Travellin' Penguin

Yes, I have lived in Australia for 36 years and am Australian but I am also an American citizen with some vested interest there, so I am quite concerned about this election. I fear watching you tube so much about the candidates keeps me from reading a lot, or taking photographs or stabilising my mental health at times. Like much of the world, we are hoping Kamala Harris wins and 2025 will see D Trump paying for his crimes, then disappearing, maybe into prison.

I have been reading though. I will mention a couple of books and stories of the week. I reading the second story in New York Trilogy by Paul Auster. It is entitled Ghosts. A very unusual tale as all the character names are colours. Mr Brown owns the detective agency but is old. His son, Mr Blue takes a job for Mr White who wants Mr Black observed at all times. He even rents an apartment across the street from Mr Black’s apartment and Mr Blue moves in. The story begins. The introduction states the story goes on for years. I’m not there yet so looking forward to how this all plays out.

I am listening to The Sweet Life in Paris written and narrated by David Lebovitz. I enjoyed the last book I read of his, L’Appart so much I thought I’d listen to more of his adventures. I learn so much about daily life from this book. Nothing major happens but I feel as though I am with him as he goes about his daily business.

I haven’t been to any book launches at Fullers during the past week but a couple are coming up. They are doing another program at the store which I think is lovely. Gorgeous behaving dogs come in and young children sit with them and read to them. A small group of children to one dog at a time. I hope to pop in sometime when this is happening.

I had a funny experience when visiting 10 Lives Cat Centre’s newest thrift shop. I was out on a long walk when I came across it. Inside I met and made one of my 30 minute friends. An 80 year old woman who was searching for a yellow toy for her budgie as he likes yellow evidently. Having owned budgies years ago and really liking them I asked her about hers. Blue with white wings. Nine yrs old.

He has the run of the house but he is on a schedule for going to bed at night. After he plays with his ‘tree’ with all his toys hanging from it, he is then told he has to go to bed where he is settled down for sleep. No idea how she does this.

But.. thebudgie often looks at her after hearing he must go to bed and says to the woman, “Getyourassouttahere!!” I wasn’t expecting her to say that and I cracked up. So funny. He then gets on her shoulder and puts his face against her neck and says “I love you.” His name is Harold. Evidently Harold was her father’s name who she only recently learned of through DNA. He went to Papua New Guinea in WWII and never returned. She never met him and he never knew of her. She named the budgie Harold as she thinks it is a way of sharing love with him through the budgie.

Just goes to show everyone has a story and I look forward to hearing more in the future through my 30 minute friends.

To finish up I will share a photo a friend did of our cat Cousin Eddie for Halloween. I really like it.

Meet Cousin Eddie.

All the best to everyone for the coming week. ❤️

It was another fairly busy week but I did have a few bookish things going on.

 One book launch, one library book, one audible book in progress and one kindle book for book club in progress.

 In life I had three gym sessions which were quite hard going after being away from the gym for almost six weeks. Monday Pilates, Wednesday training and Saturday 50 minutes of a slow jog on a treadmill at the gym. It felt good and I need to lose the couple of kgs I gained by travelling and then getting sick. Tomorrow will have me back there. It is also such a social place so I do enjoy going there.

 The book launch was in the café at Fullers Book shop and we had Danielle Wood interviewing Markus Zusak about his book Three Wild Dogs and the Truth.

 It was lots of fun as Markus has the best sense of humour and he had everyone laughing quite a bit at these crazy, big dogs he adopted from the pound. He doesn’t believe in the term “rescue”. They are simply pound dogs.

They are also awful dogs. Naughty dogs. They killed a possum, attacked his plumber, bit the piano teacher. I think there were more than a few raised eye brows in the room at his laughter at these really suspect dogs. They are big dogs too but he certainly loves them. Personally I have a problem with big aggressive dogs in households with children but I guess you’ll have to read his book to see what his own pet philosophy is. I won’t even mention what happened to the family cat.

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 The Kindle book I’m reading is Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy. It has been slow going. Good Reads describes it as:

‘”The New York Trilogy is the most astonishing work by America’s most consistently astonishing writer: three interconnected novels that exploit the riveting elements of classic detective fiction to achieve a radical new genre – a profound and unsettling existentialist enquiry in the tradition of Kafka or Borges. In each story the search for clues leads to remarkable coincidences in the universe as the simple act of trailing a man ultimately becomes a startling investigation of what it means to be human. The result is the modern novel at its finest which will shock, transfix and astound every reader.”

It should be an interesting discussion in November.

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The Audible book I’m listening to is Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang. Narrated by Helen Laser.

It is the story of two women writers. One is much more successful than the other and the less successful one is quite envious of the successful one.

 One day the two women are having lunch together and the successful author has finished her latest manuscript and is getting ready to send it off for publishing. It’s set to go.

 However as the lunch progresses ‘Successful author’ chokes on her lunch and dies. This is all in the first few pages. ‘Less successful’ author gets the idea to take the manuscript and turn it in as her own. She does this and the story takes off from there.

What is interesting though is the ‘successful author’ is Asian and there are a lot of Chinese references and mandarin language references. ‘Less successful’ author is not. The manuscript gets accepted however the fact checking now must begin as the publishers want to make sure they don’t publish the book with errors from the non Asian author. The book tours are being organised.

Publishers are really cracking down on those writers who write outside of their culture. This should be a roller coaster ride.

I also picked up a beautiful photography book from the library but I will do a separate post on it as this one is long enough.

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In other life news- photography has been a bit slow but I have put a few new photos up on Instagram (Here) of a couple photos from Cambodia.

 There is a photo club excursion coming up this coming week but I have a specialist appointment and cannot attend. Such a shame as it is a beautiful, private garden south of here. It looks beautiful. Maybe another time.

Peanny and Ollie are doing well. They are loving the warmer, sunny days of spring and love their runs after the postie bike from front yard to back yard and the rubbish trucks on Wednesday.  The road we live on winds past the front of our home and then around a curve and past the back of our yard. The dogs start in the front corner and run as fast as they can go to get to the back gate so they can see the motorbike and the rubbish trucks twice. It is very funny to watch. I am glad we have big, strong fences.

All the best to you for the coming week and I’ll leave you with Penguin’s look of the week.

 

 

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.

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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.