NSW Premier's Literary Awards People's Choice

As posted before, there is a People's Choice component to the various NSW Premier's Literary Awards this year for the first time.

Go to the People's Choice Award webpage and put in your vote - there are prizes to be won! But you'll have to be quick, voting closes at midnight on Monday 11th May.

(BTW: I've checked, you can only put in one vote per email address: no stacking the results!)

The winners of the NSW Premier's Literary Prizes will be announced on Tuesday 18th May.

Expresso - book machine not drink

An Expresso Book Machine was launched last week at Blackwell's book shop on Charing Cross Road in London. The 'EBM'can print and bind books on demand in five minutes, while customers wait. Signalling the end, says Blackwell, to the frustration of being told by a bookseller that a title is out of print, or not in stock, the Espresso offers access to almost half a million books, from a facsimile of Lewis Carroll's original manuscript for Alice in Wonderland to Mrs Beeton's Book of Needlework.

Read the Guardian article here.

And see the 'EBM' in action:

School Holidays Program

We hope all the children of the Blue Mountains made it safely back to school over the past day or so. It was a busy time at the libraries when the school holiday program was in full swing.

Christina Clayton, Blue Mountains teacher and artist, conducted two workshops at Blue Mountains City Library on the endangered Giant Dragonfly which lives in our Blue Mountains Swamps. The workshops held in Katoomba and Springwood, were a lot of fun for the children who participated, each creating dragonfly art using a variety of materials.

Christina worked alongside Mike Hensen, BMCC Environmental Officer to create workshops full of action-packed ideas of recreating the habitat for Giant Dragonflies.

Kids let their imaginations develop as they intricately designed their image of the dragonfly in wire form and art work on canvas.

A scrabble for seats

How about this for cool library furniture?

Secret Swamping

Mike pointing out a yabby in the creek

We all met at Katoomba library at 10am. Our bus driver, Dusan, had a problem about counting the number of seats in his bus and we ended up having to take the Ranger's car as well.

Of course you can well imagine that part of a ‘secret’ is going on a bus and looking back as you speed off thinking, thank goodness my mother isn’t coming! Why does she always look weepy when I board a bus? And it is even better to be sitting next to your BEST friend with a haversack full of food that you never get to eat at home!

BUT I guess from a kid’s perspective, you do need to worry about these lady Librarians….. they are not as stern as those who get left behind in the library telling you that you still owe $5.50 on that book which was late, which you never really got to read anyway.

I got to sit next to the older one. She looked a bit hip in that ‘dry as a bones’ . . . didn’t anyone tell her that you don’t wear that type of gear when you go swamping! The other one with the blond hair was a bit of a cutey . . . it would be great to have a mum like her! Anyway we headed off and did the normal carry one in a bus . . . windows up and down, trying out to see if the back door actually opened, giving the driver lots of noise . . . good job he didn’t go on about the usual tourist jargon on your route to your destination. And yes, we got there . . . Charles Darwin Walk . . . a creek full of yabbies, skinks, dragonflies, mud glorious mud, bush tucker food, waterfalls, fresh swamp water, hills that took for ever to climb, and yes you’ve got it, we emerged with painted faces, gumboots full of water and two an half hours of ‘full on’ information overload on the best swamps in the world at our back yard.

That guy, Mike, knew more about swamps than I could have believed. He tried getting us to learn the Latin words for bush specimens but I thought it sounded like we were in some foreign country forgetting how to speak English!

The bush Ranger was a lady called Janelle. She talked about her people and ancestries and showed us how to cut large bark out of trees and swing a club, throw a spear and spin a boomerang. I liked what she had to say about her country and how her people knew better than us in how to care for the environment.

Would I do it again . . . I sure would - even if we had to go with the librarians again!

Pulitzer Prizes

The 2009 Pulitzer Prizewinners were announced in New York at the beginning of the week. There are several prizes for journalism but being more interested in the bookish arts, here are the winners in the Letters, Drama and Music categories:

• Fiction - Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (short stories)
• Drama - Ruined by Lynn Nottage
• History - The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed
• Biography - American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
• Poetry - The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin
• General Nonfiction - Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon
• Music - Double Sextet by Steve Reich, premiered March 26, 2008 in Richmond, VA
  
  Here you can read the History of The Pulitzer Prizes

School Holidays Program Feedback

Here is some feedback which the Library Children's and Young Adult's Team got from one of the session leaders in our Autumn School Holiday Program.

Jane Davidson BFA (Hons) is a Contemporary artist & teacher and ran several workshops during the holidays :

" Just keeping you updated about the art workshops this week. Its been such a fantastic week so far and in my opinion will only get better. Yesterday at Lawson I met some delightful parents who restored my faith in human kind a little. Sometimes I get a bit jaded about the state of the planet and its inhabitants - philistine is a word on the end of my tongue a lot; not kind I know but seriously justified at times. Yesterday however I met BEAUTIFUL parents who adored their children and only wanted positive experiences for them.

Today however, at Katoomba I had an experience that in 10 years of art teaching I can say I have never ever had. One child, who has supported these classes frequently since January as well as Fab Fridays, brought her father along this time. I hadn't met him before. I saw that he had a walking cane but didnt really register what the nature of his handicap was. As you know, today's medium was oil pastels and a technique known in art circles as sgrafitto. I have taught this technique to kids, teens AND adults with equally satisfying results in the past.

Once everyone was settled I noticed this child's mum and dad up the front of the room looking very very closely at the samples I had brought in. The wife explained to me that her husband only had 40% vision and that he found this technique really interesting. I don't know what prompted me to do this but I insisted he sit down and try this out. After a little cajoling he sat down and his daughter was giving him step by step instructions on the process and when I turned around again I was stunned. He had done a BEAUTIFUL sgrafitto drawing. The look on his face brought me to tears. He told me he had never made art in his life and felt so proud of this little drawing. We had a chat about his vision and I suggested that perhaps some sculpture, clay sculpture, would be the ideal medium for him (I thought he could feel his way to the end result, you know?) After this I encouraged all of the parents in the room to have a go and without exception the adults 'elbowed' the kids out of the way to get at the colours !!!

What a beautiful positive experience for families to have on a miserable day in the mountains and in the library. I have said this to you before: western society has lost its soul, we need more and more soul-enriching activities like art, music and literature to keep us sane. It saddens me sometimes that adults have to be shown simple things like sgrafitto to lower their blood pressure and put a smile on their face . . . but hey . . . get it where you can and its NEVER too late.

I feel particularly moved by this father's experience today. That poignant little moment when he looked at me and told me he was proud of that drawing will be the highlight of my month, I reckon.

Could this week get any better ??

Jane"

Feedback on Library activities is always welcome, just send an email to Readers in the Mist , or use the Comments links at the bottom of blog posts.

Sipping the Nectar

Following on from the last post . . .

The launch of Sipping the Nectar : the 'bird notes' of Graham Alcorn compiled by John Low, Jill Dark and Carol Probets and featuring illustrations by Fiona Lumsden will be held next

Tuesday 28th April

10:30am

Springwood Library

John Ellison, artist and former BMCC Cultural Development Officer will be leading proceedings.


Copies of Sipping the Nectar will be available for purchase at the launch with all proceeds from the sale to be donated to the Blue Mountains Conservation Society and Birds Australia.

Graham Alcorn inspired many with his enthusiasm for life and his willingness to share his knowledge of birds. A popular and unique man, he was well-known throughout the Blue Mountains and elsewhere as a bird-watcher, conservationist, poet, jazz-lover and all round great character.

This anthology is Graham's bird writings, published to mark the 10th anniversary of his death, includes articles written for the Blue Mountains Conservation Society and NSW Field Ornithologists Club (Birding NSW) newsletters. Also included are a biographical note, reminiscences of Graham written by friends, two previously unpublished poems and photographs of Graham which portray some of his unique zest for life. The book is illustrated with sixteen drawings by Fiona Lumsden which capture the charm of the birds in the text.

For further information eamil: oreadespress@bmbirding.com.au

Library Doings - Sipping the Nectar

To mark the 10th anniversary of Graham Alcorn’s death an anthology of his work has been compiled and edited by John Low, Jill Dark and Carol Probets, Sipping the Nectar – The ‘Bird Notes’ of Graham Alcorn. This recently published book is now available to borrow at all Library branches.

Orange Prize for Fiction shortlist

The Orange Prize shortlist of six novels has been announced and includes:

• Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman
• The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey
• The Invention of Everything Else by Samantha Hunt
• Molly Fox's Birthday by Deirdre Madden
• Home by Marilynne Robinson
• Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie
  

Throw the book

No we're not advocating abusing reading materials, we're urging you to help a charity and have some fun as you go.

Throw the Book @ MS is a book trivia game that will be held all over Australia in June to raise money forMS Research Australia who fund research aimed at finding a cure or developing better treatments for MS. In its third year now, this is a chance for book groups to fundraise while having a bit of extra fun.

Book groups just need to register their group and then turn their June meeting into a trivia night. Throw The Book will send book groups the questions which are all related to books, authors, fact and fiction. During your normal June meeting book group members can have fun with the questions and pass the hat around afterwards ~ perhaps the meeting can be opened up to friends and partners to raise more.

To find out more and get involved visit Throw the Book, email throw.the.book@hotmail.com or call Jo on 02 9360 4128. Readers and/or trivia buffs who are not in a book group but would like to participate and live in Sydney can come along to any of the following Throw the Book at MS Trivia Nights:

• Mosman RSL Club on June 3 at 7pm
• Paddington RSL Club on June 18 at 7pm
• Chatswood RSL Club on June 14 at 3.30pm (This trivia night will be specializing in 18th & 19th century literature so brush up on your Austen, Dickens, Bronte)

Why not book a table for your book group at one of these events and see how you go against other Sydney book groups? For more information please email throw.the.book@hotmail.com or phone Jo on 02 9360 4128.

Thank you to the people at goodreading magazine for alerting us to this great idea.

ANZAC Day 2009

Make a note please, that all branches of Blue Mountains City Library will be closed this Saturday, 25th April because it is ANZAC Day.

Here are some ANZAC Day resources to have a look at:

• ANZAC Day
• The ABC have a new interactive website about Gallipoli - take a look here
• Gallipoli and the ANZACs
• Australians on the Western Front, 1914-1918
• WWI: Experiences of an English Soldier ~ a blog which consists of of transcripts of British soldier, Harry Lamin's, letters from the first World War
• Look under Modern History on the History page in the Library's Recommended Sites pages.

Miles Franklin Literary Award 2009 shortlist

I was hoping to ease off on the literary awards, there seems to have been so many but this is a major one in Australia.

On Thursday 16 March the 2009 shortlist for the Miles Franklin Literary Award was announced.

The five novels are:

• Breath by Tim Winton
• Ice by Louis Nowra
• The Pages by Murray Bail
• The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
• Wanting by Richard Flanagan

The winner will be announced on 18 June 2009.

You can read more about each novel here.

What Library Staff are Reading

• The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards (on audio)
• The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village under the Sea by Mark Haddon (poetry)
• The Subject Tonight is Love by Daniel Ladinsky (poems of Hafiz, in translation)
• Red Dress Walking by S.A Jones. ~I enjoyed it. It was written by a new Australian author. It is about the mental breakdown of a literary young woman who, to her friends and partner, seems to be a very balanced, charming person. The novel is also about the subsequent breakdown of her seemingly ‘perfect’ relationship
• Belly Dancing for Beginners by Liz Byrski
• Heart and Soul by Maeve Binchy
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
• Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
• The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
• The catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger
• Sideways: Travels with Kafka, Hunters S., and Kerouac by Patrick O’Neil. It had great descriptions of unusual, dream-like / nightmarish situations and locations, the types of juicy adventures you like to read about but not participate in. There were moments of insight among the chaos, however, overall it felt a little lacking – perhaps it was the personality of the writer (ie: tormenting his OCD flatmate) or the repetition of the drug binge experiences
• Armenian Tragedy by Russian journalist Juri Rost. It anatomises the ethnic cleansing atrocities committed in Nagorno-Karabakh, a province of Azerbaijan, and in its capital city, Baku
• Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan by Richard Plunkett - to find out more about Azerbaijan. Hey I even wrote to a blogger living in Baku!
• High Noon, The Hollow and Carolina Moon by Nora Roberts
• Mr Pip by Lloyd Jones
• The art of racing in the rain by Garth Stein ~ highly recommended
• Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
• The Good Mayor by Andrew Nicoll
• The Last days of Henry VIII : conspiracy, treason and heresy at the court of the dying tyrant by Robert Hutchinson (Readers in the Mist review)
• Alex and Me : how a scientist and a parrot discovered a hidden world of animal intelligence and formed a deep bond in the process by Irene M Pepperberg (Readers in the Mist review)
• The Bolter : Idina Sackville - the woman who scandalised 1920s society and became White Mischief's infamous seductress by Frances Osborne (also the Bolter mentioned in Love in a Cold Climate)
• Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
• Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert – apparently this is the bible for recently separated women. I really enjoyed it even though I am very happily married!
• Trip of a Lifetime by Liz Byrski – reminds us never to compromise
• Let me Sing you Gentle Songs by Linda Olssen – don’t take anything in life for granted. This is a book full of memories.
  
  

Children's Book Council of Australia shortlist 2009

The Children's Book Council of Australia shortlists for the 2009 awards were announced last week. There are several categories in these awards:

• Book of the Year for Older Readers (for mature readers)
• Book of the Year for Younger Readers (for independent younger readers)
• Book of the Year for Early Childhood (for children in the pre-reading to early reading stages)
• Book of the Year Picture Books (picture books for readers of all ages)
• Eve Pownall Award for Information Books
• The Crichton Award for New Illustrators

There are also some other awards including the Children's choice awards.

The Winner and Honour Book/s will be announced on Friday 21 August 2009 in time for Book Week, a favourite time for Blue Mountains Libraries. Book Week this year is August 22nd - 28th watch out then for various children's activities.

Alex and Me by Irene M Pepperberg

(Scribe, 2008, 232pp incl. index)

The blurb on the back of Alex and Me sucked me in as it came into Catalouging:

On 6 September 2007, an African Grey parrot named Alex died prematurely at age thrity-one. His last words to his owner, Irene M. Pepperberg, were "You be good. I love you."

I started reading this book on the weekend. I started to blub before I even opened it, reading the blurb. The first chapter, full of tributes to Alex the parrot, had me a wet, snotty mess in no time. I recovered during the bulk of the book only to break down again at the end as Irene Pepperberg describes Alex's last days and his legacy to her and to science.

I love books that make me cry!

Irene Pepperberg has had birds for pets since she was 4 years old. She graduated from university with a chemistry degree but realised chemistry was not her passion, animal linguistic/cognition studies were. She acquired Alex in 1977 and spent the next 30 years studying him.

When their research began birds (and non-human mammals) were not thought to be intelligent enough to do anything more than mimic, or "parrot", spoken words. Irene Pepperberg, Alex and later additions Griffin and Alo, proved that not only could birds learn language, they are capable of complex thought - Alex could add, spell out words, could understand concepts like bigger/smaller, more/less, none. Dr Pepperberg, her research and her parrot became international celebrities, subjects of innumerable magazine articles, chat show interviews and documentaries.

Irene says in the book that she tried to keep an emotional distance from Alex. Tried to relate to him as a research tool but found that his personality, bossy, contrary, playful and intelligent precluded distance and they shared a deep bond.

This attempt at emotional distance is reflected in the book. After the first highly emotional chapter or two, Ms Pepperberg gets down to the business of giving us her background and launches into the research work that dominated her life. The research practices and principles are clearly explained in business-like fashion, a husband gets the merest of mentions; it seems her work - Alex - was no. 1 in her life.

As I said above, however, I found the book a riveting read (it only took me two sessions in one day to read), it made me laugh and cry and cry and cry. The only thing lacking were pictures, I get so frustrated with biographies without pictures of the subject(s). Hooray for the internet.

If you put 'Alex the Parrot' in a YouTube search you'll find any number of video clips of Alex and Dr Pepperberg going through their paces.

National Biography Award winner

From the shortlisted six titles, the winner of the presitigious National Biography Award, worth $20,000 has been announced - I am Melba by Ann Blainey.

Read this review from The Age.

Bright Air

Bright Air by Barry Maitland (2008, 295pp.)

Crime Fiction

Plot Summary : She stood panting on the narrow ledge, pressing herself back against the hard surface of the rock . . . heard a voice, far below, calling her name. She tried to answer, but her throat was parched and no sound came. They had heard the stone, clattering down the cliff to the sea, and now they knew where she was . . .

Secrets, lies and a deathbed confession lead to a deadly, dangerous trail. On a cliff-face in New Zealand, two men fall to their deaths. Four years before, another member of the same close group of university climbing friends, the bright and beautiful Luce, disappeared - supposedly in a climbing accident. As the circle of friends dwindles, two of the surviving members of the group, Luce's ex-lover Josh and best friend Anna, see a new significance in her death. In an attempt to uncover the truth, Josh and Anna follow the trail to Lord Howe Island, where they begin to suspect an island-wide conspiracy to hide what really happened. (Source: Angus and Robertson)

Review : I thoroughly enjoyed this book as it is written by an Australian author and set in the beautiful Lord Howe Island. It is a good mystery and very intriguing to read.

Reviewed by Carolyn

Library Doings - School Holiday Events

Don't forget the Autumn School Holiday Program will be in full swing from Thursday 14th April.

The Library Children's and Young Adults Team has put together a fabulous program for kids during the April School Holidays.

Our theme is Love Your Environment.

All Blue Mountains City Library branches will be closed for Easter from close of business on Thursday 9th April, reopening on Tuesday 14 April at 10am.

The staff of Blue Mountains City Library hope you enjoy your break.

Henry VIII

I have read two books lately dealing with Henry VIII that offer slightly different perspectives from the usual catalogue of wives being divorced, beheaded, survived, divorced, beheaded, survived.

The first I read was Henry: virtuous prince by David Starkey. Linked to a TV series yet to be shown on Australian TV (see the promotional video), this book attempts to portray two Henrys, only one of which - the monstrous, gout-afflicted, bad tempered, womanising tyrant - has come down the years to us.

Starkey attempts to rehabilitate Henry's reputation by giving us a look at Henry as a young man, a 'young, handsome prince, slim, athletic, musical and learned as no English ruler had been for centuries', a pious young man who loved his mother (awww).

The second book was The Last Days of Henry VIII by Robert Hutchinson. Subtitled 'Conspiracies, treason and heresy at the court of the dying tyrant' this is an interesting look at some of the personalities that surrounded Henry as he descended into bad temper, bad health and paranoia and the jostling to be top dog and have control of the young Prince Edward after Henry's death.

Among the nastiest was Thomas Howard, second Duke of Norfolk, who as uncle to two of Henry's queens, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard, took his share of the glory and riches as they rose and to save his own skin, presided over their downfalls. His own downfall came eventually at the end of Henry's life but the slippery old goat managed to outlast Henry and avoid the traitor's death he seemed to be destined for.

It was a review of a new book by Robert Hutchinson, The House of Treason : The Rise and Fall of a Tudor Dynasty, (on order at the time of writing) about the Dukes of Norfolk (the third duke is no more pleasant) that got me on the Henry ride.

Both Henry : Virtuous Prince and The Last Days of Henry VIII are wonderful reads, full of new information even for this history buff and extremely readable, both only took a couple of days to get through.

Carolyn's Books of the Month - April 2009

Best read for the month : Bright Air by Barry Maitland

Thrillers : Guilty by Karen Robards and Divine Justice by David Baldacci

General : Skeletons at the Feast by Chris Bojalian

Saga/Romances : The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparkes and The Return by Victoria Hislop

Crime : What to do when someone dies by Nikki French

The Girl with no Shadow.

AUTHOR: Joanne Harris
PUBLICATION DATE: 2008
NO. PAGES: 444 pages.
TIME PERIOD: Contemporary.
CATEGORY: Adult fiction.
GEOGRAPHICAL SETTING: Montmartre, Paris.
PLOT SUMMARY: Yanne Charbonneau is living quietly at the back of the chocolate shop she runs in Montmartre, with her daughters Anouk and Rosette. The past seems to her to be fraught with danger and unresolved difficulties, so she has re-invented herself more than once, and wants only to be ordinary. When you have magical powers being ordinary is a little harder. A wealthy local businessman, Thierry, wants to marry her, and she’s attracted to the security this promises, though Roux, a man from the past, has already claimed her in ways she is trying to deny. But then along comes Zozie, young, seductive, beguiling. Zozie has an agenda she’s not sharing, but inveigles herself into the household and becomes indispensable. Her motives are entirely amoral, and the story becomes one of power struggles, and the age-old theme of good versus evil.
COMMENTS: This is Joanne Harris’s sequel to the best-selling Chocolat. There’s quite a lot to like here: Harris knows the area of Paris she’s talking about (Montmartre, the Seine) and transports her reader there with rich, sensuous detail. The same goes for chocolate in all its forms and flavours. She also paces the mystery surrounding the wicked Zozie, allowing us to see a little at a time of Zozie’s motivations. I enjoy, too, the way Harris seamlessly blends the world of magic with the ‘ordinary’ world we all inhabit, and asks us to consider the value of using magic to make things happen; how does it work within the good/evil polarities of human interaction? I guess J R R Tolkein was looking at the same question in The Lord of the Rings. Harris is a fine storyteller too, forcing a person to stay up way past their bedtime to finish the book!
REVIEWER: Diamantina.

International Children's Book Day

Today is International Children's Book Day. Sponsored by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), this is has been an annual event on or around Hans Christian Andersen's birthday, 2 April, since 1967.

Each year a different National Section of IBBY has the opportunity to be the international sponsor of ICBD, deciding on a theme for the year and inviting a prominent author from that country to write a message to the children of the world and a well-known illustrator to design a poster. These materials are used in different ways to promote books and reading.

The theme from Egypt this year is I am the World with a message from author Hani D. El-Masri.

I was alerted to this important day by ABC 702 Sydney on the radio this morning. People were being encouraged to contact the radio station with their favourite books from their childhoods.

Off I cantered down memory lane.

Although I have no doubt my mother read to me from my earliest days, I'm afraid my first memory of having a book read to me was of The Little Grey Men by BB. It was read to my class of 6 year olds in the late 1960s at Camberley Infants School in England by our teacher, Mr Horsburgh. The Little Grey Men is about three of the last gnomes in England who go in search of their brother, Cloudberry, who is missing after going off in search of the Folly Brook, the stream beside which they live. The chapters of Giant Grim's wood particularly stick in my mind.

When my sons were little I tried to get a copy to read to them when they were older. I discovered it was out of print but was elated when I managed to get a copy through Amazon. Some time later there was a book sale at Springwood library and the sequel, Down the Bright Stream, was there for sale for a dollar or so. Triumphantly I carried it back. I took great delight reading it to my boys and have recently re-read it to my daughter. Happy Days!

Other stand outs from my childhood are When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr, The Narnia Chronicles by CS Lewis, the Enid Blyton's Famous Five stories and boarding school series.

Asking the family this morning about their favourites my husband (way past 50) nominated Winnie the Pooh (NOT the disney version), my son (17) nominated Dog Tales by Janet and Andrew McLean and The Pig in the Pond by Martin Waddell and my daughter (8) said Dog Tales and The Cats Whiskers also by Janet and Andrew McLean and Knut: How One Little Polar Bear Captivated the World by Craig Hatkoff about a polar bear brought up by keepers at Berlin zoo - but that might be because her Daddy had only just read that one again last night.


What were your favourite childhood books?

999 Challenge - March

This has been a really busy month for me but I still managed to do a little reading so here are my books for March.

The Reader by Bernhard Schlink (Books made into movies) This story is set in three parts. The first part is when Michael a fifteen year old boy meets Hanna a thirty six year old woman on his way home from school when he takes ill and Hanna helps him. When Michael goes around to thank Hanna they start an affair. As part of their routine when they meet Michael reads to Hanna. One day Hanna disappears without a trace and Michael is left with the memory of Hanna that taints all his relationships with other women. The second part sees Hanna on trail for a war crime of letting a group of women in transit between camps that she is guarding, burn to death in a locked church. Michael is following the trail for his law studies. During the trail Michael realises that Hanna is illiterate. Hanna is sentenced to prison.
Part three sees Michael recording all his favourite books on to cassette and sending them to Hanna in prison. The prison governor writes to Michael to tell him Hanna is to be released and would like Michael to visit, which he does for the first and last time.
This is a book about the horrors of the Holocaust, consequences of illiteracy and hopes for forgiveness. I really enjoyed the book now looking forward to seeing the movie.

Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell ( Classic reading) Cranford started out as a series of stories published in the magazine Household Words. Later it was compiled into a book. It certainly lacks a plot but has some funny moments in this quaint English village set in the mid nineteenth century. The town seems to be full of unmarried or widowed women living in idyllic domesticity. The story mainly centres around Miss Matty Jenkyns and her sister Miss Deborah, two middle aged spinsters living with dignity in reduced circumstances. It is dominated by the friendships of the women in the town. It is quite different from the television series that was made up from the book Cranford and two of Mrs Gaskell's novellas, Mr Harrison's Confessions and My Lady Ludlow.
It was a charming book well worth a read but I enjoyed the television series better.

Bad Karma: confessions of a reckless traveller in South East Asia by Tamara Sheward (Word of mouth) This story tells of two young girlfriends who decide to travel to parts South East Asia where hardly any other foreigners would be, it would be exciting and beautiful. This a hilarious account of their travels and what can go wrong, does. Very enjoyable and funny read.

So now I am on a roll of reading humours books the next two are biographies on Australian women comedians. I have almost read my quota of 9 books in the biography category which is my favourite group.

All that happened at number 26 by Denise Scott (Biography) In 1983 Denise with her husband, new baby, his circus equipment, a futon with no base and no savings moved into number 26. It was the worst house in the worst suburb. The daily challenges of children with eczema, a mother with Alzheimer's, the circus equipment that kept multiplying, the futon that went mouldy and on top of all that Denise was trying to forge a career in comedy and keep the husband and children happy. This is a funny book that also touches the heart at times. Another funny read.

The Lucy Family Alphabet by Judith Lucy (Biography) Judith Lucy has built her career on telling jokes about her family life until one day someone asked did she despise her family, Judith was shocked, as really deep down she loved them. Ann and Tony Lucy her parents were quite dysfunctional. Dad wore his pajamas to work under his suit and wore makeup claiming it was sunblock. Mum glad-wrapped everything in the house and lived on Ford pills, Alpine cigarettes, Ryvitas and cottage cheese as she was obsessed with dieting. After one drunken Christmas (of which there were many) her sister in law told her she was adopted, she was twenty five years old. Her parents were never going to tell her. She wrote this book to enable her to make peace with her relationship with her parents. The book is set in random chapters of dysfunctional alphabet hilarity. Some of the chapters include C is for cleaning, H is for heart attack, N is for nuts (to do with a falling out over testicles, R is for review ( to do with the nuts). Judith tells it straight, very funny and extremely moving at times. I loved it