The House(s) of Fran_mart

 This includes our visits to the Book Fair and Kelly's Swamp as well as some views from our apartment. This group of cars on the roof of the Target carpark intrigued us.  It turns out they are Teslas and the Canberra dealership is somewhere on Bunda St.  Possibly a cheap place to park your stock.  I am still surprised there are so many available when most other brands have 6 -12 month waiting lists. As the muppets running Floriade have blocked off Commonwealth Park we are going through Reid on our morning walks, This is a very pleasant thing to do, especially with some flowering street trees. And some flowering garden trees. The weather hadn't improved by the time we got home.  (As I type, I think back to January 2020 when the view was similarly, or worse, restricted but due to bushfire smoke rather than water vapour.) So our second outing was to EPIC to visit the Lifeline Book Fair.  The main arena would probably have caused Thelwell to come over all unnec...

As well as my usual diet of fantasy, science fiction and young adult stuff I have read some very interesting non-fiction in the past few weeks. "Dreams from my Father" Barack Obama - originally published in 1995, 2nd edition 2004. The first edition of the book was published shortly after Obama finished Law School at Harvard.  The story told in it (apart from the epilogue) concludes just before he enters those hallowed halls. While much of the narrative has been covered in the media (and misrepresented by of course by the Forces of Evil such as Fox News) I found it very interesting to read the detail in his own words.  In the preface to the 2004 edition - just before he assumes the Office of Senator for Illinois - he notes that while he might want to cut 50 pages "possessed as I am with a keener appreciation for brevity.".  He goes on "I cannot honestly say, however, that the voice in this book is not mine ..." It begins with the death of his Fa...

Basically, reading.  But that seemed a better heading than "Yet more book reviews" even thought tht's what it is.  But only two. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg This is another book book written by a journalist, and in fact a New York Times writer.   The essential point of the book is that much of the way individuals, organisations and societies operate is driven by habits.  The author presents this as a 3 part process: A cue; which triggers  An automatic routine; that generates  A reward. The start of the book has a good scientific base using laboratory rats and brain scans to explains how these cycles are set up.   After a brief foray into damaged individuals, who seemed a bit like refugees from an Oliver Sachs book, he moves into how marketers set up cravings - in effect anticipating the reward on getting the cue.  His first case is Pepsodent which was easy for the advertiser responsible: everyone wants nice ...

I have been reading some light fiction, but none of it has been particularly noteworthy either in the sense of "You must read this!" or "Wotta crock."  So this report is limited to the three non-fiction works I have recently perused. "Working Class Man" by Jimmy Barnes: I gave some commentary about Barnesy's first volume "Working Class Boy" in an earlier post .  That was written before I'd finished it, but the second half of the book continued in the same vein.  It finishes more or less as he heads off with Cold Chisel. This second volume continues on from that point and is mainly concerned with three themes: His career with Cold Chisel; Subsequent career as a solo artist: and Running across both of those, his marriage to Jane. It isn't as desperate as the first volume, as the darkness described in this volume is much more one person descending into a personal abyss.  His childhood was someone existing in a social enviro...

This blog has been pretty quiet recently as we have been away in South Australia for a couple of weeks and my doings have been reported on another blog . We are now back and after spending Sunday recovering from a 13 hour drive I got stuck into a bit of gardening yesterday. Even though we are in the second worst spell of dry weather since 1993 I decided that the time has come to start doing some rehab on the vegie garden. The first step was dig over a patch used for spuds last season. Of course with spuds having been there last year a few got missed. I'm always happy to find a few more kipflers. I also dug up an amphibian. As I am not a frog-eating surrender-monkey (et c'est un Pobblebonk, pas du simplement 'grenouille') this fine specimen was released into the garden to munch a few more slugs'n'grubs.. Then on the Tuesday morning Frances found this beastie in the bathroom.  She found one in early April as well, when our friend Roger Farrow ...

I have read some interesting books recently and have a couple more goodies just picked up at the library. Bird Sense This book by Tim Birkhead is extremely interesting if one is interested in birds (or indeed sensory issues with most anything - in many cases the author draws on other orders to show the development of knowledge about birds senses). Unfortunately it had to be returned to the library so I can't give chapter and verse on specifics. An issue that struck me particularly was in the discussion of sight where it appears that some species have good long-vision in one eye and good close vision in the other.  This is explained in terms of structures in the eyes not simply an individual bird having issues.  This somehow explains why Peregrine Falcons usually stoop in a swerve to the right!  There was also discussion of the sense of being able to recognise magnetic fields. My only quibble is that in many cases I wish he had included the quantitative data, as ei...

I have commented somewhere - possibly Facebook - on the excellent book " The Worst Journey in the World " by Appsley Cherry-Garrard.  It is about the expedition by Robert Falcon Scott to the Antarctic.  I believe it proves the title to be largely correct, and is well deserved of the wide praise it has received. I am currently reading " Great Expeditions 50 journeys that have changed the World ".  This includes coverage of Scott's expedition, and I shall return to that below. The most unusual thing about this book is that it has no author!  The text was created by Mark Steward but his name is far from dominant on the cover.  The most prominent name is Levison Wood who wrote the foreword.  He has done an expedition - walking the length of the Nile - but it isn't covered in the book.  In the foreword he refers to the perils of expeditions including a reference to his own trip (see here for detail).  It is very interesting and if I spot a copy at ...

Sometimes I find links to interesting books in other reading and sometimes I get lucky in picking ones up at random in a library,  Just recently Frances has followed the first approach and got some big winners, which I have subsequently read.  Here are a few comments. I think it is merely coincidence that the two main entries involve Catholic priests.  I'm certainly not leading off with my left foot ! The Attachment: Ailsa Piper and Tony Doherty This is in essence an annotated exchange of emails between the authors, and largely about matters of faith and\or beliefs.  Ailsa Piper's relevant back-story is walking one of the routes of the Camino de Compostela.  The friendship described though the book began when Tony Doherty , a priest in Rose Bay, emailed her to compliment her on the book she wrote about that. The narrative of the book is interesting, although not necessarily happy all the time, and I found the discussion of their beliefs to be ver...

Books Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to British Birds: An excellent volume in which Bill discusses a number of British Birds.  The presentation of the book is 'different' as it's set up to look like a tatty used version (coffee rings on one page, text appears to be typed, photos reveal the durex holding them in place).  It is very amusing and while humour is the thrust does have a lot on interesting information.   Recommended  Blake Charlton Spellwright etc.  The etc refers to this book being the first in a trilogy of fantasy books.  I read the 3rd volume first and it was comprehensible but would have been a lot easier if I had read them in the order written!  In part this is because the story is about casting of spells and knowing how they are created etc is rather useful.  To some extent the process reflects the authors life where he had severe dyslexia, but has overcome it such that he is currently a cardiology Fellow at UC San Francisco...

As my regular reader (to recycle an (the?) Ian Warden joke) will be aware we subscribe to the English magazine Country Life.  This is not because we desire to dress in tweed and own a cold house in the worst climate in the world, but because we enjoy the style of the writing, and share a good few of their policy positions.  So when they give a big wrap to an author we tend to pay attention. In a recent addition they burbled about three top writers for young adult fiction: the late Terry Pratchett; J K Rowling and  Anthony Horowitz The first two are among my favourites and clearly belong in such a list, but I had never heard of #3.  So I googled him and found he had written a whole lot of stuff.  Now the sensible thing to do - see below - would be to borrow a volume or two from the library and check out his style.  However we were going to the   Lifeline Book Fair so I searched out a couple of tomes at $3 each: Eagle Strike, from the Alex...

Well, that title should get you all going!  To remove the obvious from consideration I have NOT written autobiographies! My daughter gave me a book for Christmas written by  a psychiatrist who had served a year in a mental hospital in California.  It is " Behind the Gates of Gomorrah " by Stephen Seager.  It is obvious at the beginning that he has survived the year, which resolves one of the potential sources of tension.  It is difficult - a few weeks after reading the book - to recall exactly what gripped me about the book, but it is very well written and the characters are many.  I found it very good and would rate it at least 9/10. As a parenthesis, some years ago I read " In the House of God " which was extremely good, although - to use an appropriate metaphor - bipolar in that the first half is very funny and the second half very dark.  A second book by this author " Mount Misery " was more a mantra about the psychiatric profession and the var...

Happy New Year ! May you all achieve this level of relaxation throughout the year! I will add a plug in here for " Birdland " a collection of incredible photographs of birds by Leila Jeffreys.  Not only are the photos brilliant but the text is extremely interesting, both the introduction by Sarah Engledow  (discussing the images as portraits) and the notes about each bird by the artist. This blog I have added a little to the fiction review covering a second book by Betty Webb. More lily pictures have been took. Since my post in November I have been untroubled by any contact with Australia Post.  They have been contacted again.  The last message was sent to the wrong area for resolution!  An expedited solution has been requested.  There might be another post on this one! The lemur question from our last visit to the zoo has been solved. Sometimes the dog is more active: She bailed out before the pusher started to move.

By chance I happened to grab a couple of fiction books from the local (OK, its 35km away in Kingston) library that both involved matters relating to birds. " The Conjurer's Bird " by Martin Davies.  From the get-go this had a brownie point due to the author's excellent choice of given name!  There are basically 2 story lines, which alternate wihin each chapter: A current time story about tracking down a bird collected (ie shot and stuffed) on James Cook's second voyage but the specimen being lost for many years; and A story about the personal life of Joseph Banks, who had possession of the corpse for some period. There is also some material about a search for an African peacock, but I found that of lesser weight and more or less background to the current time story. Reading through the book I was intrigued about the level of historical fact underpinning the material about Banks - and indeed the bird in question.  This is sorted out in an Author's no...

I seem to have been having a good run with books recently.  Possibly because Frances has been finding goodies and passing them on. The first is "The Longest Climb" by Dominic Faulkner .  This is the story of an expedition he led to travel by human power from the lowest point on the (dry bit of) Earth's Surface to the highest point.  This went on mountain bikes from the Dead Sea via Syria, Iran, Pakistan and India to Nepal and obviously to Everest.  I gritted my teeth on seeing the endorsement by Bear Grylls (since I reckon him to be an onanist of the first order) but thought the forward by Sir Ranulph Fiennes was more promising. In fact it is very good.  He makes it clear that he has the training to do this (via service in the UK SAS - surprisingly, with Mr Grylls) unlike Eric Newby in A Sort Walk in the hindu Kush who pretends to be a wimp but actually has a very tough background. The bike riding bit is very interesting with all sorts of problems to be so...

I'll begin with " A History of birdwatching in 100 Objects " by David Callahan.  It is really a very interesting book dealing with things ranging from Arnhemland rock painting (~45,000 years ago); via  a stuffed dodo (~320 years ago and a total fraud); to  eBird (surprisingly 13 years ago).   The overall layout of the book is a photograph of the object on the RH page and a page or a bit more of text on the left.  The text generally puts the object in historical context and then explains how it was important for the development of birdwatching.  I generally found the first half of the book more interesting that the second.  I think that is because the earlier endeavours were more about the development of concepts, while the latter stages were more about equipment. In summary well worth a read. My second book is " Whose bird ?" by Bo Beolens and Michael Watkins.  This is devoted to people whose names are reflected in the common names of b...