Montana Poetry Day - July 24...It's here!

It's Montana New Zealand Poetry Day!!!

As promised, I thought I would share with you one of my favourite poems from a NZ author. This poem by Dennis Glover was first read to me (and probably thousands of other kiwi kids) at primary school and I immediately loved the onomatopoeia - being a farm girl I completely identified with it. I learnt it by heart and can still remember it almost word perfect.

The Magpies

When Tom and Elizabeth took the farm
The bracken made their bed
and Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies said

Tom's hand was strong to the plough
and Elizabeth's lips were red
and Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies said

Year in year out they worked
while the pines grew overhead
and Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies said

But all the beautiful crops soon went
to the mortgage man instead
and Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies said

Elizabeth is dead now (it's long ago)
Old Tom's gone light in the head
and Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies said

The farms still there. Mortgage corporations
couldn't give it away
and Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle
The magpies say.

- Dennis Glover


And while I love the poem, magpies are one of those creatures that make my blood run cold with their beady little hate-filled eyes and their razor sharp talons and beak just waiting to dive bomb you as you innocently cycle home from school... *shudder*

The King of Pop a book lover?

I was over the shock of the King of Pop's death about...oh...5 seconds after I heard the news. Sorry all but wellreadkitty is not a fan (although as a random aside, I do love Neil Finn's acoustic cover version of Billy Jean). So it is with great surprise that I find myself blogging about him.

But apparently Michael Jackson was an extremely well read man and had a collection of around 10,000 books, according to two recent Los Angeles newspaper articles.

Jackson's attorney Bob Sanger is quoted as saying:

"Michael was extremely well-read…I knew Michael, but I got to know him a lot better at the trial. The judge was doing jury selection, and it was time for break. Judge Melville said, 'Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to know that jury service is very, very important.' He's trying to convince people not to have stupid excuses to get out of jury service. All judges do this. He says, 'The jury system is a very time-honoured system. It's been around for 200 years. We're going to take a break and come back in 15 minutes.'

"We stand up and the judge leaves, and Michael turns to me and says, 'Bob, the jury system is much older than 200 years, isn't it?' I said, 'Well, yeah, it goes back to the Greeks.' He says, 'Oh yeah, Socrates had a jury trial, didn't he?' I said, 'Yeah, well, you know how it turned out for him.' Michael says, 'Yeah, he had to drink the hemlock.' That's just one little tidbit. We talked about psychology, Freud and Jung, Hawthorne, sociology, black history and sociology dealing with race issues. But he was very well read in the classics of psychology and history and literature.

"He loved to read. He had over 10,000 books at his house. And I know that because - and I hate to keep referring to the case, because I don't want the case - the case should not define him. But one of the things that we learned - the DA went through his entire library and found, for instance, a German art book from 1930-something. And it turned out that the guy who was the artist behind the book had been prosecuted by the Nazis. Nobody knew that, but then the cops get up there and say, 'We found this book with pictures of nude people in it.' But it was art, with a lot of text. It was art. And they found some other things, a briefcase that didn't belong to him that had some Playboys in it or something. But they went through the guy's entire house, 10,000 books. And it caused us to do the same thing, and look at it."

"And there were places that he liked to sit, and you could see the books with his bookmarks in it, with notes and everything in it where he liked to sit and read. And I can tell you from talking to him that he had a very - especially for someone who was self-taught, as it were, and had his own reading list - he was very well-read. And I don't want to say that I'm well-read, but I've certainly read a lot, let's put it that way, and I enjoy philosophy and history and everything myself, and it was very nice to talk to him, because he was very intellectual, and he liked to talk about those things. But he didn't flaunt it, and it was very seldom that he would initiate the conversation like that, but if you got into a conversation like that with him, he was there."


His lawyer's comments certainly show another side to the man who has fascinated and flummoxed the public all his life. It's certainly not an image that readily springs to mind when you think of the King of Pop. I'm not sure it makes me like him any more but it is nice to hear a little about the real man behind the music, the plastic surgery, the child molestation allegations, the financial troubles and the strange antics that have come to characterise him in the minds of many (myself included).

Did you know?

A random book factoid:

Did you know only 24 books are produced for every tree felled?

To put that figure into context, JK Rowling’s Harry Potter books have sold over 400 million copies – meaning 16,666,666.67 trees have been felled just to cover the paper for those books alone.

I wonder how many trees have been felled to create all the squillions of pound notes she has earned from the books? :P

The most commonly used words on wellreadkitty

Thanks to Wordle.

Your Cheatin' Heart

Many lie over books 'to impress'

Could the right reading matter make all the difference?

Nearly half of all men and one-third of women have lied about what they have read to try to impress friends or potential partners, a survey suggests.

Men were most likely to do this to appear intellectual or romantic, found the poll of 1,500 people by Populus for the National Year of Reading campaign.

The men polled said they would be most impressed by women who read news websites, Shakespeare or song lyrics.

Women said men should have read Nelson Mandela's biography or Shakespeare.

Among the 1,500 who took part in the research were 864 teenagers.

About four in 10 of the 1,500 said they had lied about what they had read to impress friends or potential partners - 46% of men and 33% of women.

Among teenagers, the figure rose to 74%, with most saying they would pretend to have read social networking pages or song lyrics.

-----------------------------------------------------------

So c'mon, fess up - have you ever lied about what you have or haven't read?

Gotta say I'm kinda guilty of this - being a bookie people look at you strangly if you have never read "the classics" like Austin and Hemingway and Dickens so it's easier just to nod and give non committal grunts which can be interpretted however the other person wants.

Just a quick note to say...

...with three weeks of the year to go, I have passed the number of books I read in 2007.

Yay me!

I'm looking forward to two weeks off over the festive season to enjoy time with family and friends - and get done a whole lotta reading as well of course!!!

(Looks like studying full time had less of an impact on my reading time than I thought).

What kind of reader are you?

It's far too hot here in Tirau today to do much but laze around with the fans going and a long cool glass of lemonade in hand. Even turning pages of my latest read ("The Secret Between Us" - Barbara Delinsky) is enough to make me break out in a fresh layer of sweat.

So here's a fun little quiz for you on this scorching summer Sunday afternoon (and because it would be much too taxing for me to write a review just now).



Take the test yourself and leave a comment letting me know how you did :-)

Fessing Up

I have a confession to make.

Until this week, I have never read a Bryce Courtenay novel.

*Waits for the shudders of shock and gasps of horror to die down*

Of course I've always wanted to. I remember watching the movie of The Power of One in third form (when our social studies teacher was trying to think of things to entertain us in the slow final weeks before school broke up for the Christmas holidays) and wanting to go read the novel afterwards.

Only I never did. Even while friends have raved about him and told me I simply must read his books.

And then...

Some time ago my dearest friend Leah lent me a copy of April Fools Day and after all the cafuffel of moving house diving into a big thick book and escaping for hours at a time seemed just the tonic.

And OH! How I am loving it!

It's a very moving, terribly sad read about the South African born author watching his haemophiliac son dying of Aids in the 1980s when knowledge about the disease was in its infancy and fear and misinformation of it was rife. I was so proud to say I made it to page 427 before I succumbed to tears (there are about 250 pages to go.)

On my TBR pile I have another Bryce Courtenay book waiting to be read, Sylvia, which was a birthday gift this year from my beloved's parents. But confession number two; I'm not sure I want to read it. I'm scared that Mr Courtenay's fiction isn't going to live up to the precident April Fools Day has left. I hate it when you read something magnificant by a writer but then everything else of theirs you read fails to live up to that initial magic and thus, spoil it for you.

So because I just know you aren't all late bloomers like me and will have all read a BC novel or two in your time, tell me what you think: Is Bryce Courtenay's fiction good stuff and do I need to start working my way through all 18 novels he has written in the last 19 years?

Inspiring...

Below is a lovely story out of the states I found while surfing the net recently. It warmed my heart so much I just had to share it with you. What a lovely little old lady - bookies really are the best kinds of people - but then you knew that already didn't you? :P

-----------------------------------------------------------

Love of books keeps 102-year-old librarian working

By JAMES A. FUSSELL

The Kansas City Star

In a time when nothing seems to last anymore, the world still has Martha Smith.

In 1926 she took a job at the tiny Coal Creek Library in Vinland, Kan. Eighty-two years later, she’s still there.

Smith is 102 now. She wears a hearing aid and needs an oversized pair of magnifying goggles to read. She has to bend over so far to walk her eyes stare straight at the ground.

Others might have retired 30 years ago. Not Smith. She still shows up every Sunday to put in her hours at the 400-square-foot, one-room library 10 miles south of Lawrence.

Sure, she took a break in 1944 to raise her only son, Edwin. But she returned in 1956 and has been there ever since.

Loyalty? Permanence?

Let’s put this in perspective.

Smith was working at the Coal Creek Library — founded in 1859 and now the oldest continuous library in Kansas — when the old millennium turned to the new millennium. She was there when the Internet first came online. She was there for Watergate and Woodstock, when the Beatles played Ed Sullivan, and Sputnik streaked across the night sky. She was there when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and when FDR announced his New Deal. And when the Great Depression brought soup lines and social strife, she was there as well, helping patrons and shelving books in the very same building that still stands today on the quiet Kansas prairie.

She has been there so long the Kansas Department of Human Resources honored her with an outstanding older worker award as the oldest female worker in Kansas.

That was six years ago.

Ray Wilbur, president of the Coal Creek Library Association, said Smith is one of a kind.

“She’s loyal, she’s diligent, she’s always optimistic and cheerful,” he said. “What’s not to like?”


Smith was born in a white farmhouse on a hill southwest of Vinland. Her mother gave birth to her in the parlor in 1905 — when homes still had parlors. When Smith was born Teddy Roosevelt was president, Oklahoma wasn’t a state, the average worker made less than $500 a year, and less than 15 percent of all homes had a bathtub. But Smith is not only of another generation, those her know her say, she’s of a completely different mind-set.

Mountains? Oceans?

Smith hasn’t seen them. She’s also never flown in an airplane. The farthest she’s gotten away from Kansas is Nebraska.

It might be nice to see an ocean or fly somewhere sometime, she said. But if she never does, that’s OK, too. For more than a century, Vinland has been her home. She hasn’t needed much else. And so it was that Martha Cutter Kelley Smith never ventured far from her prairie home or the library that gave it meaning. For Smith, the grass was never greener than right under her feet.

At 4 feet 11, Smith is not large. But she’s huge in the hearts of those who love her. Jean Moore, who lives north of Vinland, has known Smith for more than 40 years. They met at the Vinland United Methodist Church, where both are members.

“She’s a good Christian woman,” Moore said. “Every Sunday, even at her age, she gives us an update on what our missionaries are doing. She tells us about one missionary every Sunday.”

Likewise, Moore tells others about Smith. One of her favorite stories is when the church got an elevator about 15 years ago. Smith refused to get in it. Even when the church hosted a 100th birthday celebration for her, Smith remained defiant.

“Her sister said, ‘Let’s go in that elevator,’ ” Moore recalled. “And Martha said, ‘You just go on and get in that elevator. I’m going up the steps!’ And she did. She’s a spunky old gal.”

So how does it feel to be 102?

“OK,” she said in an upbeat voice.

She’ll turn 103 Sept. 15.

Preserved in time

Stepping into the Coal Creek Library is like stepping back in time. From the potbellied stove in the back to the handcrafted real wood shelves, it is substantially the same today as it was 100 years ago.

There are 3,790 books there. Smith knows. She’s counted them.

Coal Creek is no longer an active public library. It functions more as a museum and is open Sunday afternoons, April to October. If you go on Sundays you can meet her. She’s the white-haired woman with the welcoming smile. She might be sitting in a chair talking with her son or straightening up.

If she’s up to it she can show you the library’s collection of historical books. They sit under a glass case on a wooden table. There’s English Traits by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1856), Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1854), An Overland Journey From New York to San Francisco in the Summer of 1859 by Horace Greeley (1860) and many more.

In many ways the library is one of the only things Smith has left besides her son. Smith’s husband, Cecil, died in the 1980s. Her three younger sisters, Anne, Katharine and Edith, all died before her, as did most all her friends.

Besides her work at the library, Smith has dedicated her life to making things better in her community. For years she walked with ski poles and picked up trash on the side of the road by where she lived. Later, after switching to a walker, she continued to patrol the roads, collecting aluminum cans.

Today she is just happy for each new day. She never expected to live this long. After all, the average life expectancy for a woman born in 1905 is 50 years.

Smith has more than doubled that.

Her secret: She eats lots of fruits and vegetables and still walks six blocks every day. Oh, yeah, she also went to the chiropractor every two weeks for the last 50 years.

And she gave up gravy.

So, any advice for anyone wanting to lead a worthwhile life?

She leaned in.

“John Wesley’s motto,” she said in a small voice, paraphrasing a quote attributed to the Methodist founder. “Do all the good that you can to all the people that you can by all the ways that you can and by all means that you can as long as ever you can.”

And, finally — what would Smith like people to remember about her?

A small smile sneaks across her face as she thinks in silence for half a minute before answering.

“That I was cheerful,” she said.

Meme

There's no better way to procrastinate from doing class work than doing a little meme, especially when it is a book related one!

1. The Book That Changed My Life;
The Willard Price Adventure books. I started reading these when I was about 9. I had always been a good reader but these books awoke a passion for reading in me, I was animal mad and these books were full of dangerous adventures and exotic creatures. I remember reading Arctic Adventure in one weekend which blew my mum and big sister away - my sister took nearly two weeks to read the same book. I began reading furiously after that with my Mum often having to physically take a book off me and scoot me outside, otherwise I would spend all day in my room with my nose in a book (ironically, my Nana used to do the same thing to her at the same age).

2. A Book I've Read More Than Once; See Ya Simon by David Hill. It’s aimed at young teens and is the story of Simon, a 14 year old boy with a kick arse attitude who is dying from muscular dystrophy and told through the eyes of Simon’s best friend Nathan. I was first introduced to it all those years ago at primary school and have read it once every year since. I am even on my second copy of it as I lent it to a friend who loved it so much I never saw it again. I can devour it easily in one sitting, and usually do so in a hot bath with a glass of wine because even though I know exactly what is going to happen, I still cry a small river at the end and it’s easier to hide how much of a wimp you are when you are surrounded by water.

3. A Book I'd Want With Me on a Desert Island; Boatbuilding: A Complete Handbook of Wooden Boat Construction by Howard Irving Chapelle :P Otherwise something uplifting and fun from my TBR list

4. A Book That Made Me Laugh; How to Talk to a Widower by Jonathan Tropper (read my review here)

5. A Book That Made Me Cry; Dancing With Rose by Lauren Kessler. Such an amazingly open account of the author trying to cope with her mother's dementia and becoming a staff member at a care facility to find out how everyone, from the caregivers, family members to the patients (or 'clients' as they are referred to by industry) themselves deal with this most cruel of illnesses. It struck so close to home for me as I watch my darling Nana lose herself to this disease. Bawled like a baby.

6. A Book I Wish I Had Written; The Harry Potter books - wouldn't it be amazing to be able to say you had turned that many kiddiwids onto reading?!? And of course the gajillions of dollars earnt from the books/merchandise/movies etc wouldn't be too shabby either!

7. A Book I Wish Had Never Been Written; Damaged by Cathy Glass. I wish this book had never been written because I wish the things that happened in it had never happened. It's the true story of a foster mum taking in one of a severely sexually abused child. The book gripped me, I couldn't put it down because I wanted that fairytale happy ending to come 'Jodi's' way after all the pain and horror she suffered at the hands of the people who were supposed to love her most. But it never came.

8. A Book I Am Currently Reading; Nearing the end of Wild Lavender by Belinda Alexandra

9. A Book I Am Meaning To Read; Everything on my TBR list!

10. My favourite book of all time; You want me to pick just one??? EEP! After careful consideration...I just can't do it, so here is a top 6 in no particular order

The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
We Need To Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
Dreamhunter - Elizabeth Knox
To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Water For Elephants - Sara Gruen
Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding

Done and dusted...again!

Eagle eyed readers of my blog (I know you are out there...somewhere!) will have spotted a small milestone click over here at wellreadkitty during the last week; I have cracked the 52 books in 52 weeks goal I set myself at the beginning of the year!

And with 14 weeks to spare - 5 weeks earlier than last year no less.

I am pretty proud of that, especially given that I have returned to tertiary study this year and thought all reading for pleasure would be out.

That said, my reading has taken something of a hiatus in the last week. I went home to the Manawatu for a holiday at my parents and while I took 5 books with me with the intention of blobbing out all week and reading, I managed to wade through a measly one and a half. I was having far too much fun hanging out (read: being spoilt rotten) with my mum, my family and my friends to spend much time with my nose in a book.

Having made it home last night, I am now suffering a horrendous dose of bus-lag (tired, headachey, sore eyes, squiffy tum, and an overriding sense of blahness) so my planned day of reading, relaxing and resting before kicking off on three weeks of journalism internship tomorrow hasn't materialised either.

Meanwhile, the To Be Read pile continued to grow while I was away, much to my boyfriend's disgust. Two parcels of review books arriving from the lovely folk at Allen and Unwin and even though I had placed the requests for the books, it is always a thrill to open the package and admire the lovely books inside and knowing I have many hours of enjoyment (hopefully) ahead.

Book fair!

Today we took a wander down to the New Zealand Red Cross 12th Annual Book Fair at the Te Rapa Race Course.

It's billed as "a fantastic opportunity to buy cheap books that are soreted for category and quality. Our famous $1 room also contains magazines, records, cds, videos, dvds and puzzles."

I love this event for two reasons.

1) Obviously the book bargains to be had! I didn't have long to wander and browse because my beloved was getting antsy (he doesn't "do" books, apparently they have too many words in them) but I did score two excellent condition books that I have wanted for some time; "I know This Much Is True" by Wally Lamb and "The Devil Wears Prada" by Lauren Weisberger - both just $3 each. I could have spent an absolute fortune but since the boy was with me I had to limit myself. Sigh. They are bringing out new boxes of books each day so I might just have to go back alone and peruse at my leisure...especially on Sunday when they start making drastic pricing reductions to clear the stock!!!

and

2) The Red Cross is one of my favourite charities; the world's largest humanitarian organisation, they are independent of government, and without any political, religious or cultural affiliation. It doesn't matter who you are, what your ethnicity is or which side of a conflict you might be on, Red Cross will help.

But it's not just the "big international stuff" that they do.

For over 75 years, New Zealand Red Cross has been part of our community. New Zealand Red Cross helps over 24,000 people each week. Along with a dedicated team of volunteers, they deliver nearly one million meals on wheels a year, train 70,000 people in first aid and give over 270 primary schools the chance to offer breakfast to thousands of hungry kids. They offer free first aid "People Saver" courses to schools for kids aged 10-12 years, provide hospital transfer services, hospital meet and greet, affordable clothing and household items through the Red Cross Shops and garage sales, Emergency Response Units trained to help in times of disasters, and so much more.

I will always be immensely proud of the 18 months I worked there and how in my own paper shuffling little way, I helped make the world a better place.

And every year when the Palmerston North book fair comes round (which I believe is the biggest Red Cross book fair in the country?) I kick myself that I no longer work or volunteer for the Palmy branch and therefore have lost access to first dibs on the books!

Duffy Books in Homes

On Friday morning I had the opportunity to see one of my favourite charitable organisations in action: Duffy Books in Homes

Friday, August 15th, saw 500 Duffy schools around the country inviting senior high school students to speak to their children about their love of reading, favourite books and where reading will take them once they have finished school.

I was lucky enough to visit Mangakino Area School to sit in on their Duffy Books in Homes School Leader assembly. There Head Boy Ethan Tupaea and Year 10 student Charles Conrad-Neild addressed the junior school about their love of reading, its importance for their futures as well as encouraged their fellow schoolmates to read. They each read an extract from a book of their choice as well.

The Duffy Books in Homes programme began in 1995 and Mangakino Area School was one of the first 80 schools to sign up. The programme aims to inspire a love of books in children so they become adults who inspire a love of reading. It does this by creating and enhancing the desire for children to read through book ownership. Decile 1, 2 and 3 schools are eligible to join the scheme.

But here's the best bit:

Since its launch in 1995, the Duffy Books in Homes programme has grown to encompass 500 schools, close to 100,000 students and 190 sponsors.

In March this year, the scheme gave away its five millionth book.

It has also inspired offshoot programmes in the Pacific Islands, Australia and the United States.

How many have you done?

My wonderful friend Katie sent me this meme that of course I just had to do. It's the Top 100 list of books from The Big Read, which was a UK project in 2003 to find the nation's 100 most loved books.

The survey found that on average most people have read six or fewer books from the list. Of course, I took that information as a personal challenge. I've read way more than six, and someone should know it!

Here's the key:

Bold text = I’ve read it
♥ = I’ve read it and loved it
▓ = It’s on my TBR pile


And here's the meme:

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
♥ To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (bits of it back in my God botherer days)
▓ Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
▓ His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
▓ Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (okay not all, but some)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
▓ Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
♥ The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
▓ The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (I don’t remember reading this as a kid so have decided to do so as an adult)
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
♥ Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
♥ Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (no childhood is complete without Mr Sanders!)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
▓ One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
▓ Atonement - Ian McEwan
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
▓ A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
▓ The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
▓ Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
♥ The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
♥ Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
▓ The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
♥ Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

You will probably have noticed a complete dearth of reading of the classics. My shameful reading secret! I know that in some reading circles that is a crime that will have you excommunicated but I have just never got around to them and for some reason, am not all that compelled to either.

In honour of Paddington Bear

Little bear stays young at heart

Paddington's popularity has outlasted numerous fads and fashions.

It has been 50 years since Michael Bond wrote the first book about Paddington Bear who was found in London, having just arrived from Darkest Peru with a battered suitcase and note pinned to his coat saying "Please look after this bear. Thank you".

Since then, millions of readers have been charmed by the little bear, who always carries a marmalade sandwich under his hat in case of emergencies.

Nearly 30 years after the last book, Bond has this year written Paddington Here and Now, which was released in New Zealand last month.

The books have been translated into 30 languages, including Spanish for Peruvian readers.

However, the books are yet to be published in Paddington's homeland and need to be ordered in.

Bond came upon the bear that was to become Paddington one cold Christmas Eve while he was sheltering from the snow in Selfridges department store on Oxford Street.

"There's something about bears that are quite appealing really, they've got this kind of look in their eyes."

He bought it for his wife as a stocking filler and named it after the nearest station to their home, Paddington.

Bond said he wrote the first Paddington book because he wondered what he would have been like if he had been alive.

The Browns, who found Paddington, were based on Bond's parents.

"The note around his neck was important and I think my mother would have felt sorry for him and my father would have gone along with it."

Bond said Paddington had become an integral part of his own life, and he was very fond of him.

"I sometimes find myself doing things like trimming the hedge and I think I wonder what Paddington would do and what would go wrong?"

Through the decades Paddington has broached important subjects, such as being a refugee in England and breaking through the colour barrier.

"Soon after the first book was published I had a letter from somebody saying what he liked about the book was my attitude to the coloured question.

"I think it was probably a black person in a white environment and he saw Paddington in a similar situation and admired him because he always came out on top."

In his latest book, Paddington comes across modern technology such as cellphones, and he gets to ride the London Eye, which was opened in 1999.

"When I came to sit down to write the book I suddenly realised how much the world had changed.

"The first story in the book has to do with Paddington losing his shopping basket because it's been towed away, and that wouldn't have happened 30 years ago."

And now Paddington is part of a modern day custody arrangement.

Bond, who is divorced from his first wife, shares custody of the original Paddington bear, and is able to keep him for six months of the year.

- NZPA

Genius!

Not at all book related but I just had to put it in so you can all revel in your own brilliance at reading this blog - thanks cafe chick for the link!

Oh, for a book and a shady nook,
Either indoors or out,
With the green leaves whispering overhead,
And the wind blowing all about,

Where I may read all at my ease,
Both of the new and old;
For a jolly good book whereon to look,
Is better to me than gold.

John Wilson

Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!

A huge Congrats!!! to Scott for his win tonight at the Qantas Media Awards:

Reviewer

Winner: Scott Bartley, PC World

Finalists:
Peter Calder, Freelance
Ian Steward, The Press
Diana Wichtel, New Zealand Listener

Check out the calibre of the competition!!! An incredible win and I am so jealous! Enjoy your glory and celebrate well cos I'll let you have it this year Skuzzlebutt - you deserve it after 7 years of trying - but sometime soon that award's gonna be mine...hehehe!

I want to divorce my cat.

(It may take a while but I promise I will get to the book part!)

My beloved oldest furchild Paddy (left) has had some behavioural issues in the past - namely jealousy.

When my boyfriend (now partner) and I first started getting serious, Paddy retaliated to this usurper of his mantel as Number 1 in my life by spraying on my boyfriends side of the bed and in the places my boyfriend would sit on furniture. This disgusting behaviour lasted 6 torturous months and then magically stopped (I wonder if he actually understood my threat to sellotape his tape to his butt so he couldn't spray any more?) and all has been well for the last 2 years.

That is, until last week.

His naughty behaviour has returned with a vengeance.

The vet's diagnosis is basically extreme jealousy of everyone in my life human or furry (we have 2 other cats) taking up what he thinks of as solely his possession - aka me.

And In a move I think was clearly calculated to inflict maximum hurt to me, he sprayed on my "To Be Read" bookcase and books.

Thankfully only one book seems to have been damaged - "Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography" by Andrew Morton.

I would like to give Paddy the benefit of the doubt and think he was trying to steer me away a waste of good reading time as I have heard some pretty unpleasant things about that particular book but alas, he followed it up by biting me as I roared expletives and chased him out the door.

Anyone know how to get the smell of cat pee out of your beloved books??

My Beautiful Mommy by Michael Salzhauer, M.D

I thought the OJ Simpson hypothetical confession "If I Did It" took the title of most bizarre/bad taste/tacky publication I had heard of, but it seems I was wrong. Very wrong.

Taken from http://perezhilton.com/2008-04-16-the-next-bestseller-in-la

Are you moms out there struggling with how to tell your young kids about plastic surgery?

Well, if your surgery is happening after this Mother's Day, then Florida plastic surgeon Dr. Michael Salzhauer has just the thing for you!

On that special all-about-Mommy day, he's releasing a 'kid's book' - My Beautiful Mommy - featuring a perky Mommy explaining to her child why she's having cosmetic surgery. Mom's gonna get a tummy tuck, a nose job and breast implants!

This is not a joke. This book is really going to be out soon!

Before her surgery the mom explains to her little girl that she is getting a smaller tummy: "You see, as I got older, my body stretched and I couldn't fit into my clothes anymore. Dr. Michael (the author's homage to himself?) is going to help fix that and make me feel better."

"Mom" comes home looking like a slightly bruised Barbie doll with demure bandages on her nose and around her waist.

The text, unfortunately, doesn't mention the breast augmentation, but the illustrations intentionally show Mom's breasts to be fuller and higher.

Dr. Michael the author explains, "I tried to skirt that issue in the text itself. The tummy lends itself to an easy explanation to the children: extra skin and can't fit into your clothes. The breasts might be a stretch for a six-year-old."

The report also points out that the book doesn't explain exactly why the mother is redoing her nose either. Nonetheless, Mom reassures her little one that the new nose won't just look "different, my dear—prettier!"

Naturally, the ending is happy. Mommy is "even more" beautiful than before, and her daughter is thrilled.

I think I just sicked up a little in my mouth.