Thank You Lisa - It Was Well Timed

Thank you Lisa of TBR313 for nominating me for this award.  I was really getting a bit stale with blogging and my daily routine of reading the top 5 to 10 blogs in my blog list instead of reading books.  It is a lovely gesture.
I can always count on Lisa's enthusiasm to comment on my blog and I enjoy her enthusiasm for all things bookish.

Here are the rules for this award:

• Thank and link to the person who nominated you.
• List the rules and display the award.
• Share seven facts about yourself.
• Nominate 15 other amazing blogs and comment on their posts to let them know they have been nominated
• Optional: display the award logo on your blog and follow the blogger who nominated you

Seven facts about myself- You sure you want to know all this trivia?  Okay, here goes.

1.  I am a retired speech pathologist who worked with disabled people for 40 years.They are the most inspiring people ever and my favourites were the profoundly intellectually disabled adults who lived in group homes. Their smiles could light up the world.

2. When I retired I trained as a Level 2 Veterinary Nurse and worked part time in a vet practice for about 4 years. It was something I always wanted to do and it wasn't just playing with cute puppies. We had funny moments, a lot, but there was sadness and a great deal of manual labour hauling around big sacks of dog food, cleaning kennels of all sorts of stuff and mopping floors- forever. I loved it.

3. I have over 2500 vintage Penguin Books in my house and I collect them whenever/wherever I see them. I never tire of their history, stories and illustrated covers.

4. I do volunteer work for a wildlife sanctuary as a wildlife rescuer here. Last year Bonorong Sanctuary in Hobart and their volunteers rescued over 5000 animals that had been injured, hit by cars or attacked by other animals (generally dogs and cats who are allowed to run wild).

5. I grew up in Michigan and lived there the first 20 years of my life. The next 15 years were spent in Ft. Myers, Florida and then my husband and I moved to Tasmania, Australia as we wanted adventure in our lives and they had a shortage of speech pathologists. They paid for us to come there and put us up in housing if we promised to stay for 3 years. (Otherwise we paid the expenses back.) That was 26 years ago and we never looked back. We now have dual citizenship with Australia and the USA. We will live in Tasmania forever. It is beautiful.

6. I have multiple sclerosis and have been involved in quite a few research projects. I have a wonderful neurologist here and the MS support services are also brilliant. I didn't know I had it until I was 50 when it was diagnosed and fortunately 15 years later I only have a fuzzy arm and sometimes numb toes and foot. The neurologist doesn't think it will progress and I hope he's right but you just never know.

7.  I am a book blogger but half the time I have no idea what I'm doing. I love books and that is all that matters and the best thing, the very best thing about blogging and Penguin Book collecting are the beautiful, lovely people out there who have become friends and keep me laughing and reading.


I follow quite a few blogs religiously.  My routine is to feed my dogs and cats at 6:30 am - 7:00 am. Make a big cup of coffee and go back to bed with all of them while I drink the coffee and read the blogs on my blogroll on Travellin' Penguin. Here are some of my favourites (not in any particular order.)

Dolce Bellezza- She brings style, good taste and elegance to her beautiful writing about books and has a passion for translated fiction also.

Fleur Fisher- She absolutely amazes me with the amount of books she reads. She seems to have a new post everyday and I don't know how she does it. I also love her tales of knitting and her little dog Briar.

My Porch Thomas and his dog Lucy keep me entertained with this massive house renovations, trips around America, and reading all kinds of books. He understands what it is like to have a slump and I have received some good pep talks when I wanted to throw it in.  He has a humorous take on life, literature and society and he inspires me to keep laughing even when I want to run rampant slapping people with a wet noodle.  I love the photos of Lucy also. She is beautiful. He also does amazing interviews on the Readings with Simon Savidge.

Savidge Reads- He makes me laugh with all he gets up to and I loved his relationship with his Gran  when she was living. The two of them were most inspiring. He just has so much energy for everything literary.

A Penguing A Week- Karyn and I travelled to England together a couple of years back and each of us shipped 250 Penguins back. We were crazy but didn't know it. I am amazed how many of the Penguins she has read and the list of them on the side of her blog is mind numbing. I do believe she will reach her goal of reading all of them.

I Prefer Reading- I always look forward to Lyn's Sunday Poetry selection and I learned a lot from her WWI Australian poetry information. She is very devoted to the poetry and it has inspired more interest on my part in it.

The Classics Club blog- The people who have organised this are amazing and I have learned so much about Classic books and how anybody can read them and enjoy them. They aren't as intimidating as I once thought they were and now I have read some I love them. It also opens up a whole new world of books. Too many for my lifetime.

The Age of Uncertainty- I have been following this blog for sometime now and he makes me laugh like no other blogger. A bookseller from England, he has a wonderful style of looking at the world and he makes you think about the weirdest things. I hope he never stops writing.

Whispering Gums and ANZ Lit Lovers blogs- These two blogs are the best I have come across related to Australian and New Zealand literature. They have helped me learn about the past literary history of Australia and to appreciate however small our overall population is related to the rest of the world, our literature is right up there at the top.

A Guys Moleskin Diary- I always make sure I read every post because I love the way this guy in San Francisco can dissect a book, either fiction or non fiction and make me think about a lot of issues. He is the only person I know who says he never reads in bed and must read almost every waking hour.  He is very inspiring the way he incorporates literature into his life. I enjoy him very much.

Behold The Stars-  This blogger has done more for me learning to appreciate the classics than anyone else I know. She is amazing how she goes through the difficult classics with a sharp, defining mind to present the best of these.  I would need to read some of these books 10 times to get out of them what she does in one reading.  Her love for Zola and her pet chickens, budgies and parrot (that she also writes about is nothing short of total passion.)

Winston's Dad- Stu keeps blogging about his beloved translated fiction no matter how tough things get for him. I admire the way he discusses his learning difficulty yet you'd never know he has one. He has an astute mind, he loves his dog Winston (who is poorly right now) and translated fiction. He has given me a greater understanding of the world of translated fiction and I thank him for that. I always look to see what he reads.

A Striped Armchair- This young Texan woman is an inspiration also.  She has health issues that plague her and yet she keeps coming back to the things she loves- books. In all sizes and shapes. I love her take on various things she picks up in the library and although her posts may be sporadic at times due to her health concerns she never wavers in her quest to learn new things.

James Reads Books- I enjoy the way he talks about his secondary school kids he teaches and how he thinks about the books they should be reading.  He reads a lot and quite often he is thinking about how his students will react to something.  It is good to keep up with what young people are reading and thinking now I am out of the business of children. I also love his basset hound and stories about California.

TBR-13- Lisa is great is how enthusiastic she is.  She loves the challenges, new books, and is always there to offer words of wisdom and encouragement. She comments a lot and any blogger can't help but appreciate that. Thanks Lisa for your input and friendship.

We love our travels through the blogs.

There are more blogs to read and gather inspiration from so this list by all means is not complete but they all offer encouragement in various ways. If you aren't familiar with the above blogs, have a look and see for yourself how much fun the world of book blogging can be.