Walkerville book sale
Well, yes… the most expensive book I bought was $2… I bought 10 books. For $11. I felt a bit guilty, but hey; good books, and cheap! There were stacks of people there… if I’d had time I think I probably could have picked up even more (I would have had to grab a bag in order to do so, though). As it was, I am glad they didn’t weigh my bag at the airport since I was just a little over the limit.
So what did I get? Good question, so glad you asked:
A Short History of the World, by none other than HG Wells
The Last Plantagenet, by Tyler White (that’s about Richard III, in case you’re wondering)
The Borgias, by Michael Mallett (which I started reading at the airport, and got a fair bit read because the plane was late in leaving; more readable than I had expected)
Journey among Warriors, by Eve Curie (yes, the daughter; no idea what this is going to be like)
The Idea of History, by Collingwood (hurrah! for $1, no less!)
Firebird, by Muchael Asher (some conspiracy novel)
Empyrion Omnibus, by Stephen Lawhead (confused me no end when I saw the title and it not by Simmonds; looks good)
The Chosen, by Ricardo Pinto (some fantasty schlock, I expect; interesting to try)
and Running with the Demon, by Terry Brooks (I’m feeling a bit guilty about not having read the entirety of the Shannara series).
Some Edith Pargeter (aka Ellis Peters) novel, which I actually left in Adelaide so as to save room in the bag
So that’s the lot. Very exciting. I also came home with one of Mum’s books, which she has donated to the cause (of teaching, that is): Queen Bees and Wannabes, by Rosaling Wiseman, which she says is excellent and well worth reading as a teacher. So that should be good.
Houseboat on the Styx
This was one of the books Mum got at the Walkerville Libarary/Council book sale – more about that later. She bought it on Saturday; it’s a little book, and only 170 or so pages on that lovely thick paper they used to use, so I read it all that day. It is one of the funniest little books I’ve read in a long time… and that edition was published in 1925! And it said it was the 28th impression! It’s by a guy called John Kendrick Bangs, which is hilarious in and of itself. The premise of the book is conversations between people in the ‘good’ part of Hades. Think Shakespeare, Napoleon, Nero (?!), Dryden… it was actually laugh-out-loud funny, which is fairly rare for me; Mum got a bit sick of me reading out the great one-liners before she got a chance to read it. I think the funniest bit I remember is Nero saying that the only thing he hadn’t murdered was the English language – and that directed to Dr Johnson. HA HA HA. I thought it was funny.
Cecilia Dart Thornton #2
She is driving me nuts. I can’t stand her style at all – way too purple for me, I’m just not that visual – and I don’t like not knowing what words mean, and besides I think she is just being gratuitous in using them. However, I am half-way through the third book because the story is just interesting enough to keep me going. I am very much looking forward to finishing them and getting back to something a little less tortured.
Books I am in the middle of
There’s quite a few. Mostly history books that I have begun and got bored of/waylaid from. It’s guilt-making – which is a bit silly in itself, really, because why do I insist on feeling beholden to a book, for goodness’ sake? But here’s a sample:
History of London Bridge – I think I got up to about the last chapter of this and then got waylaid. I should go back and just finish it off, but her style got on my nerves a bit.
History of London – Peter Ackroyd’s bio of the place – is not really designed to be read from cover to cover, I think. The chapters are essentially vignettes, and I should read them as such. I should actually read them…
Something about Emma and Enid, the last two ‘English’ queens (ie before the Norman Conquest; actually Enid is the last, since Emma is French herself…). This was a really full-on bio, and I found it quite hard to read and fairly dry. I should try it again now that I’m actually teaching the period and have a better, if still rudimentary, knowledge of it.
Chaos – James someone wrote it (Gleick, J says; I pronounce it Glike, he Gleek…) – I started it mainly to see how my attempt at reading real science would go, albeit something written for a fairly lay audience. After a while, poorly, it turns out. It was interesting, but…
1066: the year of the three battles. Begun the first time I was teaching this period. A bit too much military stuff for me; I just don’t have the head for that sort of info… I find it hard enough visualising which way north is, let alone anything else.
And there are a few more books on the shelf, throwing accusatory stares my way every time I start a new book rather than finishing them off…
Cecilia Dart-Thornton
I read The Ill-Made Mute over the holidays. I had heard a whole heap of reports, most of them negative bar one. I got a bit annoyed with her style – she tries too hard to be poetic, twisting her sentences around way too much and using words I have never heard before and could only guess at from the context. However, I did enjoy the plot and the characters a bit, and I was so frustrated when I finished it I nearly shrieked (truly; it has a very clever ending). The one person I heard a good report from, though, I thankfully saw at church that night and she has today given me the next two books (thanks, Krick), so that’s good… except that tomorrow I have Parent/Teacher interviews so I start at 2pm (until 9pm!), and I really ought to do some work rather than just reading which I will be very tempted to do.
Books
Well.
I read and finished Garth Nix’s Mister Monday, and I’m excited because there will be 6 more in this series and that’s really, really cool. I am really looking forward to reading the rest.
Then, I had to choose something to read next. I had yet to find Rise of Endymion, about which I was very cranky; so I started The Gutenberg Revolution, by John Mann, which J bought me ages ago. I’ve read the introduction. Then I got restless, so I started The Ill-Made Mute by Cecilia Dart-Thornton. Interesting: a number of people have told me it’s crap, then another friend told me she really enjoyed it… so it really will be interesting to see what I think of it. I’ve read the first chapter and a half. And then…I went into the city tonight with Kate because she was involved in a reading night with her CAE class. So, I thought I’d check out Readers’ Feast in the off-chance that they might have it; no. So I bought Ilium, also by Simmons, instead to make me feel better. Then Kate had a brilliant idea: go to the CAE library! And because I have a library card with Yarra-Melbourne libraries, I can borrow there. And they did have it! Hurrah! So excited.
So I’m reading that.
Simmons and others
Just finished Simmons’ Endymion, and I really did nearly cry because I have yet to find The Rise of Endymion and I’m feeling a bit desperate for some closure, thanks to the tantilising nature of this one. Doesn’t matter that I have almost a zillion books to go on with; they’re not the one I want.
I’ve got some books from school to read. One is for the English faculty – Mister Monday, by Garth Nix – to see if it’s fit to be a set text. The others were in a box in the staffroom yesterday for holiday reading, not sure why – whether they’re new (although some weren’t), or the librarians just make up boxes for teachers’ delectation. One is The Pirate Queen, by Alan Gold, which looks like a lot of fun – Elizabethan, not sure if it really is based on fact or not – the blurb says “Through the daring of her piracy Grace nearly bankrupted the English treasury; she caused nothing but trouble for Elizabeth I.” The other book I grabbed is The Ill-Made Mute, which I have largely heard poor reports of but I want to make up my own mind. Bold move, I know.
Bad history
I bought this book at Borders called something like A Handy History Handbook; it wasn’t quite that bad, but it was $10 and I thought it might have some interesting and/or useful facts in it.
It does.
Like the fact that the Roman Empire began in 27BC when Julius Caesar became emperor.
I wanna be like Dan
OK, so it doesn’t rhyme, but it does tell you that Dan Simmonds is my latest literary hero. I read Endymion early this year, having got it second hand and not realising – because it was not made clear on the front or the back – that this was a “500 or so years in the future of [other series]” type book. It wasn’t completely necessary to have read the first – I muddled along quite well – but it would have made life a bit easier. And also not meant that as I read the first two, Hyperion and Hyperion Falling, that I had these weird deja vu things happening (which, if you know the book, is quite a funny little in-joke). Nonetheless… I read what was effectively the third book; almost cried when I finished it because it was so beautiful, because there were two before and one after to read, and because the second-hand bookshop had none of them. I got the first two at Borders a little while ago, and I just finished the second… it is magnificent… I actually don’t think they’re quite as good as the third, but maybe that’s my rose-tinted nostalgia; I’m going to read it again soon anyway, before I read the fourth and because it will make so much more sense now.
Anyway. Highly recommended. I comes under fantasy/scifi, but is not tech-heavy (a few weird concepts, but they’re not vital to understanding), and personally I don’t think the story itself is all that fantastic, in the genre sense of the word.
Kids’ books
I took advantage of Borders and their 3 for 2 sale yesterday. I got The Bunyip of Berkeley’s Creek, Possum Magic, and Animalia! Very exciting. They’re not entirely for me, of course… at least one of them will go as a present to the Nankervis clan on Wednesday since I didn’t send a present when Aidan was born (like a year ago or something). However, it is a great deal of fun to read them. And of course I also bought Avocado Baby ages ago… that was a good purchase; no one is getting that one as a present any time soon.
On a completely different note, I think I might have misplaced my Bowie CD.
Later: they forgot to take a book! I’ll have to send them one now.
Also: this is what I like; talking via comments on the blog, rather than email or some other media.
Randomly Yours, Alex 