Mutterings 414

1. Carwash :: wet
2. Intuition :: familiar
3. Desperate :: situations
4. Tears :: hot
5. Purple :: Marg
6. Storage :: over flowing
7. Duct :: needs cleaning
8. System :: reboot
9. Cabinet :: of curiosities
10. Manager :: I'm not

Maybe I'll read 100 this year....

If you're a book worm like me, and you'd rather be reading than almost anything else, and you have a H-U-G-E pile of books on the desk that you are determined to read this year........... then this might be just the spur you need.  Last year I managed a little over 50 books and am determined to do better this year (who needs a dusted mantlepiece anyway??).

Visit the host here and register to read as many books as you can do the next twelve months.... all the pressure comes from within!!

Here's the start I've made:

1  Friends in high places by Donna Leon

2  Gould's book of fish by Richard Flanagan

3  The piano teacher by Janice YK Lee

4  Gift of the gob by Kate Burridge

5  The Castlemaine murders by Kerry Greenwood

6  Blood from a stone by Donna Leon

7  The pyramid by Henning Mankell

8  The painter of battles by Arturo Perez-Reverte

9  A question of belief by Donna Leon

10  Water for elephants by Sara Gruen
11  Loveliest dead by Ray Garton
12 1/1: Jihad - Britain by Jack Everett & David Coles
13 Incidental music by Francoise Sagan
14 The Fry chronicles by Stephen Fry
15 Fatal remedies by Donna Leon
16 The gang of four by Liz Byrski
17 A tiny bit marvellous by Dawn French
18 The cat who played Brahms by Lilian Jackson Braun
19 The Fig Tree by Arnold Zable 
20 Sustenance by Simone Lazaroo 
21 The unknown terrorist by Richard Flanagan
22 The Seamstress by Geraldine Wooller
23 A death in Calabria by Michele Giuttani
24 Sustenance by Simone Lazaroo

25 A mind to murder by PD James

26 The elephant to Hollywood by Michael Caine
27 Cat o'nine tails by Jeffrey Archer
28 The glass room by Simon Mawer
29 The clan of the cave bear by Jean Auel
30  Little coffee shop of Kabul by Deborah Rodriguez
31  The Paris wife by Paula McLain
32  Don Camillo and the devil by Giovanni Guareschi
33  The troubled man by Henning Mankell
34 Sidetracked by Henning Mankell
35  Love in the time of cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
36  My sister's keeper by Jodi Picoult
37  The secret orchard of Roger Ackerley by Diana Petre
38  Full Circle by Helen Townsend
39  The dressmaker by Rosalie Ham
40  Caleb's crossing by Geraldine Brooks
41  In other rooms, other wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin
42 The girl who would speak for the dead by Paul Elwork
43 Chronicler of the winds by Henning Mankell

The Mind's Eye

Thoughts on the latest book by Oliver Sacks

I have felt an affinity with Oliver Sacks ever since seeing the movie Awakenings (several times) and becoming absorbed in the young doctor's attempts to bring life back to the patients in limbo.  The unfortunate side of seeing the movie is that I "see" Robin Williams whenever I read "Oliver Sacks".  Perhaps not so bad, because it was Robin Williams in a less than usually manic role.  I have taken Sacks' refusal to put limits on expectations into my work life - trying to see beyond the obvious in the children I teach, seeing more than meets the eye when what DOES meet the eye can be confronting, the disabilities seeming to outweigh the abilities.

Oliver Sacks is fascinated by the human brain and its curiosities: its ability to survive trauma, overcome obstacles, re-invent itself, provide the answer to one mystery while simultaneously creating another....  This latest book is no different and includes case histories and personal observations and includes torment and panic as the author's own eyesight is increasingly compromised by an ocular melanoma and he is drawn into what the mind does really see.  I appreciate his ability to write mostly in terms the non-medical readers can follow without too much recourse to the dictionary, only getting a little lost when Sacks compares recent research with various theories surrounding everything from how plastic the brain remains, to the accuracy of visual perception in someone without sight.  I will read some of those chapters again.

As always, I need to return to his previous books and follow the cross-referencing myself, doubtless getting lost in each book once again but rekindling my own wonder at the agility of the litttle grey cells. 

some free associations...... (week 413)

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Detective :: Montalbano
2. Bra :: wire
3. Prove it :: why?
4. The end :: is nigh
5. Messy :: washing
6. Immovable :: object
7. Jingle :: bells
8. False :: teeth
9. Comprehend :: read
10. Scream :: psycho

Didn't make even CLOSE!!

...so I'll have to try again in 2011

Spin the bottle by Monica McInerney

Absent in the spring by Mary Westmacott (aka Agatha Christie)

Giants bread by Mary Westmacott

The rose and the yew tree by Mary Westmacott

The bone woman by Clea Koff

The end of the alphabet by CS Richardson

Paper Moon by Andrea Camileri

Rounding the mark by Andrea Camileri

The cat who wasn't there by Lilian Jackson Braun

Marley & me by John Grogan

The chocolate lovers club by Carole Matthews

The snack thief by Andrea Camileri

What Alice forgot by Liane Moriaty

How to Hepburn by Karen Karbo

Dear Fatty by Dawn French

The housekeeper and the professor by Yoko Ogawa

Deep sleep by Frances Fyfield

Garden spells by Sarah Addison Allen

The harper's quine by Pat McIntosh

Shadow play by Frances Fyfield

The diving bell and the butterfly by Jean Dominique Bauby

A clear conscience by Frances Fyfield

The patience of the spider by Andrea Camileri

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

Willful behaviour by Donne Leon

The nightwatch by Sarah Waters 

The lizard's bite by David Hewson

The girl who kicked a hornets nest by Steig Larsson

A child's book of true crime by Chloe Hooper 

The second-last woman in England by Maggie Joel 

The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

The Sunday philosophy club by Alexander McCall Smith 

The Believers by Zoe Heller 

The Scarpetta Factor by Patricia Cornwell 

The Book of Lost Threads by Tess Evans

Cents and Sensibility by Maggie Alderson

The Mystic Masseur by VS Naipaul

Morgan's passing by Anne Tyler

Let me sing you gentle songs by Linda Olsson

The smell of an oily rag by Ouang Yu

The piano teacher by Janice Y K Lee

Mr Rosenblum's list by Natasha Solomons

Singing in the shrouds by Ngaio Marsh

Time for books......

The very best way to begin my Christmas holidays was to spend a day in Carlton with my friend Lorraine who likes coffee and books too (who cares in which order??).  The worst part of the day was the grotty carpark, but apart from that it was another sublime day spent browsing in book stores and refuelling here and there.

We began at Readings which is just about my very favourite bookstore because there's every latest release, but also some titles I never see anywhere else.  I love to browse, no-one bothers you but advice is freely given if you ask.  There's music, movies, quirky ephemera around the registers, and shelves and shelves and tables and tables of lovely books.  Then across the road to Borders and lunch at the coffee shop outside the Nova ticket box.

And if I see that lady with the fabulous red shoes again, I'm going to have to ask her where she shops (and hope its somewhere vaguely local).

Holidays at last

Its the first morning of my Christmas holidays and the grumbles of life at work are already fading.......today perhaps being washed away by the steady rain.  Remind me again...this IS Melbourne, and it IS summer...isn't it?  Someone last week pointed out that, based on some research into meteorological records of Wangaratta (or was it Warrnambool?), we should expect alternating decades of drought and rain, so I'm giving up complaining right now.  All I need to do is keep an umbrella by each door, a shower proof coat in the car, and my sense of humour intact.  It was Billy Connelly who said that there is no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes, and I'm living by that if I can.  Pragmatics over pique.

There is still a week 'til Christmas, and while most of my shopping is done, there are presents to wrap and cooking to start.  I'm looking forward to the freedom of baking at any time of the day, dusting the benches with flour and probably crunching almonds or something equally slippery under my feet.  The old cat will be sitting patiently on the chair with the best view of the kitchen, waiting to see if I leave the room and forget something tasty is still sitting on the bench; the younger cat will be patrolling the doorway and occasionally complaining that I dont sit down often enough.  In other parts of the house a pile of books grows every week (after my conversations with Martin at South Melbourne market's book shop) and the work bench in my busy room is stacked with presents to finish.  

Best go and make a start..........