Season's Greetings to All

Photo of flowering red gum by Georgie Sharp from Flickr

Best wishes to my friends far and near for a wonderful holiday season.

I'm missing the snow a little, and envious of my friends in Maine who have had TWO snow days already this winter. In a somewhat bizarre turn of the weather in Melbourne the weather bureau is saying it might snow here this weekend. Melbourne is suffering through a terrible drought, but it has been raining for the last two days. What a wonderful gift for everyone!

I don't have a lot of time to read at the moment, but am enjoying a nightly chapter or so of The Memory Room by Christopher Koch, one of my all time favourite writers. It's a busy time for a casual librarian - lots of other people taking time off.

I will be having Christmas dinner in my back garden with family and friends, and of course The Sainted Grandson, who has taken to looking at presents and saying hopefully 'train?'. I hope Santa has a train in his sack for Abraham William and I hope whoever brings your presents, that you get at least one great book!

What I've been reading #3

In the last weeks I have read some truly wonderful books!
Away by Amy Bloom was recommended by my good friend Ellen, who is in Maine. She and I worked together and have a very similar taste in books. I always trust her recommendations, and she has lead me to some wonderful authors. Away is the story of Lillian Leyb, who immigrates to The United States from Russia in the 1920s. Lillian fears her daughter Sophie was killed during a pogrom but finds out she is still alive and so sets off to find her. Lillian is an engaging heroine, determined to do whatever she has to to make her way. It is well written, funny, and not as sad as one might think.

It reminded me of another book I read on Ellen's recommendation The Law of Dreams by Peter Behrens. This is another immigrant story, this time Irish and told by Fergus O'Brien. Fergus relates his story as he is driven off his family's small holding by the potato famine, and travels to Dublin, Montreal and Boston. Behrens is a wonderful and poetic writer and I will be looking out for more books by him.



souvlaki from avlyx, via flickr.

I love reading mysteries of most varieties and have read two wonderful ones recently. Nice Try by Shane Moloney is the third in the Murray Whelan series. It felt a bit like a souvlaki to me - immensely satisfying in a slightly guilty way. It is very funny, and being set in my part of the world even more interesting to me.

I went to hear Ian Rankin on his recent book tour, and he was saying that a number of well known authors are living in Edinburgh now. He mentioned that Kate Atkinson is writing mysteries, and he recommended them. I read One Good Turn and can endorse it with enthusiasm. Great characters and lots about the Edinburgh Festival from a somewhat sardonic view. And the plot twist that is revealed on the last page was a kicker!

Why I'm not Reading

I haven't been reading much lately, too much going on. And I have been watching a bit of TV. I am loving Rain Shadow, on the ABC. It's finished now, but maybe it will return. The scenery is beautiful and the story line interesting. It presents country Australia struggling with drought, and the performances are wonderful.

One piece of technology I have come to love is the hard disc video recorder, I can set it to record programs I want to watch, and then watch when I have time. This of course results in more TV watching than I should do.

#24 I haven't Stopped Learning!

I have very fond memories of visiting the Botanic Gardens with my mother as a child, and then of taking the boys when they were little. So one recent Sunday morning, Grammy & Grandad took Bram. It turns out you aren't allowed to feed the ducks any more, but it is still a lot of fun.

I uploaded these photos into Picasa and then published them directly into my blog from there. It's taken me an hour - but I'm very pleased with myself for doing it!

I often get inspiration from my colleagues - Chellie suggested visiting the swans. Thanks Chellie, we all had a great time.

More on podcasts

AND I can get podcasts of The Book Show. I love listening to the radio but I often miss out on my favourite show. Now I can just download them, and listen whenever I want to.

#23 Is This the End?

Well, obviously hopefully not!

I have enjoyed this program. I have found out how some things that I was interested in work (youtube, podcasts), found some very useful things that I didn't know about (del.icio.us), and generally had some fun.

I think I will continue to use Flickr and the image generators, Del.icio.us, IGoogle and Bloglines. And let's not forget Library Thang!

I have found that as I have looked into some things, I have been lead down paths towards others. I have found some very interesting blogs (Steve Abraham, James Oppenheim).

Some of my colleagues have found it hard to complete the course. Not everyone has the time or the equipment to do the work at home. I think that I have done more than 90% of the work at home on my own time. I am fortunate that I am able to do that. If I still had children at home, or if I was studying it would be much more difficult. Our lives are already very busy, and it's hard to find the extra time to complete something like this, no matter how interesting and valuable it is.

I have had help, encouragement and inspiration from my colleagues. Maybe we could all get together and swap stories and hints some time!

Photo of the New York Public Library taken by Dr. DeNo.

#21 Podcasts

Again, what fun. I looked through some of these, and then I went to look at two of my favourite radio programs. This American Life and Prairie Home Companion and found that I can download both of these as podcasts. Then (I am reliably informed by my resident computer guru) that I can load them on to my mp3 player and listen to them. There are lots of great radio shows out there, I was aware that I could listen to podcasts (John Faine keeps on telling me), but I didn't know it was actually so easy.

Cool!

I will certainly book mark the podcast sites, and use them to find information about particular authors. Should come in handy for book talks!