
“Meet Patience Portefeux, 53, an underpaid French-Arabic translator who specialises in police phone taps. Widowed after the sudden death of her husband, Patience is wedged between the costs of raising her daughters and the nursing home fees for her ageing mother. She’s laboured for 25 yrs to keep everyone’s heads above water.
Happening upon an especially revealing set of wiretaps ahead of all other authorities, Patience makes a life-altering decision that sees her intervening in – and infiltrating- the machinations of a massive drug deal. She thus embarks on an entirely new career path: Patience becomes ‘the Godmother’.”
This sounds like a fun summer read.
Last but not least is our third book of the summer.
The Trespassers by Meg Mundell. Finally we have a book that is closer to home. Meg Mundell was born in New Zealand but now lives in Melbourne, Australia.
A shipload of migrant workers flees the pandemic-stricken UK, seeking a fresh start in Australia. For nine-year-old Cleary the journey promises adventure, for former nurse Billie it’s a chance to put a shameful mistake behind her, while struggling schoolteacher Tom hopes for a brighter future. But when a crew member is murdered and people start falling gravely ill, the Steadfast descends into chaos. Trappedon the ship, the trio must join forces to survive the journey and its aftermath. The Trespassers is a beguiling novel that explores the consequences of greed, the experiences of migration and exile, and the way strangers can become the ones we hold dear.
I am looking forward to reading this too. For once I have book club reads I am happily anticipating.
Other News:
For once all dogs are doing fine! We had a scare with our 14 year old Molly and thought “this 
is it,” but a change in medication and diet has her firing on all of her stubborn years and giving a big “what for” to Ollie. Ollie on the other hand gets his second vaccination next week when he turns 14 weeks and is then able to go outside of our property. He will be enrolled in the Hobart Dog Training club and will start puppy classes on Sunday. I’m hoping that takes a bit of the wind out of his sails. He loves running around giving Molly and the three cats grief but he doesn’t always come out on top.
I have some other events and travel bits and pieces that have piled up I need to get on this page so hopefully you’ll be hearing from me before too much longer. I attended an author event at Fullers Book shop, went to the theatre and our photo club wrapped up the Hobart Photography Exhibition. There has been a great deal happening in the past two or three months and now I am looking forward to the next two or three months of stability, peacefulness and planning bookish goals for 2020. Believe me those goals will not be grand.
I hope all of you are well and moving along and I look forward to more catching up. Let me know what you’ve been doing to keep yourselves entertained.
As we’ve been so incredibly heartbroken over the past couple of weeks I needed to find a book to read that offered comfort. I downloaded the audible book of All Creatures Great and Small read by actor Christopher Timothy from Audible.com. I have been listening to the wonderful stories of the Yorkshire practice before World War II in England. The family of characters, the country folk, everything about the series is lovely. Christopher Timothy played Mr. Herriott in the series that aired on television in the 1980’s. The series was wonderful and I have seen it a couple of times. It is my go to comfort watching/reading.
Writing Across the Landscape 1960 to 2010 edited by Giada Diano and Matthew Gleeson. This is one of the stories of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, now 100 years old, who has been many things: (from the blurb on the back) a poet, painter, pacifist, publisher, courageous defender of free speech and the co-founder of San Francisco’s legendary City Lights bookstore. (A store I absolutely adore.) This is a compilation of his travel journals spanning 60 years of various places around the world. It’s a chunkster so won’t be travelling with it but the bits I’ve dipped into are fascinating.
Travellin' Penguin 