Aunty B's book shelf floweth over

Hi fellow booknerds! I seem to be reading faster than I'm blogging at the moment. Must be those dragging summer sun-filled days. So if you're hungry to find out what's been in the bedside pile at B's - you get to vote! (And I don't mean dirty socks and knickers either) Would you rather hear about:

Clash of the fundamentalisms - Tariq Ali
Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi
Playboy Book of Short Stories - Various, including Keroauc, Nabokov et al
100 Years of Solitude - Gael Garcia Marquez
The Infinite Plan - Isabel Allende
The Men Who Stare at Goats - Jon Ronson
Dead Famous - Ben Elton

Ooh the tension is almost too much to bear.

"Stiff", by Shane Moloney

I read this basically to shut my Dad up, as he had been raving about these Shane Moloney books since October when he came to visit.

To quote Tony Wilson (another author): "His sentences have an effortless grace and humour and he brings Melbourne to life on the page." The writing is very easy to read, with casual humour inserted throughout, and metaphors and common sayings slightly twisted to suit the context of the story in a way that makes you laugh out loud, briefly. It's also good to read something Australian, set in an Australian city that I have visited many times.

This story is the first in a series, about a guy who works as an assistant to a State Labor MP in Melbourne's ethnically diverse northern suburbs. He's asked to look into the circumstances behind a death in an abattoir located in the electorate, to make sure there won't be any union or IR implications for the government. As he delves deeper and deeper into the characters involved, and series of chaotic events unravel in his personal life, involving his unofficially separated wife who has taken up a position in Canberra, his 7 year old son, whom he stuggles to pick up from school on time, and the roof on his house, which inconveniently collapses in the middle of all the action and during the middle of a rainy week.

Anyhow, all is revealed and resolves itself in the end. I have no idea how this character manages to have a series or mystery novels written about him given his profession (ie not a detective, but then neither was Miss Marple), but I don't think I am intrigued enough to find out. Not bad, easy to read, and entertaining enough to make you want to see how it ends.

Holiday reading

I have a new years resolution (a real, heartfelt one, not a token one) to read more and watch less telly. Not that re-runs of The Bill at 2pm during E-chan's nap, or watching television series on dvd aren't a good way to spend your time, but I have more energy now that bub is 7 months old and have less need for passive entertainment like telly and radio.

So I thought during my recent trip to Adelaide, I should get at least one book finished. I'll get to that in a minute (above). I tried to read "The Guns of Navarrone" by Alister Maclean, which I grabbed off my parent's bookshelves, but about 10 pages in, I realised I wasn't going to finish it in time and wasn't interested enough to take it with me. Kind of a boys own adventure set in the WW2 mediterranean where the good old Allies hatch up a "daring, but it's just crazy enough to work" plan to shoot down some troublesome and strategically placed Axis guns (back then, the Axis was the Gerries and the Italians, and the Japs of course, but on the other side of the globe). Would have been good to read as a teenager, but alas that time has long past.

I'm beginning to think I'm not a fast reader. I stop and think too much, try to absorb every sentence, when some text should be skimmed over more. That must be why I've never finished epics like "lord of the rings" or dense work like that of Umberto Eco. However, I will get there one day. Perhaps I will linger less on every sentence as my reading picks up again.

The reason why I'm thinking about my reading speed is that over our holiday, C-chan got through a lot more.... Now that he isn't studying, he is really chewing through the books. I'll post about that, because I'm not sure he'll ever get around to it, despite being invited to join this blog a few times, and I'm ashamed to say, I'm to some extent living my life of books through him. He read half an Orwell omnibus ("Animal Farm" and "1984" - he's not sure he's actually ever read them before. I read them as a teenager, and remember them so vividly - talking about these books again made me curious about Orwell's less famous works, which are also meant to be good). He also read half of "1001 books you must read before you die", which he was given for xmas and any of you are welcome to browse through when you come over if you are stuck for ideas on what to read!

Before xmas, he read "Against a Dark Background" by Iain M Banks (which I also read many years ago, and remember enjoying) - a science fiction novel set way way into the future. Basically an adventure novel, in a time when people are not restricted by resources, science, or technology. Pure fantasy, I know, but Banks writes in a way that is interesting - the people and their flaws and desires are still the centre of his sci fi writing, it just happens to be in set in a fantastic backdrop. I don't read all that much fantasy or Sci fi, but read quite a few of Bank's stuff about 10 years ago. I'm hoping to read some of his regular fiction soon ("The Business", or "The Wasp Factory").

Finally, back to what I actually am reading: "A Month of Sundays" by James O'Loghlin of "the new inventors" fame and "Baby & Toddler Meals" by Robin Barker, which is a cook book I borrowed from my local library for inspiration.

And what I didn't read was also great

Check out this funny post of reviews of books not read in 2006 - I love the idea and plan to make up wild stories about all the books I didn't read in 2006.

Getting it Right (Heat 10, New series, 2005) - edited by Ivor Indyk

Aunty B got me a magazine (which is actually a bound book) on sale; one of those arty little anthologies of local writers - with short fiction, poetry and essay - called 'Heat 10 - Getting it Right'. Published for the Writing and Social Research Group at the university of western sydney.

Judging a book by its cover
Before I talk about the contents I must confess that I always find these things a little bit daunting - a little bit in-house and cosed door. The way this book is graphically designed is a bit off-putting, there's no easy to find by-line that helps you to figure out exactly what the thing is that you're holding in your hand. For example if it just said on the cover 'short fiction and non-fiction by Sydney writers Summer 2005' you would actually know what it was. As it is the title 'getting it right' implies to the lay reader that there is an actual theme, or some overarching question that this collection is addressing - but that doesn't seem to be the case. You don't know what the magazine *is* or who puts it together, or what it's focus is until after you've squirreled away in the inside first pages and pieced together a bit of a jigsaw. So I guess my general coment there is - hello, people, if you want to share what you do with more people, don't scare them away with cryptic cover art and maybe invest in a catchy para on the back cover that talks up what your publication is (how about 'Heat is an annual magazine showcasing edgy and provocative writers from Western Sydney who explore contemporary social issues... ' or whatev).

It's what's on the inside that counts
Anyways. I did the flick and dip style holiday couch and cup of tea read, and very much enjoyed the following:
- A short description of and some reproductions of Angela Brennan's beautiful text paintings .
- A longer piece called 'Badly hurt and beautifully loved' by Peter Kirkpatrick on John Laws (yes that John Laws, and the title is actually one of Johns') and the poetry he has written and published. It looks at Laws' views of masculinity and sensitivity, of romantic love and of his slightly inconsistent contempt for that high fandangled booklearnin'. It is a serious review and cultural analysis but with a strongly bemused tone, as it is fairly clear that, in a nutshell, the writer thinks his poetry sucks, big time. I would rewrite some of John's verse here but I really can't bear to as it is pretty awful.
- A short story called 'the dark wet' about a girl travelling in India, by Jess Huon
- A poem I liked about tequila versus wine by Anna Jackson because it was all very topical what with the silly season silliness and a few hangovers on my mind. Here it is (and if you like it she has a new book out which you can read about here):

A beautiful theory isn't a poem, James

I still haven't written a duck poem although
the duck was good, what can I say, was so

good, but now it is more like three weeks later
that I am once again leaving an elevator

with James, and I have a theory I want to unfold
to him about tequila and wine: how wine will hold

the moment open in all its ripeness and let you sit
in the present tense for an evening, but tequila, it

is like a terrible vortex drink, that tries to pull
all the future and all the past into the swirl

of the moment you drink it in, and there you are
trying to relive some other night at another bar

on someone else's lap and James is referring to that
conversation you've never even had with him yet

about Diana's apples and the next morning, your
hangover is not at all the wistful melancholic despair

for the future and regret for the past that wine
induces, but an unrelenting present tense return

to precisely the moment you were trying to swill
yourself out of, a moment all the worse for being full

of you, and what you did. So, I get out of the elevator
three days after the tequila night, reborn as a stater

of tequila theory, and now James is waiting for me
to put it all into a poem. But a beautiful theory

isn't a poem, James. A beautiful theory is only
a theory.