Day 21 of the Penguin Discussions

Books to be Read

I really have a big choice when it comes to this. I have shelves and shelves of books I have not read and next year is the year I get stuck into them. I am really going to have a TBR year.

First I have a couple of thousand (yes, thousand) vintage Penguin books. I hope to read some of them.
As for the non Penguin books I have several that have been playing on my mind.

One English Lit, one Travel book that I have always heard is a must read and one motorbike travel book. Not just any motorbike travel book but the holy grail of all motorbike books.

Okay- the first one is Pride and Prejudice. Yes, I admit-- I have seen the films, the TV series but I have never read the book.   I  MUST  READ  THIS. I know that.

Next is Jupiter's Travels. One Man, 80,000 plus miles and four years around the world on a motorbike.

Then there is the Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen who I understand died of leukaemia in April of this year. I have always heard this is a very spiritual, very lovely book and no one should live life without reading it at least once.

These books are one of many to be read. I am looking forward to it.  What is a book that has stuck in your mind for a very long time that you are yet to read?

Penguin Challenge Days 19 and 20

This week is a bit of a mish mash miscellaneous.  I thought I would share a couple of things here for Christmas fun.

But first things first. Day 19 are books that take you home.  I still consider home the state of Michigan in the USA but I have not lived there since my early 20's.  I think any book that I read that transports myself back to that time would be books by Bill Bryson.  Bill Bryson didn't come from Michigan. He came from Iowa but when he writes of that state it reminds me very much of my own.

So  I must say these two books in particular.

I am sure there are books that take place in Michigan but I'll be stumped if I can think of them. If you know of any I would love to know what they are.  Travels with Charlie by John Steinbeck reminds me of home also as it took place in the 1960's America.

Day 20 of the challenge is about books that take place where I live now.  I can think of several books that take place in Tasmania.

Two that come immediately to mind that I really enjoyed were these three: I especially loved Christopher Koch's book. The others were also quite good too.

 

In finishing I wanted to share something entirely different with you. I was in Sydney a couple of weeks ago and in the middle of the city, in the Pitt St. mall they had a large Christmas tree and Santa Claus display. It was completely made of Lego.  In the spirit of Christmas I thought I would share it with you.  Merry Christmas everyone. Not long to go now.

A Massive Tome and a Very Funny Book

The daily Penguin challenge is heading along nicely. Two days closer to Christmas.
Days 17 and 18 are coming up now.

Day 17:  Funny book- When I think about it I don't read a lot of funny books. Maybe I should what with the recent news of the world being so depressing. We need something to take ourselves out of daily life in the world.

I have two books that recently made me laugh out loud. The first was Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. I didn't think I would enjoy it but I certainly did.  The characters were quirky, I cared about them and I always wondered what was going to happen next. It was a laugh out loud at times funny book.

The second was a Bill Bryson memoir The Lost Continent-Travels in Small Time America. Some of his memories were pure hilarity. He was remembering visiting his grandparents in Iowa when he was young. He and his older brother explored a house they believed to be haunted across the street. His brother often set him up and this was no exception. He talks about creeping up the stairs of this old, decrepit house and his brother is at the top of the stairs. Suddenly his brother yells out "Here he comes!" and begins running back the way he came.....down the stairs. Bill Bryson said as a 4 year old he ran sprinting down the stairs as fast as he could go, squirting urine at every step.  I read this about two o'clock in the morning and started laughing so hard I couldn't stop.  The image in my mind was incredibly visual and it struck me as very funny.

Day 18: Massive tome- Well there are two of these that come to mind. One I have read and one is on my TBR pile.  The one I read was Middlemarch by George Elliot that I really loved. I would like to read this again.

The one I have not read and has been on my TBR  pile for my entire life is Andersonville by McKinlay Kantor. It is the story of the American civil war and the Andersonville prison in Georgia.  I have visited this site and found thoughts of it to be quite disconcerting.  I have always wanted to read this book but did not have a copy of it. Then one day I was foraging around in the tip shop for old Penguin books when I found a battered old hardcover copy. I picked it up to see what the name of it was and found I was holding an old copy of Andersonville. Of course I brought it home. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1956. Maybe 2015 is the year it gets read.

Only in New York by Lily Brett

I have decided that I really enjoy the writing of Lily Brett. She is an Australian who grew up in Melbourne.  Her parents were Jewish and they both lost most of their family in the death camps of World War II.  She has written extensively of how that influenced her own upbringing  in several of her books.

She has lived in New York city now for quite some time, over 25 years. I enjoyed her last book Lola Bensky, a fictional account of her experiences as a journalist in 1960's Britain.

This book, Only in New York is a book of vignettes of her time in New York city.  Lily loves to walk and spends a great deal of time walking to various places in New York. She writes of daily life in New York. Her trips to the hairdresser, to a large cemetery in Queens, her thoughts of daily life.  She has an extensively great sense of humour and this humour comes through in almost everything she does.

She talks about being Jewish and some of the quirkiness she feels is the result of this.  I laughed out loud at some of her experiences. When I finished this book I wished it was another 100 pages longer.

She mentions many places in New York that she visits. The deli she goes to, her favourite cafe, visits with her father who is still alive and her relationship with him.  Interwoven throughout the whole book is the experiences of what it is like having been a child of death camp survivors and the personalities that she children inherit as a result of such trauma of the parents.

She includes a visit to Melbourne and discusses her visit to her old neighbourhood and going through her home again.

I loved this book.  I loved being in New York with her. I think it was one of the most realistic books of life in the big city I have ever read.  You could visit the city, read this book and tick off the places she talks about.  It is almost like a travel guide without being a travel guide.  It gave me a real feeling for how it is to live in this wonderful, diverse city.  I can certainly recommend this book.

Lily Brett

Penguin Challenge Day 16- For Someone I Love

This is a tricky topic because I'm not quite sure what they mean. Mr. Penguin and I read quite different books. Except for popular crime. We both enjoy some of those.

So who do I love next to Mr. Penguin. My dogs.  Do I read dog books? Not many because they are always so sad. They are usually about great heroes or family pets who die, get stolen, get lost. Do they return to their loving homes? Sometimes. So I will use this post to briefly talk about the old dog adventure books I collect.

I have a good collection of these books. They are dated from the late 1800's to 1950.  I don't collect any dog adventure stories after 1950. I don't always collect them for the stories either. I collect them for the illustrations. I love the illustrations of dogs during the 1930's and 1940's in particular.

The illustrator I most love is Cecil Aldin. He was an Englishman who did countless illustrations of dogs, horses, usually fox hunting and English country scenes. I have several books with his illustrations and I never get tired of the drawings.  He captured the expressions so well of dogs being happy, being sad, getting into trouble. They really are beautiful and often quite comical.

I hope you enjoy these.