What made Tidalik laugh?
I remember that! woo hoooo
Childhood books are always that little bit magical.
Convinced that Charlie was missing out on something, I have just purchased a copy of 'Where is the Green Sheep?' I can say he is definately missing out, because I'm keeping it. It is so cute. And the widdle green sheepy all curled up asleep. I'm not sure whether bath sheep or near sheep is my favourite.
Oh all right, I'll share. But I'm not going to tell him where the green sheep is. He'll have to behave himself and stay in bed tonight to find out.
Total number of books.
# Couple of hundred.
Last book that was bought for me.
# Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood.
Last book that was read to me.
# Probably a rule book for a game.
5 books that mean a lot to me.
#
1) Easy. "Only Forward" by Michael Marshall Smith. If I could write only one book in my life, it would be this one. Inspiring.
2) "...Fallafel..." and "The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco" by John Birmingham. You can't have one with out the other. Simply gorgeous stuff. If MMS isn't God, then JB certainly is. One of the Tasmanian Babes is described as having 'lips that were all red wine and lurid bliss'. Love his style.
3) Spike Milligan's War Memoirs. Sure, there are seven of them, but I put two books as number two. I haven't found better bathos and pathos. Despite the embellishments and farce they are the most honest books I have read. Everytime I read them (probably eight or so) I get something more. Perhaps the best bit is how Spike's Narrative voice changes as the 20+ years over which he wrote the books changes him, as friends die, as he mellows, as his nostalgia grows. These books are a mine of sentiment and feeling, by the end he is shouting out to the world "These are my friends! Don't forget my friends. Don't let them be forgot." I genuinely love these books. Trying to get back to 1939 and knowing that it has gone forever... True comedy takes you to the peaks, so it can take you to the deepest trenches. That is it's job. That is it's purpose and it's neccesity. To not understand and embrace this is to not understand or embrace anything.
Bertrand Russell wrote of Huxley's 'Brave new world': "He has undertaken to make us sad by contemplating a world without sadness."
Spike does this, I'd like to think, without knowing it. Little stuff that he writes such us (and I'm parphrasing here) 'In those days vehicles moved at a speed that allowed you to say "Look at that" rather than "Did you see that?"'
Such simply, little things. They're all gems. Screw the Bible. You want to pull something apart strand by strand, or grind it down to it's component essences to find that which makes us human, then study Spike. The sense of a time. The love. The challenge to be real. The juxtaposition of the serious and light - surely that is what life is. I don't think it's ever been written better.
Spike's caption explaining that the picture of a flower in a pot is the first colour photo he took, but is in black and white because the publisher is cheap. There's your lesson.
4) Appropriately enough it was a kid's book. It was the first book I remember reading - I was seven. It was about two old African elephants who were best friends. They were walking across Africa to the elephant's graveyard. One waited til the very end, then left his friend there and walked home. It is the saddest and most profoundly beautiful thing I've ever read.
5) "Are you Dave Gorman?" Funniest book in the world. Brilliant, genius, geniusly brilliantiferous. Made all the better by Andy Wallace's follow up 'Join me' which has the most perfect, most beautifully constructed literary bittersweet punchline ever. You couldn't conceive of anything better, and made all the more great by it being true.
Hmmm. I am a great big souky la la.
Fuck you all.
Total number of books I’ve owned:
at least 350. I'm not counting them all, I've drunk too much red wine. Many of them are books from childhood, there's just something about those old Enid Blytons!
The last book I bought:
A couple of 'The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency' books. Very cute and good travel reading.
The last book I read:
I'm currently plowing through 'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell' by Susanna Clarke. Rcommended by the god that is Neil Gaiman, I'm finding it good, but not sucking me in. But it's HUGE, so my arm muscles are coming along nicely.
Five books that mean a lot to me:
1. 'Jackaroo' and 'On Fortune's Wheel' by Cynthia Voigt
2. 'An Equal Music' by Vikram Seth
3. 'The Dark Is Rising' Series, especially the book of the same name. by Susan Cooper
4. 'Jane Eyre' and I cn't seem to find my copy *pout*
5. The 'Alex' Series, especially 'Songs For Alex' by Tessa Duder
Oh Harry, I really do like your taste in books too {gush}. Oryx and Crake was great. And I have 'Felafel' in the Graphic Novel version, signed by the author. I'll bring it next time we share a shandy. John Birmingham currently lives in Canberra, according to my local alternate bookshop clerk.
And Mindy, hang in there with Jonathon Strange. It took me a while to warm as well, and I kept getting that feeling at times, but after I finished I realised that I had really enjoyed being immersed in her vision, and put the book aside to be re-read sometime when I get a long beach holiday! (wishful thinking).
"And I have 'Felafel' in the Graphic Novel version, signed by the author."
# Woah. You are a total babe...
"I'll bring it next time we share a shandy."
#...who drinks totally girly drinks.
"John Birmingham currently lives in Canberra"
# I saw him in the flesh a couple of years back walking out of Gleebooks after he'd given a talk about Aussie-Indonesia relations. I may have genuflected. Or got a stiffy.
I can't quite remember.
I remember seeing him on "the Glass House".
The other five people were all nattering away, and he was sitting back observing and thinking. Then he'd sit forward in his chair, and everyone would stop talking and look at him. He'd say his peice, everyone would go "ooh!" or laugh as appropriate, then he would sit back and they'd all start riffing again.
They knew they were in the presence of a deity.
It was totally cool. Who wouldn't want to be so respected?
ergh. I'm going to have to think about all that, I hate being put on the spot.
it's like being asked 'what's your favourite colour?' well, what sort of a mood am I in, and am I allowed to pick a tone or shade as opposed to a primary or secondary colour?
so complicated.
The meme is what you make it, wpaasb. I'm fond of wholesale changing questions I don't like and inserting ones I want y'all to know my answer to.
My meme
How are we coming on a new triv spot then?
Amanda, I was just thinking that very question.
manda:
well, as it happens, I says to meg this arvo I says, wot about trying the triv thing at broadway? and she says, wot about the one in Ashfield?
so, wot about them, then, eh?
Broadway rocks my world, being about 15 suburbs closer to where I live. But Ashfield is cool too. Perhaps we should sample both and see which we have a better chance of triumping mightily at and which host we hate least.
"Broadway rocks my world"
I just hope that, as is usual, you're typing that with the required amount of sarcasm...
sounds good to me. it's always important to find the host we hate the least!
the triumphing mightily goes without saying.
World peace etc etc,
Allow me to quote Ingrid Bergman, one of my personal heroes.
- You do the thinking for both of us.
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