#blog12daysxmas Day 6 Six great books!

Six geese a laying! Well with my well known ornithophobia that wasn't going to go down too well. If I was going to post on my Hecuba Reads blog, however, I needed to think about six things relating to reading. This task is becoming quite a challenge I realize. When we did our 150 favourite reads I had huge difficulties trying to decide on five books. So now I have to think about six. Hmm. Well I do know six great books: they are the six wonderful local history publications available for sale in our libraries. They are as follows.

Boroondara's yesterdays: a history resource kit for middle years students in the City of Boroondara by Jill Barnard is our most recent publication and its cover is shown above. Whilst written with the school audience in mind, it is actually a great introduction for any ages to the study of local history and its sources as well as the history of our municipality.

Clubhouse: a celebration of local sport in Boroondara by Sonia Jennings & Mary Sheehan was published 2006 to celebrate the Melbourne Commonwealth Games. It is a great read for information about sport, sporting clubs and famous sporting people from Boroondara. Clubhouse is available in print form but also as a talking book on CD narrated by Tony Porter.

Faint traces: Chinese in Hawthorn before the Second World War by Mary Sheehan and Diane Nicholas was published jointly by the City of Boroondara Library Service and the Hawthorn Historical Society and documents the story of Chinese in Hawthorn, particularly focussing on two waves of migrants, namely the market-gardeners and the laundry proprietors. Faint traces is available as a talking book on CD narrated by James Wright.

Voices of Camberwell: from Alamein to North Balwyn by Geraldine McFarlane was written as a result of an oral history project covering the history of the former City of Camberwell. The print publication is no longer available but a talking book on CD is still available for sale. This is narrated by Beverley Dunn and James Condon.

Telling lives: locating and mapping the cultural heritage of Boroondara by Sonia Jenning (with Jill Barnard) celebrates the rich cultural history of our area and provides biographical notes on a large number of writers, artists, dancers, musicians etc. Telling lives is also available on talking book narrated by the library's very own Jane Nolan.


Our final publication is A history of Hawthorn by Victoria Peel, Deborah Zion and Jane Yule which was published by MUP in 1994. This publication traces the history of the former municipality of Hawthorn from aboriginal settlement to local government amalgamtions in 1994.

These six books are titles that I have read and reread and which I have on my desk and consult regularly. Friends and family have often received them as Christmas presents from me. I am not sure that they actually share my passion for these books. But they are six very special books to me.

#blog12daysxmas Day 5 Five gold rings?

On the fifth day of Christmas my true love sent me five gold rings.... Not something I really want as I really don't like gold jewellery. But when I was Googling to check that it really was five gold rings I discovered that the five gold rings are meant to symbolize the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament. Books and writing seems a bit more my thing but really I don't want anyone to send me any more versions of the Pentateuch. I have plenty of versions in English, Greek and Latin and I think I probably still have Genesis in Hebrew.

I am interested in this symbolism for the 12 Days of Christmas as I really knew nothing about it until five minutes ago. But what I would really like to blog about are Five Great Birthday Presents. I blogged the other day about the books I scored for Christmas but I have another stash relating to my big birthday this year.

Probably the very best present I got was my iTouch which I got as an early birthday present in time to take on my overseas trip in April/May. The iTouch was a gift from my parents and was definitely about books and writing and reading as I specifically got it so that I could load up ebooks and take them with me. It was a great success (and still is) and meant that I had some favourite authors on tap for the plane trip to say nothing of a range of other apps and my ability to access various email accounts at once. I love my iTouch and am very happy reading books on it as they are available in a range of formats and apps. What I am not happy about is the limited range available in Australia and of Australian publications. Some people find the iTouch too small but its smallness and lightness depict its very value to me and also why I can't quite bring myself to see the value to me of an iPad. It's bigger and heavier and... well maybe for films. I'll see.

So the iTouch was one fabulous reading device for my birthday and an early present, but once I had returned from my travels and was cajoled into late birthday celebrations, I got some books as well!! How lovely was that. All four were non-fiction and reflected people's knowledge of my long-term interests.


Penny and Mark gave me Peter Stothard's On the Spartacus road: a spectacular journey through ancient Italy. This is the story of Stothard's journey along the route that was taken by the gladiators (Spartacus et al.) who raged and waged war on the Roman Republic between 73 and 71 B.C. It is described as "a journalist's notebook, a classicist's celebration, a survivor's record of a near fatal cancer and the history of a unique and brutal war." Many buttons are pressed for me in that summary and I really look forward to reading it.

The other three books could be said to have the same theme: food, cooking and writing. Claudia Roden's Arabesque: a taste of Morocco, Turkey and Lebanon was given to me by my friends Margaret and TK who share my love of the Middle East and of its food. I have long loved Claudia Roden's writing about food and this was a title I didn't own. I look forward to relishing the writing and food contained in it. Marg and TK hosted my Canberra birthday celebration which is depicted above and was fabulous. I am sorry that unfortunately I was ill during it and didn't enjoy celebrating as much I normally do. But a great time was had nonetheless.

Mairin, Sebastian and Alex gave me Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris' Your place or mine? The authors of this were Masterchef judges and well-known in Melbourne for their restaurants, Fenix and The Press Club. The book is well presented and divided into the categories of Providore, Greengrocer, Butcher and Fishmonger. There are recipes from each - some standard favourites, some very special. I read this the day I received it!


Tessa Kiros' Venetian journal: foo, travel, dreams was given to me by Karyn. This book is a combination of recipes, photos of Venice and opportunities for reflection and comments and a companion volume to Kiros' Venezia. I know one is supposed to write experiences in the book but I am not sure that I will be able to sully it!

These Five Presents really are so much more to my taste than Five Gold Rings or the Pentateuch. Thanks to all who thoughtfully gave me gifts aligned to my pleasures!

#blog12daysxmas Agatha Christie Day 4

On the fourth day of Christmas I finally got around to blogging about the Agatha Christie biography that I have out from the library and that is overdue. Well, I hope I will.


As I have mentioned in previous posts, for many years a new Agatha Christie was always part of my Christmas! Well Agatha always said "A Christie for Christmas" so it was quite appropriate. So when I was planning to go to England earlier in 2010 and emails were going back and forth about places we all wanted to go to, I realized we were going to be in Devon. Wow! So I put my hand up for Greenway, Agatha Christie's house in Devon, that I knew had been given to the National Trust by her grandson. Luckily Hazelanne, Maria and Ronnie with whom I was doing the West country road trip were agreeable and what a fabulous experience that was! Well, the whole road trip was but I found it wonderful to visit Agatha's house, see the pet cemetery, see her bedroom, see her piano and sitting room and see Max' artefacts. Though it was never her primary residence and later given to her daughter and son-in-law, so many of the classic Agatha photos depict her there that it seemed very familiar.


You can see the house and and its location overlooking the Dart above as well as a shot of the garden. If you want to see the other photos I took you can check them out on Flickr in my West Country 2010 folder. If you start with this one and go forward you will catch them all.


And so to the overdue book. Agatha was born in 1890 so we all felt that there would be a new book in the lead up to that anniversary. And sure enough Richard Hack's Duchess of death: the unauthorized biography of Agatha Christie appeared in 2009. Hack is an investigative writer who has previously undertaken investigative biographies of Howard Hughes, Michael Jackson and J. Edgar Hoover. Hack has done a very thorough job of his research, focusing in particular on the 5,000 or more documents at the University of Exeter's Special Collections division. These documents provide a wealth of documentation that has not previously been used.

I enjoyed reading Duchess of death. There was much in it that was familiar but often written with a different viewpoint given the sources and it was certainly interesting to get some family views on other members. Hack doesn't care for Max Mallowan and some of his comments about him are not very well substantiated whilst he leaves out other stuff that would have been interesting to pursue. Some don't like his writing style, but for anyone who is a Christie fan, I recommend the book as a good read. Maybe you could get it out of your local library and read it over the 12 days and blog your experience? I'll be taking this copy back to my library tomorrow.

#blog12daysxmas Dromkeen literary lunch

At Christmas we all have lots of regular things that we do and many of them are related to books and writing. Well, they are for me anyway. One of these is the annual Dromkeen literary luncheon. The City of Boroondara Library Service always has a table at the this event. I love the drive out there (my rule is my car but someone else drives because of my well-known hatred of driving), wandering around the grounds, viewing the peacocks from a distance, looking at the great illustrations in the gallery, hearing the guest speakers, and most of all just spending some time with the fabulous City of Boroondara Library Service Youth Services team.

At the Dromkeen literary lunch the Librarian of the Year is always announced and we at Boroondara are very proud that our own Cathy Mulcahy was runner up in 1996 and some years later in 2004 the Hawthorn Library Youth Services librarian, Rita Fellows won! I always enjoy going to look at the list of librarians and this year I managed to take a photo of Rita standing by the plaque with her name. We are proud of our Rita at Boroondara.

One of the things, however, that always disappoints me at Dromkeen is the lack of attendance by other public librarians. Do other public libraries know about the history and wealth of the illustrations collection at Dromkeen and the enjoyment of going to the literary lunch? I often wonder and feel regret that they are missing out on what is to me a wonderful Christmas experience.

#blog12daysxmas Summer reading Day 2 post

Christmas Day is past and, whilst we all have our new books to read, it is also time to dream, reflect and imagine with Boroondara's 150 favourite reads. This year on July 26 the City of Boroondara Library Service celebrated 150 years of continuous public library service in the area we now call Boroondara. As part of the celebrations, we asked our users to tell us what their all time favourite reads were. From this, we compiled a list of 150 favourite reads and we are currently running a Summer Reading program based on these.

The list includes adult and junior and both recent and old time favourites. You can download the list here. One of my tasks in the 12 days of Christmas is going to see how many of these titles/series I have already read and how many I haven't read. I know that there are some that I will never read because I have tried and don't like them but I am equally sure that there will be some new titles that I will discover and want to read over the summer.

If you want to take part in the Boroondara summer reading program the details are on our website. Though there will be some random prizes, this isn't so much a competition as an opportunity to explore Boroondara's favourite reads and to use the opportunity to dream, reflect and imagine. I'm off to check out the list! Will you join me?

#blog12daysxmas Christmas books Day 1 post

After quite a bit of nagging from @shewgirl who seems to have her blogging mojo back here I am on the third day of Christmas trying to start the #blog12daysxmas challenge! Part of the reason for my delay was that I simply had missed the call to the challenge and only realized it was happening when I started seeing all the tweets and blogposts labeled thus. And, of course, as my hash tags don't even show up in searches you all will be very lucky to read this. Another third world problem that I have had for ages.

The good thing about this challenge is that it sent me back to my Hecuba Reads blog that I set up after Christmas last year with the aim of documenting all my reading. I didn't succeed very well in that aim - on the blog at any rate - but more of that anon. What I want to talk about here is one of my greatest joys at Christmas. Yes! Yes! Getting books for presents.

If I think back to childhood Christmases, my favourite presents were almost always books. I, of course, except the fabulous Christmas when I was nine and my very, very favourite present was a black kitten whom I creatively called Kitty! The photo above is from that Christmas but I must have been enticed to the table and willing to leave my kitten as I can't see her anywhere. Mother nursing Mairin, Peter and Aunty surround me while Father was taking the photo with the Kodak box brownie I also got for Christmas that year.

Every year I used to fall on my book presents: new installments of Famous Five to add to my set shared alas with Mairin who to this day has the other half of the set, Elsie Oxenham, and then over the years moving on to Agatha Christie and Georgette Heyer. There were always new books to read on Christmas afternoon. As I have grown older and perhaps more significantly moved to working in libraries people are less likely to give me books. They think I have read them all or maybe even have too many! Last week when I opened the first book I got this Christmas and said I hadn't read the book and didn't even know it, there was a huge sigh of relief from the giver who almost always gives me books but with an anxiety that I may have read them or already own them. In fact, I don't think I ever have. Well chosen always, Mark!


So yes, I got books for Christmas. Yay! They were mostly non-fiction interestingly when I think of the childhood joys at getting latest fiction titles, but that is not to complain. And I hadn't read ANY of them. Sue, Brian, Calum and Tom gave me Lynn Santa Lucia's First and only women which is a fascinating compendium of female trailblazers from ancient times i.e Pharaoh Hatshepsut and Hypatia of Alexandria through to contemporaries like Dawn Fraser and Auung San Suu Kyi.


Penny and Mark gave me the only novel: David Grossman's To the end of the land. I haven't read anything by this Israeli writer whom I have now discovered to be a prolific author. This novel is set in Galilee and depicts daily life in Israel and the effects that constant war and its ambivalence have on one household.


And my interest in cooking emerged with the other three books. Karen gave me the CWA's Preserves, filled with absolutely luscious jams, pickles and preserves in a lovely new presentation that doesn't look anything like the traditional CWA books.


Marcus Wareing's How to cook the perfect... was Sebastian's contribution to introduce me to his favourite TV cook. The Earl Grey tea cream was particularly pointed out to me as something good to try. And it sounds delicious. I need to buy some Earl Grey teabags as I can't quite come to the challenge of using loose tea. Though now that I think about it I could use tea infusers, I suppose. And my final book? It was from Peter and Tim and is the Australian Women's weekly's World table with recipes from all over. I love the photos of the places that transport me there when I am reading of the food.

So Christmas is come and gone but, as it does every year, it lives on for me in the Christmas books I have received. Now I wonder will I read them during the 12 days of Christmas?

Con's Book Meme

I started the year aiming to read a book every week on average and to blog about them here. Well, it looks like I got up to the Mons book in February and came to a halt! I didn't come to a halt reading books though and I have been documenting them in Goodreads. What happened was I got frantic in the lead up to going on long service leave (as well as my home PC being in death throes) and then I went off overseas for a couple of months.

When I came back I discovered that everyone (well everyone who matters!) had undertaken to blog every day of June! I was back too late to start this exercise but thought an easy way to get back into this book blogging thing would be to do a reading meme that Con (@flexnib) introduced to the June blogging crowd.

Do you snack while reading? Not usually

What is your favourite drink while reading? Coffee (strong black), tea or herbal tea. I often read in bed in the evening with chamomile or in the morning with coffee. People who follow me on Twitter (@polyxena) will be more than aware of this.

Do you tend to mark your books while you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you? I never write in books. I stick bits of paper in or post-its or make a note if anything strikes me. Evernote is good for that.

How do you keep your place? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book open flat? I bookmark. I have heaps of bookmarks but they never seem to be with me when I want them - so scraps of papers, dockets, public transport tickets. I don't turn over pages: this aversion may go back to the very strict rules instilled in me by the local public library when I was a child.

Fiction, non-fiction or both? I read both fiction and non-fiction. I particularly like crime fiction and am a member of Sisters in Crime. In terms of non-fiction I read history, biography, archaeology and cookbooks mainly though I have been reading a bit of travel lately :).

Do you tend to read to the end of a chapter or can you stop anywhere? I prefer to stop at the end of a chapter but as I read in bed sometimes sleep overtakes me.

Are you the type of person to throw a book across the room or on the floor if the author irritates you? I don't throw books (or anything else) across the room.

If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop and look it up right away? I don't usually look a new word up as I can normally work out the meaning by context or by its roots. If I am puzzled I'll look it up later.

What are you currently reading? Nothing. I will have to make some choices about books on my to be read pile.

What is the last book you bought? The little stranger by Sarah Waters (in paper form) and Three act tragedy by Agatha Christie (in ebook).

Do you have a favourite time/place to read? In bed

Do you prefer series books or stand-alones? No preference.

Is there a specific book or author you find yourself recommending over and over? No - I recommend different books and authors to different people depending on their interests and reading tastes.

How do you organize your books (by genre, title, author’s last name, etc.)? My fiction is in one bookshelf with authors loosely together (I don't always reshelve very well). Non-fiction is organized in broad DDC i.e. all the 700s in one bay etc In some areas e.g. history they are in chronological order, in others they are random within the hundred e.g. cookbooks.

Barbara’s additional question: background noise or silence? I usually prefer "silence" in the sense that I don't have music or the radio on (though sometimes I do). "Silence" does, however, mean lots of ambient noise like traffic or cats purring or the dishwasher going.

Book 13: The Feasts and seasons of John F. Kelly

Book number 13 of my 2010 reading has turned out to be Robert Pascoe's The Feasts and seasons of John F. Kelly (Allen & Unwin, 2006). I say has turned out to be as I have had a few books on the go, both fiction and non-fiction this happens to be the one I finished first! John F. (or the Mons as he was later known) was born in Mansfield in 1910 and thus lived through an amazing period of the Catholic Church in Australia. He was an intellectual and book-lover who often at Lent tried to give up going to bookshops (he seems mostly to have failed in this ambition); his name was also synonymous for many years with the Catechism, the Catholic Education Office, with Pre-Cana conferences and with Y.C.W. (Young Christian Workers). His lifetime covered the Second Vatican Council, the Movement, the Labour Party split, and archbishoprics of Mannix, Simmonds, Knox and Little.

Whilst ordained in 1928 and having worked as a curate in parishes, his main work was outside parishes until 1968 when he "retired" to become parish priest of Deepdene in the City of Boroondara. The Mons was at Deepdene until he really retired to a house he purchased in Inglesby Road, Camberwell. I had heard of John F Kelly all my life as my introduction to history was through the textbooks he wrote for Victorian Catholic primary schools and a large proportion of his library now adorns the Armadale presbytery where my friend Brendan Hayes presides.

I enjoyed reading this book, though at times I was a bit irritated by inaccuracies such as where Pascoe goes on about the Palace Hotel in Camberwell and the affects of Camberwell declaring itself a dry zone. No, Mr Pascoe, the Palace Hotel was only affected by the dry zone by getting an increase in business as the Palace in on the Hawthorn side of Bourke Road!

Book 12: Split

My latest book was the final Tara Moss that I had not previously read. It is the second in the Makedde Vanderwall series and filled in a few gaps for me that were referred to in later books. This books takes Mak back to Vancouver where she is still doing a bit of modelling and photo shots but essentially using the work to pay for her Ph.D. studies in forensic psychology. Needless to say she comes in contact with a psychopath again - though it is not what you first think!

It took me a while to get into this title and think that maybe it is not her best and a bit pedestrian in places. However, once I got into it the tension built and I found the need not to put it down until I finished! So I look forward to her next one which she says is finished!

Song for Library Lovers Day

Today is Library Lovers' Day so great day to watch and listen to LibrarianIdol's song!

Book 11: Strangers in company

The latest book I completed is also an old favourite cosy thriller, Strangers in company by Jane Aiken Hodge which appeared as the paperback above and also in a Hodder hardback. Jane Aiken Hodge, sister of children's author Joan Aiken, was a prolific writer of historical and contemporary thrillers who died in 2009. You can read about her in the Wikipedia article or on Goodreads. I also regularly reread her Private life of Georgette Heyer which is a great book about one of my all time favourite authors. Hmm maybe that's another I could read soon?

Strangers in company wasn't written as an historical novel though some might find it so now. It is set in the Greece of the Hounta, the Colonels' Greece, and written in 1973 contemporaneously. I lived in Greece soon after the fall of the Hounta and find it nostalgic rather than historical though many of my young friends and staff would not have been born then. I love reading fiction set in Greece and enjoy the places in which this book is set.

The story is that of Marian who embarks on a bus tour of classical Greece as the paid companion of a young woman, Stella. Marian had been feeling paranoid in London as though someone was watching her and was she ever right! I love the familiarity of Athens, Delphi, Sparta, Mycenae, Tiryns, Nafplion and other places I travelled around close to the time the book is set. I hadn't read Strangers in company for a long time but I still found it both gripping to read and comfortable to put down and take up again. I've been very tired and busy recently so it was great. Jane Aiken Hodge is a good writer who creates a great sense of place and suspense. The leadup to and scene in Mystra is a good example of this. A nice little touch is one of the characters reading My brother Michael by Mary Stewart, another novel set in Greece which I always enjoy immensely.

Book 10: Forbidden fruit

If you like cooking, cats and crime (three special things for me!), Kerry Greenwood's Corinna Chapman series is for you! Forbidden fruit (Allen & Unwin, 2009) is the fifth book in the series about Corinna, the baker and reluctant investigator, and the amazing group of people who live in her Insula in the Melbourne CBD. The book is redolent of smells of baking and other types of food and cooking and drinking and eating and I just love the cat characters, Horatio, The Mouse Police, Belladonna and the other minor cat players. The author obviously knows cats and I enjoyed finishing the last couple of chapters in bed this morning with Hecuba and Xena who had retired for post-breakfast naps. Serena the flower-selling donkey also plays quite a part in this story set in the lead-up to Christmas, as do other traditional (and nontraditional) crib animals.

The storyline may be a bit slight and I did work out part of the plot in advance, but it is a good cosy crime read set in a city I know and in places I enjoy recognizing such as the Abbotsford convent, the Collingwood Children's Farm and the old CUB site. As always with Greenwood novels, the sense of place this book conveys is an important part of my enjoyment. The scene is a sizzling Melbourne in the lead-up to Christmas: Corinna hates Christmas and the hype but carols, Christmas cooking, freegans, vegans, a crazy religious cult, gypsies and two young runaways all have a role to play as the plot unfolds and all ends happily on Christmas Day. Dion Monk is only a minor character in this book but I always savour his character and particularly the wordplay which creates his name. Vale ADP! The wordplay is such a fitting trigger to memories of one whose way with words was legendary.

And, of course, there are recipes included so you can try your skills. I always like the good press Kerry gives to public libraries and Forbidden fruit is no different. In the recipe section (p. 299) she advises: "Borrow an armload of vegie cookbooks from the library and see which one makes you hungry as you read." What great advice!

I've been slack about this series. I really enjoyed the first, Earthly delights, and loved Dion Monk there but I hadn't read any others until now when Forbidden fruit leapt out asking me to buy it while I was browsing on the Benn's Books stand at Sisters in Crime on Friday. I had better get on to the other ones and find out what some of the allusions in this one refer to. Don't be put off by that! This book forms part of a series but is perfectly able to be read as a stand alone story. Meanwhile, I have another three books to put on my "to-read" list: Heavenly pleasures, Devil's food, and Trick or treat!

Kiss of Death book trailer

Now I haven't quite read this one yet but it is on my "To read" list, particularly after seeing PD Martin at the Sisters in Crime event last night!

Book 9: The Seventh sinner

Yeah right, I am reading. I simply cannot imagine trying to live up to @ladymidnight's aim this year of 365 books! Gulp! I am up to nine and she must be well into 30s. And yes it's still a bit of the old favourites. I can't remember when I first read this Elizabeth Peters which is the first in her series about Jacqueline the librarian. I love this book - as an archaeology loving librarian - and as a mystery reader. I've been to San Clemente - not long after this book was published in 1974 - and I was living at the British School at Athens when it came out so a lot of the stuff is very familiar. I'm not going to do a spoiler and tell the story. Just note that, if you like archaeology, Rome, librarians and crime, it's a great read. There are a number of other Elizabeth Peters books which feature Jacqueline - in various guises.

When I was reading The Seventh sinner I was struck by the following statement by Jacqueline explaining why she read so many mysteries: "Detective stories are among the few types of literature you can pick up and put down a dozen times per day" (The Seventh sinner p97 ). Jacqueline was explaining how she had read them when she was working in a quiet small town US public library. I have never worked in a quiet public library nor have I ever had time to read mysteries on the job, but I do know that when I am stuffed picking up an old favourite mystery is very relaxing and I can pick it up and put it down quite a few times!

Book 8: The Body in the library

The latest book I have read for 2010 is another Agatha Christie but one I hadn't read for a long time. It was one of a batch of old paperpacks I was recently given: an old Pan edition printed in 1959 0f the originally published in 1942 The body in the library. You can read all about it here on Wikipedia. It's a Miss Marple and she comes up with the goods, of course. Her friends Colonel and Dolly Bantry wake one morning to the news that there's a body on the hearth rug in the library and Miss Marple is involved soon. It's a nice read, a comfortable Christie. The cover illustrated here is from the first 1942 U.S. edition where it was first published.

Book 7: Hit

Hit, the fourth in Tara Moss' Makedde Vanderwell series sees Mak back in Sydney again with her Ph.D. and living with her cop boyfriend, Andy. Mak has given up modelling and is trying to set up her forensic psychology practice but she needs cash to do that. So she starts working for a Sydney woman P.I. The case which, of course, intersects with police interests starts when Makedde is given a case to investigate the murder of a young PA Meaghan and takes her around Sydney but also gives some great vignettes of Melbourne including Leo's Spaghetti Bar in St Kilda where a scene is set. Melbourne Sisters in Crime will recognize it as the scene of many SinC events over the years, especially as special reference is made to the back room ;>) I found this another page turner and highly recommend it.

Book 6: Twitterature

As a Twitter addict (you can follow me here!) I was delighted to receive Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin's Twitterature: the world's greatest books retold through Twitter (Penguin) as a Christmas present. Starting with Paradise Lost and ending with Canterbury Tales the authors provide a pithy rewriting of seventy-five of the greatest works of Western literature.

A slight nag to me was that they weren't in chronological order. I wanted to start with the ancients and move through and I did just that picking about for Vergil and Homer and Euripides before I moved onto more recent works. I was originally having to ask my niece to translate some of the online acronyms until I was told there was a very useful glossary!

It did raise the issue for me (and cookbooks do it too) of when is a book read or not read. I read bits and pieces of this book over a few weeks and am sure that I haven't read it all. But it simply isn't the sort of book you pick up and read from start to finish. Can I count Twitterature as a book I have read if I potter my way in and out of it and graze on bits that interest me at the time?

Book 5: Covet

Covet is the third book in Tara Moss' Makedde Vanderwall series. I haven't read the second, Split, yet but it's on my to read list. It is probably better to read these in chronological order but I started with the fifth one and survived! I got hooked in fact. Of course, it provides me with the opportunity to get back and read them all again in sequence.

You will remember from the previous post that a sadistic Stiletto murder has been loose in Sydney. This book has as its scenario the return of Mak to Sydney for the trial of the killer. All should be going fine (apart from the lovelife). But the murderer makes a daring escape from the high security prison where he is held! Makedde is still his Fetish so she's on the run.

Book 4: Fetish

Well, I am certainly having a go at my blogging mojo after months of not doing much! I am also trying to finish writing about the books I read in January before the end of January. As well as the Agatha Christies, I stayed in that genre (or a slightly related one) and read a number of Tara Moss books.

Tara Moss is a Canadian now living in Australia and today celebrating eight years of Australian citizenship she says on Facebook. Congratulations, Tara! We love to call you our own :>). I hadn't read any of Tara Moss' books until late 2009 when I heard her speak at a Sisters in Crime event and bought a book that night. That one was Siren and you can see it pictured with Polyxena in the side panel. I had, of course, heard of Tara Moss as she had won the Sisters in Crime Scarlet Stiletto award in 1998.

Anyway, once started I couldn't put the book down and I was hooked! Fetish is Tara's first novel and introduces her street-smart glamorous detective Mak, the daughter of a cop, who is working as a model while she studies forensic psychology. The book starts when she travels to Sydney for a job and finds the friend she is meant to be staying with has been murdered. This crime is part of the "Stiletto Murders". I am sure that some of them were scarlet.

I won't say more as I don't want to do a spoiler! You will all just have to get her books and read them!

Book 3: Do not read any more Pt 2

Pat Moon's Do Not Read Any Further: Pt. 2: Finch's Top Secrets on Boys, Rabbits, Warrior Princesses, School, Guinea Pigs, Friends, Enemies, Worry Bugs, ... Wrinklies, Etc. (Finch's Secret Diaries) (Orchard 2003) was one of the other books I read in January. It was one of the books my niece Alex got for Christmas and I really enjoyed reading it this diary of a teenage girl. It's great writing which depicts the life of a girl and all the things happening around her. I must try to read Part 1 now and Part 3 and some of her other books. The illustrations are by Sarah Naylor.

Book 2: The man in the brown suit

And yes, Book 2 is another Christie! Whilst the first was a Miss Marple this is one of Christie's books that doesn't have Poirot or Miss Marple as the detective but is rather a stand-alone book with a redoubtable young female Anne Beddingfeld who heads off into the unknown as Agatha herself did. No doubt this draws on her own travels to South Africa but there is also some lovely archaeological images early on. I refer to the description of Anne's father and their household.

Again this was one that I hadn't read for years and it was fun to enjoy again! Thanks, Karen!

Book 1: A murder is announced

After all this phaffing around playing with BookJetty and then with Goodreads which has some things going for it over BookJetty but still has the same lack of Australian content, I think it is probably about time that I wrote about reading a book! I am not really sure of the order in which I read the first few books and may well have been reading them simultaneously while watching television with my mother over my January mother-sitting.

Anyway the first book that I am going to mention is one by that old favourite of mine, Agatha Christie. It's A murder is announced and the copy I read wasn't the one pictured above but an old Pan paperback that I recently got given when a friend was clearing out a house after a relative's death. Like all Agatha Christie A murder is announced has been published and printed and reprinted in many, many formats and languages.

I was glad to have it as I don't think I own it (?) and it was nice to read at a stressful time. Despite not having read it for years I remembered the solution in the first chapter and enjoyed myself immensely picking out the clues that Agatha had placed in the text throughout. It is probably quite appropriate that an Agatha Christie is my first book for 2010. I have been reading and rereading her since I was a teenager and cannot even start to count the number of hours of pleasure I have gained from her books (and the films of the books).

2010 Books

It has taken me a while to get back to this challenge I have set myself for 2010. A number of family issues have kept me away from blogging, though not necessarily reading :>) I have also been pondering what is the best way to keep a record of these books before I actually record them here. I have played with Evernote as I mentioned in the last blog post. I have explored GoodReads which my sister uses. I have vaguely thought about a couple of the Facebook applications that relate to reading books and remembered why I stopped using them before.

I also revisited LibraryThing and BookJetty which I have experimented previously. I am sure that GoodReads is as @LadyMidnight suggests very flexible and appropriate but I guess I just didn't want to signup for yet another book application. There are also others which I have experimented with in the past and I won't even go into them! At the moment I have made a choice to document my 2010 reading in BookJetty and then blog about them here. I have already struck an issue here and been in communication with BookJetty about it: Australian publications don't appear in any of the databases and although there are links to lots of Australian libraries at present titles can only be added from Singapore Library Board catalogue.
ah well, I'll see how I go.

A new challenge for 2010!

One of the challenges I have found over the last decade is keeping up with current reading - of books. Whereas once I really prided myself on my book knowledge now it is really not very good. Once when an event like the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards came up, I would have read all the short-listed books and had very clear views about them. Nowadays, whilst I retain my interest in books, writing, publishing and book-selling sufficiently to get me along to the PremLit Awards, I'm really pushing my luck to have read one of the short-listed titles.

There are a range of reasons that this has happened to me and exploring that could take a whole book in itself. One of the reasons is the way I source most of my information online and constantly read bites of information. I love things like Twitter and Facebook and the way one can keep so up to date. But I do still read books. I always have a couple of books on the go, but often they are comfortable old favorites. Maybe I read more than I think I do and there is just so much one can read.

So with 2010 starting I have decided to document my reading of books. I am setting myself the target for 2010 to read 52 books. I don't care if they are fiction, non-fiction, dearly loved old favorites or cutting edge just-off-the-press items. Reading books has always been pivotal to my life and I am really curious to know how many I read. Will it be easy to get to 52 or will it be a struggle? How many books do I actually read in a year? How will I change my habits to try to keep more up to date with what is being published?

It is now 7 January and I have read a few books already as I've been on leave. I'll write about them shortly now that I have got around to setting up this blog. In the meanwhile, I've been experimenting with Evernote and noting down the titles there so I won't forget them! Always a geek librarian but proud of it!!