Day 159 - Went on to illustrate the fact that some people never read anything properly, or if they do, they ignore what they see (Pg 85)

I have enjoyed the adventures and musings of Monica Dickens (daughter of Charles), domestic servant / cook-general. Apparently she wrote this book in 3 weeks and I wonder if she kept a journal during her various employment situations or if she just sat down one day and proceeded to write it all out in one go.

One Pair of Hands is quite an amusing account of persons and social classes during the 1930s, and I did not fail to notice similarities with today’s social structures. Monica was not particularly ‘up to’ most of the different tasks she took on, and it is rather astonishing that she fails to improve her skills at all! She is also a most dreadful liar, telling all kinds of stories about widowed mothers and sisters dying of pneumonia.

I am very interested to read the next book in the series, One Pair of Feet, as it is about her time working as a nurse. One can only imagine what the poor patients must have endured under her ‘care’!

Still behind on the pile, doing my best to catch up.

125 days remaining, 20 books to go.

Day 146 - Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me from mine own library with volumes that I prize above my own Dukedom (160)

Oh folly and fate, thy hast found me most wretched. I have tarried too long and time itself, that fickle mistress, begins to elude me.

Over halfway through and I have arrived squarely back at 21 books to read. Life has distracted me from my course and I now have under a week for each book that remains. This seemingly simple undertaking has become more complicated than first imagined. I will not give up, I plan to prevail and stand the victor upon a pile of read books.

Yes I have just completed The Tempest and no it should not have taken me almost a month to read. I could easily have read it in a day, however as I said, life has distracted me.

Shakespeare wrote plays, plays which I enjoy watching very much. I have come to the conclusion that one should not read Shakespeare unless one is studying it for literary or thespian related pursuits. I did enjoy The Tempest, however it takes a large amount of concentration and Shakespeare is much more enjoyable when performed. My recommendation would therefore be to see The Tempest, and not to read it.

138 days remaining, 21 books to go.

Day 125 - Reading those birthday and Christmas books we never got round to reading (Pg 471)

I found A Spot of Bother to be rather enjoyable. There are some parts that are a little graphic and not quite so amusing (mainly the character George performing surgery on himself using scissors) but all in all, it’s an entertaining read about just how mad families can be.

I don’t often say this about books, however I can really see this as a film. It’s English, and the Brits do this type of humour very well. I couldn’t find anything through google about plans for a film, however I think it would be very remiss of the British Film Industry to let this gem pass them by. Perhaps I should buy the film rights from Mark Haddon as an investment... hmmm don't you go stealing my idea now...

159 days remaining, 22 books to go.

Day 120 - But you had to let the atmosphere of one novel seep away before launching into the next... (Pg 88)

I haven’t quite finished book #14, A Spot of Bother , I am enjoying it though. The way the characters face the dramas of life is actually funny (although one shouldn’t laugh at the misfortunes of others). It’s also nice to find a few likable characters for a change, something that has been seriously lacking in the last few books.

I’m blogging before I’ve finished this book as I want to dabble in a little ‘make believe’, are you ready? Let’s make believe for a moment, that someone is actually reading this blog, Hi Mum! Then let’s pretend that one of my readers writes to me saying; “Hi Karen (because that’s my name) where’s the best place to get books from?”

Well! What a good question, and an excellent topic for a blog entry.

First port of call for me is always the library. It’s good for the world and good for your bank balance. You can also keep your eye out for a good olde library sale, that time of the year when they clear out a huge number of books for a myriad of reasons (which is of course how all this began). However not everyone wants to be on a waiting list for a book, and the library doesn’t always have what you’re looking for.

So where can you turn in today’s materialistic capitalist society? This may come as a shock, but you don’t always have to go to a big bad bookstore.

One place, Better World Books (which mum sent me the link to just the other day!) is an online second hand bookstore that finds a home for old books and raises money for literacy programs, lovely!

You could also scour ebay for that book you are looking for. Once again though, if you’re looking for something in particular it may take you a while to find it.

Then perhaps my reader would write in and say; “those are all fantastic ideas, but I need a book for a gift” or “I can’t stand the thought of reading a book that someone else has touched with their tongue moistened fingers or left coffee rings on.”

In this case, try the following;

Booko is a very useful Australian site to search for a book (or a dvd) online. It will search a number of sites and list all places that stock the book from cheapest to most expensive including postage.

I've mentioned The Book Depository before, they have pretty much everything a book-lover could ask for, at very competitive prices and free delivery worldwide.

Then we get to the 'big bad bookstores' such as Borders, which can be pricey, however if you sign up to their newsletter you get the odd 40% off coupon. Angus and Robertson and Dymocks don’t often have special offers, but you never know.


There are of course many places you can find a book, these are just some of my personal preferences. Now with ebooks and readers becoming so popular, perhaps the idea of a book and a bookstore is becoming somewhat archaic (I do hope not).

So now that my avid reader has bought all the books they want, I imagine that they might come back to me one last time and ask; “I now have a whole lot of books that I’m not going to read again, what do I do with them?”

Well obviously you can go back to Better World Books, mentioned above, or you could go to your local op shop / second hand bookstore, donate to your choice of charity such as Rotary, primary school fetes or the Footpath Library, which is a wonderful charity. Alternatively, if you’re feeling the entrepreneurial pull, there’s always ebay.

And so ends my make believe journey. I hope you gained some helpful tips on how to procure a book thanks to my imaginary reader. Although I have now confused myself as to whom I am addressing. Perhaps I am slowly going out of my mind, much like George in A Spot of Bother.

164 days remaining, 23 books to go.

Day 111 – Holding up a copy of The Naked Chef and a tin of Maisie Mouse pencils (pg 53)

I'm inspired, and very tired! I attended a lecture last night given by the Australian Directors Guild featuring 3 female documentary makers who achieved their goals against all odds. The financial rewards were non existent, in most cases the money didn't even cover the amount of work put in, and yet they completed what they set out to do and it was acknowledged by both national and even international audiences. Perhaps this is what I am aspiring to.

Lucy Paplinska - Alone in a Crowded Room
Charlotte Roseby – Still Breathing
Rhian Skirving – Rock & Roll Nerd

Somewhere in between working and reading, my social life, domestic duties and whatever else comes along, my goal is to make a documentary that is broadcast nationally, if it takes me 20 years to do it, so be it.

To the books now, and 65 pages into A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon I'm not quite swept away. I really enjoyed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. Which is why when I saw A Spot of Bother sitting in an op shop, I picked it up. I’m ever hopeful that excitement and adventure lies waiting just over the page...

173 days remaining, 23 books to go.

Day 109 – Anyway the library is really old and the books on the shelves there are dying (Pg 20)

White Crow by Marcus Sedgwick is one of the prize books. It’s a teen novel, labelled as a children’s book, and that disturbs me, it disturbs me as it’s quite a disturbing book, with scenes reminiscent of Sweeney Todd (the film with Johnny Depp is my experience of Sweeney Todd and to be honest that kind of thing really isn't my cup of tea). The book starts out with more brooding and teen angst than you can poke numerous bottles of black nail polish at. It feels a little like an attempt at jumping on the ‘Twilight’ band wagon. You will notice I am not placing a link to Twilight here, it is appalling and has far too much publicity as is.

White Crow is written from 3 different perspectives, and while it isn’t difficult to read, the 3 perspectives are so different it can be off-putting. There's a medieval diary entry written by a priest, a first person narrative from a teenage girl and the most off putting of all, is a third person narrative (another teenage girl) written in present tense, which is very much like a badly written screenplay (of these I have read quite a few). It could be that it was written this way in hope of a film sale...

Toying with the idea of heaven and hell, murders and suicides, all makes for very grim reading. A note at the end of the book indicates that some plot points are based on true historical events. While I didn’t agree with the way it was done, nor was I too keen on all the doom and gloom, I was sucked into this story and the mystery. I wanted to know what happened, even though I didn’t care about one single character.

I am hoping my next choice will be a little lighter.

175 days remaining, 23 books to go.

Day 103 – Girls need to find out for themselves what they want and then go and get it (Pg 217)

Sorry to have left you hanging so long... whoever you are!

I have a job! In fact I was offered both jobs I interviewed for and was forced to choose... a very odd turn of events. Now I am on contract for 6 months (coincidentally this job will end just as my reading project ends). The position is 9-5 with nothing what-so-ever to do with film. However I have still been working on my own documentary projects and am not about to give up on my dreams anytime soon.

I have also not forgotten my reading. Perfectly Correct by Philippa Gregory is from the original library sale. I found it a little slow going at first, it read a lot like a university text book providing bland stereotypical characters, ‘the feminist’ ‘the capitalist’ etc etc. It is set around a university and university lecturers, however it promised to be witty, not pompous. I did eventually warm to it when the main characters began to be less stereotypical and more like real people.

I discovered that Gregory is well known for the Tudor series of books. The most successful being The Other Boleyn Girl which was made into a film in 2008. I have seen this film and thought it not too bad.

I wouldn’t call Perfectly Correct raunchy or ‘Mills and Boon-esk’ (not having read Mills and Boon I can’t be sure, although I believe there was an incident in my childhood in which I picked up a copy of one of my Grandmother’s romance novels...)
Perfectly Correct does contain a few sexy and naked moments which did cause me some slight embarrassment. My new job has provided me with a train trip to and from the city, allowing for dedicated reading time. While reading this particular book one morning, and having a small chuckle to myself, I blushed to discover the young school boy next to me peering over my shoulder. At this time I was reading a chapter about jogging, jiggling breasts on display at a feminist rally... I read on with caution.

182 days remaining, 24 books to go.