BBAW: Community

Welcome to the first day of Book Blogger Appreciation Week 2011. This week's theme is Cultivating a Community of Bloggers and Readers and today's post topic is:

While the awards are a fun part of BBAW, they can never accurately represent the depth and breadth of diversity in the book blogging community. Today you are encouraged to highlight a couple of bloggers that have made book blogging a unique experience for you. They can be your mentors, a blogger that encouraged you to try a different kind of book, opened your eyes to a new issue, made you laugh when you needed it, or left the first comment you ever got on your blog. Stay positive and give back to the people who make the community work for you!

Today I thought I would spotlight a few bloggers for different reasons.

Blogger I would love to send a bunch of flowers and some chocolates to:

Zibilee from Raging Bibliomania  for her faithful support of my blog and constant comments, especially when I put up posts which no-one else seems to find interesting! Thanks again Zibilee!

Blogger who I would love to have a cup of coffee or three with

Beth Fish from BethFishReads.com. Pretty sure we could have a good old chinwag that might last quite some time.

Blogger who I have had coffee with but will hopefully do so many more times in the future

Bree from All the Books I can Read. One of the joys of being on Twitter is that over the last year or so I have met book bloggers and tweeps who live really close to me! We've met up quite a few times since then and I look forward to continuing to do so!

Blogger who likely doesn't know I exist but who I would love to chat books with

Julie from Booking Mama always posts about books that I think I would love to read!

Blogger who influences me the most in terms of adding the most books to my TBR list

This honour goes to Sarah from Reading the Past. She not only reviews lots of really interesting sounding historical fiction, but when she posts some of the upcoming releases I have been known to just add the whole list to my TBR list!

Blogger who I have known the longest, who I chat to all the time and who needs to come and stay in my spare room!

Kelly from The Written World.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There are a ton of other bloggers who I could highlight, and feel a little bit bad that I haven't but you have to draw the line somewhere! Besides, I would have had to have thought of even more categories!

Have you shared about some of your favourite bloggers as part of BBAW?

Fragile Things Readalong - Week 1

Over the next 8 weeks a group of participants in RIP VI are also going to be participating in a couple of readalongs in conjunction with the challenge. The first of these readalongs to get started is Fragile Things, a collection of short stories by Neil Gaiman.

The idea is that over the course of the 8 weeks each participant will read four of the short stories/poems and comment on them accordingly. Below are my thoughts on this week's reads.

Introduction - I must confess that as I saw the list of items to be read I was a little perplexed! I do love reading where the inspiration for particular stories came from, so from this perspective I was happy to be reading it, but before you actually read the stories didn't really feel right! It was a lovely surprise then to find that hidden inside the introduction is a story - The Mapmaker. I have read a couple of Neil Gaiman books before (not nearly enough though) but no short stories. I have also heard him speak on podcast interviews etc, so in the story I could clearly hear his voice as though he was reading to us.

In the Introduction there is quite a lot of name-dropping. To be fair though, if I happened to end up in a room with Neil Gaiman at some point in time I am pretty sure I would tell anyone who listens! Of the stories that we read this week, I really liked the way he described that the story October in the Chair came about.

I will be sure to be revisiting the intro as we read through the book!

Having said that it felt a bit odd, I think having read the introduction actually gave me more of a clue as to what I was looking for in

A Study in Emerald -Whilst I am familiar with Sherlock Holmes in a pop culture reference kind of way, I really haven't read anything from HP Lovecraft. These two different styles provided inspiration for this story which features the investigation of a prince who is one of the favourite nephews of Queen Victoria who....well, I don't think I should say much more. I really liked that the narrative travelled forward in what seemed like a very straight forward linear fashion and then, wham, the story was changed and then again at the end!


The Fairy Reel - I read across a lot of genres but poetry is one of the ones that I do neglect! I read this three times and can't decide if I didn't like it because it isn't that great a poem, or if I just don't get it because I am not a poetry read. Given that it is written by Neil Gaiman and read by, well, me, I think it is only fair to go with me being the one to blame in this scenario!

October in the Chair - Of the reading for this week, this is my favourite story! I have long been a fan of the story within a story concept, but I am not sure that I would have thought that it was possible to have two fully realised stories in a short story like this. The story starts with the months of the year coming together for what appears to be a semi-regular meeting, each personified with strong personality traits and identities. There are procedures to be followed (some of the months are more concerned with the importance of these than others) with each story expected to tell the others a story that they haven't heard before. The nested story is of a young boy who is known as Runt in his family and who decides to run away and ends up in the local graveyard. There are clear correlations between this nested part of the story and the story that Gaiman gave us in The Graveyard Book, and he acknowledges that this story was written with that then future book in mind.

There is a Mr Linky over at Stainless Steel Droppings where you can find links to other thoughts about these four books. Come back this time next week for discussion of four more stories from this collection.

Sunday Salon: Book Blogger Appreciation Week

This week is going to be a busy blogging week, mostly due to Book Blogger Appreciation Week.

We are very excited at Historical Tapestry because we made the shortlist for Best Historical Fiction blog! Wooo-hoooo. We have made the shortlist before (in fact, three out of the last four years) but never won so fingers crossed! The other two blogs (Medieval Bookworm and Passages to the Past) are both blogs I love to read though so they would be deserved winners too!

During this week I will be posting the daily topics (or at least that is the plan) plus my normal posts so there might be a few more posts than normal. Later today, for example, I will be posting my first post for the Fragile Things readalong which is being run as part of RIP VI. I am also planning to do the mini-interviews that I did last year, so keep an eye out for that post on Tuesday (I think!)

The theme for BBAW this year is "Cultivating a Community of Bloggers and Readers" and I would encourage book bloggers everywhere to participate in events like Book Blogger Appreciation Week because it does do help with just that - cultivating community and with feeling a part of that community. Events like this do really make you realise just how big the book blogosphere has become because I always find lots of new to me bloggers during events like this. Another good reason to participate is just because it is a lot of fun! It's not too late to sign up to participate this year if you haven't already done so!

Several weeks ago now I declared that I was going to start including my current and future reads at the end of each Sunday Salon. I have just realised that I completely forgot to do this on my last three Sunday Salon posts. I guess I just got carried away with the topics I was posting about!

Currently reading:

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman for the RIP VI readalong. My first post about this book will go up later today and My Husband's Sweethearts by Bridget Asher.

Up next:


Tiger Hills by Sarita Mandanna, Empire of Silver by Conn Iggulden or Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton.

Weekend Cooking: Kings of Pastry DVD

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that Paris has been calling my name over and over and over again! Given that there is no way I am getting to Paris anytime soon you would think I would stop torturing myself but apparently not! Kings of Pastry is the very best kind of torture not only because of the locations and it's intrinsic Frenchness, but also because of the amazing sounding and looking food as well!

Kings of Pastry has been featured in a couple of Weekend Cooking posts. The first time I recall seeing it was when the host of Weekend Cooking, Bethfish Reads, posted about it a while ago. At that time, I checked the library catalogue and they didn't have it, but more recently someone else posted about it (and I apologise but I can't remember who that was) and this time, voila, it was on the catalogue so I requested it straight away!

For those of you who may not have heard about it before Kings of Pastry is about the chefs who compete to become Meiulleur Ouvrier de France (MOF), which basically is the Best Craftsmen in France. The competition is run every four years and aims to recognise those craftsmen who are the best of the best of the best. In this case the competition for pastry makers, but there are MOF competitions in many other trades.

The film follows three of the sixteen competitors as they perfect their designs and recipes to come up with amazing, amazing creations. The key to success, as the judges say, is that the competitor must be ready, not only with their ideas and recipes, but also to face three gruelling long days in unfamiliar environs, with weather conditions that they cannot predict (important because sugar behaves differently depending on humidity and heat for example) and knowing that reputations and futures could well be on the line. These men devote years in trying to get everything right, trying to become one of the few people who are entitled to call themselves MOFs and to wear the all important tricolor collar that denotes their status. There is no one winner for the competition. At the end of it, the panel judges which of the competitors has displayed the necessary skill, the necessary readiness, to be worth of the honour of the collar.

Many of the spun sugar components are so fragile that it doesn't take much for the whole creation to come crashing down. Here are a couple of examples of the types of creations:

The craftmanship is amazing! For example, in the second image above, the flowers and the ribbon are both made from spun sugar.

I know that I don't have the skill to even attempt one of these desserts or cakes, let alone having to make more than 40 in the space of three days. Heck, I don't even think I have the imagination to begin thinking about what such intricate pieces would look like if it was up to me to design them!

If anything, I would have loved to have been able to get closer views of all of the amazing creations, but this was the first time in history that the MOF judges allowed outsiders into the competition and so there were very strict rules about where they could shoot from etc so that they didn't get in the way of the competitors and cause any accidents - they happen enough on their own without having the competitors fall over a cameraman.

If you like reality TV cooking shows, if you enjoy watching mounting tension and drama unfolding, and if you love looking at jaw droppingly intricate and beautiful foodie creations, then this is a DVD that you may really enjoy.

Here are two clips. The first one is the trailer and the second a short section of the film where one of the contestants talks about his chocolate creation.












Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads and is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs.

Second Chance at the Sugar Shack by Candis Terry

Kate Silver’s back in town, and her dead mother just won’t leave her alone.


Kate usually spends her days dressing Hollywood A-listers, but after her estranged mother dies she finds herself elbow-deep in flour in her parents’ bakery in Deer Lick, Montana. She thought she’d left small town life far, far behind, but it seems there are a few loose ends.


The boy she once loved, Deputy Matt Ryan, is single and sexy and still has a thing for her – and handcuffs.


Her mother, who won’t follow the white light, is determined to give maternal advice from beyond the grave.


And somehow Kate’s three-day stay has, well – extended. She never planned to fill her mother’s pie-baking shoes – she prefers her Choos, thank you very much. But with the help of a certain man in uniform, Kate quickly learns that sometimes second chances are all the more sweet.

There's only one reaction when you suddenly realise that you actually only have one day before e-galley expires, you haven't even transferred it onto your e-reader yet and it can't be downloaded again! Panic!! Or maybe there is really a second reaction - decide that you are going to start reading it at 10pm on a Sunday night and you will just push hard to finish it the next day and hope that you get it finished before zero hour.

Fortunately for me, this is the kind of book that you can start at 10pm at night and just keep on reading and suddenly it is 1am and you have to get up in 5 hours but you close the now finished book with a contented sigh!

Kate Silver is stylist to the stars - country stars, pushy starlets  - you name it she tells them what to wear and when and can name drop with the best of them! She's worked hard to get to where she is and she needs to work twice as hard to stay there.

When her mother dies, Kate returns to the small town she escaped from 10 years before. She couldn't get out of Deer Lick fast enough not even to say goodbye to anyone, especially after a terrible argument with her mother, and now she is not in such a hurry to get back again, except she knows that her dad needs her. The other reason why she is a bit apprehensive about going back to town - the chance that she might run into her ex, Matt Ryan. She figures, though, that he will have let himself go so it shouldn't be a problem.

Matt Ryan has, however, done anything but let himself go. He is now a very handsome man in uniform - deputy sheriff uniform at that. When he meets Kate at her mother's funeral she can't believe her eyes, anymore than she can believe what she hears when she finds out he has written up a list of the most eligible women in town to choose a wife from. And Matt is determined that Kate is not going to go on the list even if they do still have incredible chemistry.

Second Chance at the Sugar Shack is another entry in the contemporary romances with a small town setting that I have been really enjoying this year. The author has tried to make it a little different than normal by adding in the ghost of Kate's mother who tries to push her in the right direction as well as to try and heal the hurts that still are smouldering despite 10 years of virtual estrangement.

With a title like this, you know that there is bound to be some sugar involved somewhere in the book. In this case it is the family bakery that Kate's parents have run for many years. After being strong armed into staying to help her dad by her siblings (who will of course get their own book in due course) Kate eventually begins to see Deer Lick in a different light and begins to reevaluate exactly what it is that she wants for her life.

The baked goods sound delicious and I really wished that I had some while I was reading (except for that whole crumbs in the bed thing) and the descriptions added an extra something to the book!

With the combination of small town contemporary romance, ghostly mother visitations, baked goods and more it wouldn't have been too difficult for this to stray into the territory of saccharine sweet, but Candis Terry manages to keep it just the right side of the line. I will certainly be looking forward to reading the next book, preferably with a sweet snack or two placed conveniently close at hand.

Rating 4/5

Review copy provided by Netgalley - thanks!

White Time by Margo Lanagan

Lose yourself in White Time

White Time is mind time, body time, soul time, heart time.

White Time is other worlds, other dimensions, other states of being.

White Time is out of time.

In this transcendent collection of short stories, Margo Lanagan, author of the award-winning story collection Black Juice, deftly navigates a new set of worlds in which the boundaries between reality and possibility are paper-thin . . . and sometimes disappear altogether.

My odyssey through the short story collections of Margo Lanagan continues. This time, I travel through White Time. Once again, the worlds that Margo Lanagan creates vary from similar to our worlds to completely different but the emotions that we are exposed to are always familiar and always moving!

White Time explores a situation that most of us would have been familiar with during our teenage years - work experience (although in the story it is called occupation tasting). Sheneel is disappointed when she is allocated to the Commonweal White Time Laboratories for her occupation tasting. She wanted the far more glamorous release party tasting that will give her access to celebrities and parties! One of her jobs whilst she is at the lab is to help Lon redirect entities in white time - time travellers who end up stuck in the little corner of white time that he is responsible for. Where these time travellers are redirected to is never quite clear. It could be that they are sent onwards on their journey, or it could be much more final redirection. Will Sheneel be drawn into the world of White Time?

In Dedication, the Royal Dresser is called to the palace urgently even though it is the dedication day of his own children. The urgent task that is to be performed? He is to make the body of the princess look presentable for presentation to her father the King. At first, this reads as a simple request but in the space of less than 20 pages Lanagan manages to show that this simple task is anything but when you take into account the girl's identity, the family dynamics and grief.

Tell and Kiss was a very interesting concept for me for reasons that will be obvious. The basic premise of the story is what if you are not overweight because of the food that you consume, but rather because of the emotional baggage that you carry around with you and don't let go of. Evan is nearly at the end of his year long program that has helped him shed his kilos, but what happens if he can't tell his stories anymore. I think that all of us feel the weight of our stories at one time or another - I certainly do!

What happens when an ordinary ant catches The Queen's Notice. The reader is taken inside the world of the ant. The Queen Bee is almost ready to choose who will be her next mate and Dybbol catches her attention when he helps repel attacks on the nest. Before he can step up into his new role, there are preparations to be made.

In Big Rage, Billie is a woman in turmoil. Her husband is manipulative and is always belittling her, and in the past she has always waited for him to make the first move. She is staying at the beach following yet another argument when she comes across a warrior dressed in armour who is obviously wounded. At first she thinks he is a role-player, but it doesn't take long before she realises that he is something more than that! This was one of my favourite stories in the collection. At the end of the story I wanted to stand up and cheer - not always the smartest move on public transport.

Just as in Yellowcake there was a story exploring the idea of the way that children are affected during times of war, this is a theme in The Night Lily also. I am not sure if it is the theme, but just like the corresponding story that explored similar themes in Yellowcake, I wasn't all that drawn into this story, or at least not as much as I have been into the other Lanagan short stories I have read.

Tess Maxwell is the main character in The Boy Who Didn't Yearn. She sees much more than the average person. She can give readings about those who have gone before, and see just by looking what is going on in a person's life. In her own words (page159-160):

My work makes it hard for me to like people. They seem so despicable sometimes, going around inside out, all their weaknesses showing in their walk, in their clothes, in their I'm-in-control-of-it-all faces let alone the visible holes in them, the baggage-people they drag around with them. Mum says these things are only obvious to me, though. I must remember, not everyone can see what's so shatteringly clear to me. I envy other people that,  and I despise them. I can't see how they can live, so cluttered up with other people's lives and influences; I'd hate to live in someone else's shadow. Worse, I'd hate to go around with my insides all blurted out like that, moaning my wants to the whole world, mourning what I'd lost.

It is therefore no surprise then that when she meets someone who has no baggage that she can see, she finds him completely fascinating and is drawn to him. What is the secret of The Boy Who Didn't Yearn? This was another of my favourites from the collection.

Midsummer Mission had me very confused for a little while. Who or what were the main characters who travel to a designated place and time to carry out a specified mission. They must influence Nawbair while he sleeps in a particular emotional direction. It is not however a mission without danger for our intrepid team - Hat, Snap, Motto and Trinket - for they need to report back...alive...with the result of their mission. In the end, this was a really fun little story, with humour, salty language, touches of whimsy - a delight to read.

Welcome Blue features a young girl named Eleanor who has recently been employed by Quaid to assist him in harvesting his Welcome Blue flowers. It is clear that Eleanor has experiences in her past that make her wary of mean in particular and so at first she doesn't trust Quaid. As the day draws on though, it becomes apparent that Quaid is just what he says he is. A man whose only agenda is to harvest his flowers. He is not tempted to sell the flowers to the many towns people who are travelling to the local showgrounds in anticipation of the scheduled arrival of the gods, no matter how much money he is offered.

Without providing any background at all, Eleanor's emotional frailties are revealed with great subtlety and a deft touch.

One thing I find very interesting about the reading experience is how two totally different works can connect together. For example, I am currently reading The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar which examines the idea of caste, of servitude to a superior race and of relationship in a book that I would classify more as literature. Here, with a made up setting and nationalities, many of the same themes are explored in the final short story of the collection - Wealth.

When Rill's brother is arrested (again) and put in jail it is up to her to raise the money using the only way she knows how - her talent for growing wealth, which in her world is the hair on a Leet man's head. This is despite the fact that she knows her brother will be ungrateful and her grandmother will still not acknowledge either her or the work that she does to support the family. When she is offered a substantial amount of money to grow wealth, it could very well be her chance to become something more despite her status as an Ord. Or, there could be another outcome - with much greater consequences.

The only thing left to say really is bring on Black Juice or Red Spikes! Or maybe it is time to move away from the short story form and read Tender Morsels. Decisions, decisions.

Rating 4/5

**This book of short stories is my first read for the Short Story component of RIP VI.

Library Loot: September 7 to 13

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

Only one library book for me this week!

In My Skin:a Memoir by Kate Holden - this is my next book club book. I am not sure I would have ever picked it to read by myself!

What loot did you get this week? Share your link in Mr Linky below so that we can all have a look at the loot that you picked up this week!

Teaser Tuesday: Out of the Deep I Cry by Julia Spencer-Fleming

One of my favourite discoveries this year has been the Reverend Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne mysteries by Julia Spencer-Fleming, mainly because the dynamic between the main two characters is so interesting!


My teaser this week comes from page 224:

Evening prayer had a whopping seven attendees, but they were evidently as eager to get home as Clare, and after she concluded the service with a verse from Ephesians, they all scattered, and she was back in the rectory by dinnertime.

She figured that the rare-collections librarian would never have approved reading the diaries while scarfing down pasta, so she plunked her plate in front of the tube and ate with Jim Lehrer, who was never put off from discussing the day's events by the sight of her chewing rigatoni.

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by Miz B at Should Be Reading. Head on over to find out all about it, and how to join in!

Mailbox Monday: August edition

Normally I do my monthly Mailbox Monday post on the last Monday of the month and I had every intention of doing that in August too. Instead my son was very motivated and wanted to finish putting the new desk I had bought together. So now the desk area has gone from this:

to this:

Note the strategically placed stool under the right wing which was designed to stop the printer hitting the floor in case the whole right hand side collapsed at any point. Please do not notice all the crap in the background which is all part of my current cleanup campaign.

For all that I wasn't all that enthused about doing this right then, I do think he did a great job as he basically did it all himself, especially for an almost 13 year old. I will have to get my brother in law to tighten everything up but other than that it is all good, especially as we have since worked out a way to get the computer tower in the cupboard and the door closed!

I am not sure I like the desk itself though. I was hoping to end up with more space, but it feels more crowded than the old one did and it is harder for me to watch TV and be on the computer at the same time. Maybe it will just take me a little while to get used to it.

Anyway, here are the books that came into my house during August:

Bought

Bitten and Stolen by Kelley Armstrong - bought both of these at the author signing I attended!

Spy Glass and Sea Glass by Maria V Snyder - ditto! You can read about both of these author events by clicking on the link.

Thief of Lives by Lucy Sussex - this is the third of the Twelve Planets series that is being released by Twelfth Planet Press. Click on the link to read my reviews of the first two books in the series. I have already pre-ordered the next three books that are due out later this year.

Netgalley


I promise that I am doing my best to curb my addiction to Netgalley. So far I haven't requested any new galleys for the last week or so which is a step in the right direction. I think so at least!

Viper's Kiss by Shannon Curtis - Shannon was an author who participated on a couple of panels that I attended at ARRC11 and she seemed really nice, so I thought I would try her book.

Sex, Gossip and Rock & Roll by Nicola Marsh - another "she seemed really nice so I thought I would try her book" but this time it is because I sometimes chat to this author on Twitter.

The Game of Love by Jeanette Murray - after reading Jaci Burton's The Perfect Play I seem to have developed a taste for sports romances with hot covers!

Until There Was You by Kristan Higgins - I have recently started reading Higgins. One book was really good, the other was not. I hope this one falls into the former category.

The Legacy by Katherine Webb - I am in the mood for something a bit different so this might fit the bill.

Everything Beautiful Began After by Simon Van Booy - I have heard nothing but good things about this author's books so my turn to find out what the fuss is about.

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philippe Sendker - I actually don't remember what prompted me to request this one. I think it just sounded really good!

The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson - with comparisons being made to The Thirteenth Tale, this seemed like a likely gothicky read that I would enjoy!

Muffled Drum by Erastes - this is m/m romance with an unusual setting that I have heard lots and lots of good things about!

The Time in Between by Maria Duenas - the setting and description sound like a book I would enjoy.

Boomerang Bride by Fiona Lowe  - Boomerang = Aussie = good reason to try it and see!

The Printmaker's Daughter by Katherine Govier - I was sent a pitch about this book and it sounded fascinated so I was really pleased to get it.

How to Eat a Cupcake: A Novel by Meg Donohue - this one has future Weekend Cooking post written all over it!

Jane Austen Made Me do it anthology edited by Laurel Ann Nattress - there are a few authors included in this anthology that I already read so I was happy to request it. We are also going to have an event over at Historical Tapestry nearer to the release date of this book.

For Review

Virtuoso and Lady Sophia's Christmas Wish by Grace Burrowes - I recently read and really enjoyed Grace Burrowes first book, The Heir so I eagerly accepted these two books! Now I just need to read the second book.

Foal's Bread by Gillian Mears - I am going to be participating in an Aussie blogger readalong of this book during October.

The Kitchen Counter Cooking School by Kathleen Flinn - Another future Weekend Cooking post.

Won

I very nearly forgot the books I had won.

We had to fill in our national census forms on August 9, so I got home from work and opened the front door to look for the form and was surprised to see a box there. I opened it up and was very surprised to see that it was a box full of books that I didn't realise I had won! There are 50 (yes I said 50!) different Loveswept Romances in the box! I haven't actually catalogued them, or worked out where they are going to go yet, but I will!

Mailbox Monday is on tour and for September it is being hosted at Amused by Books. Head over there to share your links, or to see what everyone else has posted about this week.

Sunday Salon: Feeding my soul at MWF

Earlier this week I went to a corporate lunch where they had an inspirational speaker come in and talk whilst we ate good food (seriously good dessert!). The man that spoke to us this time was a former police pathologist who had been involved in the aftermath of lots of different tragedies around the world helping with the terrible task of trying to identify bodies - events like the 2002 Bali bombings, the 2004 tsunami and more. At first when we read his bio we were a bit worried about what he would talk about. It turned out to be an incredibly inspiring speech. From his work in Thailand after the tsunami, he ended up starting a charity to help orphans and that charity continues to grow and grow and grow. When he talked there was barely a dry eye in the house (and the majority of the crowd were men in suits).

There were three things that he said that really stuck with me. The first was "Hope is not a plan" meaning you actually have to do something, you can't hope it will get done. The second was "You can't change what has happened but you can change what happens next" and the third was that we need to be doing things that feed our souls. My instant reaction to this last point was to think of really big things - like travel to Europe etc.

Yesterday though, I was sitting in my first session for the day at Melbourne Writer's Festival, and I came to the realisation that just by spending the day at Melbourne Writer's Festival I was feeding my soul!

Given the length of the introduction, I am thinking that this is going to be a very long post! Here is my account of how I fed my soul!

My first session of the morning was with In Conversation with Ann Patchett, author of books like Bel Canto and most recently State of Wonder. Now like last week, I went to see Patchett even though I wasn't particularly enamoured by the one book of hers that I had read. I had however really enjoyed listening to several interviews with Patchett and knew if nothing else  I would be amused as I listened to her, and I was right!

After a bit of Aussie celebrity name dropping, Patchett started to talk about the inspiration behind her newest book, State of Wonder, a book which is about an adult meeting a former teacher who was influential in their lives, and yet often those same students are invisible in the memories of the teacher. Patchett says that the book is a mix of mystery, adventure, science and fiction (not science fiction) and loss.

Some of the interesting things that she touched on:

• Patchett is very interested in chapter structure. She likes to have the reader wanting to read to the end of the chapter, and then just one more chapter etc.
• She is cold-hearted about her own work (which she credits as being a legacy from her years as a journalist). You must do what is best for the work, not necessarily for you.
• Her research trip to the Amazon including insects and snakes
• The difference between writing a novel and a memoir and how writing the memoir about her friendship with her best friend was cathartic
• She has known since a very early age that she wanted to be a writer - no question of doing anything else for her.
• The bookshop that she is about to open in Nashville (She doesn't want to live in a city with no bookshops). She did say that she wasn't likely to be working in the shop. Rather, she will be at home handcrafting the merchandise.

One of the more interesting parts of the discussion was the idea that as an author she has just one story to tell - the story from her heart and the further away from the heart you get the more that the author will struggle. She can dress it up with different settings and characters, but her books are mostly are about a group of strangers getting stuck in an unusual situation and forming a family. She also has common themes that she likes to explore. Two examples - race and the intersection between wealth and poverty. It was interesting to hear her talk about being able to write in the voices of different ethnicities, which she says can be done as long as you do it right, but also that she writes the individuals as individuals not as a representative of entire nationalities.

This was a fun session and Ms Patchett was really very charming and funny! I am glad I went, and now I want to give her books another go!

The second session I attended was Slow Travel

In Tom Trumble's Unholy Pilgrims he travels across Spain on foot, while Ken Haley's Europe@2.4km/h finds him traversing the continent in his wheelchair. They talk to Jane Sullivan about what you see when you take the slow road.

Once upon a time I used to read a lot of travelogues or books about starting a new life in a new country but it's not quite so common for me anymore (although not too long ago I did read Lunch in Paris).

Tom Trumble decided to walk Camino de Santiago because he was hoping for a bit of inspiration in terms of what he was going to do with his life. He walked 800km from France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain with a friend, meeting up with many other pilgrims along the way, and as most Australians are reputed to do along the way spending lots of time drinking! He stayed in the alberques that line the route and that bought with it the joys and otherwise of sharing space with others - Tom talked about finding the snoring particularly difficult to deal with. Contrary to what he initially expected, the worst part of the trek was the 250km section of flat terrain, where people begin to internalise more and as a result lots of interesting things happen. He talked about some of his fellow pilgrims and their pilgrimage as everyone does it for their own reasons.

Ken Haley is a paraplegic who was piqued by curiosity to discover more about the identity of Europeans and really discovered that for most Europeans they are still predominantly French or Spanish or whatever and that being European is still a somewhat distant concept. Of course, being in a wheelchair brings its own sets of difficulties - things like not being able to find many wheelchair friendly hotels in Paris for example.

Both talked about the devastation of losing some of their source documents (journals, photos etc), the road to getting published and their next projects. Tom talked about the fact that the experience of the pilgrimage didn't change him, but writing the book about it certain did! His next book is about a trip he made to Timor, and Ken's is another traverse of Europe with different start and end points!

Have to say, I am surprised that I could read any of my notes for this session as the venue was completely blacked out and so I couldn't see what I was writing!

After a long and chatty lunch with Lisa (thanks again Lisa - getting to know you a little has been one of the highlights of my festival experience!), a wander through the art gallery and some reading time, it was time for my next session.

My one disappointment of the day was the cancellation of the In Conversation with Shaun Tan session. The Ann Patchett session and his session were the two that I had built my day around, but these things couldn't be helped. The session I chose to attend instead was In  Conversation with Arnold Zable - a Melbourne author that I have been intending to read for a long time.

After beginning with the acknowledgement to the traditional land owners and the acknowledgement of the empty chair for PEN (which I mention because it didn't happen in all of the session I went to) the session started with Arnold Zable talking a little about his own background as a second generation Australian -  a child of Polish Jewish immigrants. His mother was often left distraught by the past and it affected her whole life. She left home not realising that she would never see her family again and Zable's father lost his entire family. Zable's background often informs his characters and stories, particularly in the composite characters that people his stories.

Zable's stories are often of the dislocated either emotionally like his mother who was broken by her past and his father who became something other than he was in order to support his family and only went back to his Yiddish poetry at the age of 70, or physically as in the case of refugees. 

Both Zable and the chair of the session , Julian Burnside QC, are passionate advocates for refugees and this was clear, especially when they talked about one of the survivors of the Siev X which was a people smuggling boat which sank back in 2001 with the loss of more than 350 lives - an event which became politicised in a shameful way in my opinion.

I loved the language that was used during this session  - Burnside talked of eloquent and elegant episodes and emotional truths and Zable talked of the joy of storytelling, the art of weaving different threads together to create stories, about scene construction, about story telling being a very sensual experience, the role of music for the author and reader and more.

The final session of the day for me was The Connected Book:

Now that we've accepted the ereader, it's time to look at some of the creative possibilities afforded by digital texts. Publisher ofBooksquare.com Kassia Krozser (US), author of digital fiction Inanimate Alice, Kate Pullinger (Canada), and founder of online digital library LibriVox Hugh McGuire (Canada) discuss what multilayered media, text enriched with images, sound and interactive features might soon do to revolutionise a bookshelf near you. Chaired by if:book's Simon Groth.

I wasn't 100% sure of what to really expect from this session - maybe more discussion of digital reading than there was, but as the blurb said it was really starting from the point that ereading is here, so where to from here. The auditorium was actually pretty full and there was an interesting mix of ages in the crowd.

A lot of the discussion was about reading whilst connected online. For example, Kate Pullinger talked about her online projects including Inanimate Alice, where the text lies at the heart of the project but then there is also music, animation, games etc as well as the inevitable hyperlinks to follow. The author is still telling a story and values language, good writing and the power of text, but also takes advantage of the very visual nature of current culture.

One of the guests, Hugh McGuire, runs a press that creates books from blogs, and so there was an interesting discussion held about what is a book. How does a blog compare to a book with suggestions including that a book tends to be complete whereas a blog is more of a living thing that can change direction and focus very quickly, at one point being compared more to a magazine.

I think the overall thing that I got from this session is that really there are so many possibilities for where the future of the connected book is going including:

• the role of social media in not only sharing stories but also building relationships between readers and authors, between readers and other readers (that sense of community that is so often talked about online)
• picking and choosing what works best out of the technology available. For example, do apps work for books - depends on the book and the app. It won't work for every book out there.
• books have always been a collaborative effort. The future will offer the potential for different collaborations.
• authors may have to rethink how it is that they are compensated for their work. It may be that the traditional royalties system is not what works in an increasingly connected world. One advantage that we have for connected books happening now is that consumers are used to paying for purchases online thanks to the music industry having gone through a lot of pain a few years ago as it went digital.

Some of the questions from the floor included

• is it readers who are driving the demand for connectedness or is it the technology?
• is fan fiction a type of connectedness?
• will this connectedness change the way that we think in future generations (deep thinking compared to new hyperlinked fed thinking)?
• while a story will remain at the heart of literature should there be other terms used to describe this type of work other than a book.

One of the things that the speakers touched on was that the reason we have a vibrant literary environment is that writing is accessible to the vast majority of people. At the very least all you need is a pencil and some paper, and that accessibility is not going to change in the immediate future!

So there you have it! I am already looking forward to next year's festival!

Weekend Cooking: Memorable Meals

Josie and Nico feast on mussels and fries. They lick their fingers, they toss shells into the bowl, they sop sauce with the hearty crusts of bread. When they are done the waitress brings a tangy green salad and a cheese plate, and more bread, this time filled with walnuts and cranberries.

From page 54 of French Lessons by Ellen Sussman

Reading this passage took me back in time. The year was 1997, I was living in Sheffield in the UK, and I was on a work social club trip that was visiting France and Belgium for the weekend. The main reason was to visit the Christmas markets in Antwerp but along the way we also visited some of the Commonwealth war grave sites (very emotional).

We were based in Lille for the weekend. One of the descriptions that I had read talked about Lille being an industrial city so I wasn't expecting much, but I had discounted the fact that this was France we are talking about and so was very pleasantly surprised at how pretty the town centre was, particularly compared to Sheffield!

I remember drinking gluwein as we wandered around the Christmas markets in Belgium, and buying a really groovy glass blown Christmas tree that you hung different coloured baubles on (I wonder what happened to that. Must have left it behind when I came home I think).

I clearly remember both dinners that we had in Lille, which is kind of strange given how long ago it is! One of them wasn't quite so good. We (the ex and I) went to a Moroccan place for dinner and the ex embarrassed me. Maybe that is why I remember it? We were looking at the menu and the waiter was talking to us in French and the ex says why can't he speak to me in English. Umm....because you are in France (there are many reasons why he is an ex!).

Better memories are of the other dinner. We wandered around the city and found a bistro type establishment.
It was as if that night, in Lille, was the perfect place to have a dinner of moules mariniere with pommes de frites and lots of bread. I have never really been tempted to try and recreate that meal at all!

It was a really cold night. Despite that we went on the ferris wheel that was in a town square and looked out over the city! All in all it was a good night - a night that lives on in my memories.

I thought I would share one more passage from this book (from page 160). I am not sure why so many of the passages that I share in Weekend Cooking that have a French flavour are about pastries! Just the way it is I guess.

"Will you buy me a pastry, monsieur?" Chantal asks, and that's the first stall they come to, a baker's table, with pastries laid out in delectable rows - croissants, brioches, pains aux amandes, pains au chocolat, eclairs, palmiers.

"What would you like?" he asks, turning to Chantal. It feels surprisingly intimate, this simple act.

She looks for a moment and then points.

"Deux palmiers s'il vous plait," he says to the baker. There is no hesitation in his voice - he doesn't sound like the tourist who's unsure if he's said it right. Usually when he speaks French, his voice is too soft and he is asked to repeat himself.. Simple, he thinks. It's just a question of confidence.

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads and is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs.

The Stella Prize launch

Tonight I went to the launch of The Stella Prize at Fed Square in Melbourne. You would be forgiven for asking what that might be but you wouldn't be alone as it is actually a new prize that has been announced with the plan being that the inaugural prize will be awarded next year.

Modelled after the successful Orange Prize in the UK, the Stella is an "annual literary prize for women It will raise the profile of women’s writing, and will reward one writer with a $50,000 prize. The shortlisted and winning books will be widely publicised and marketed in order to bring readers to the work of Australian women writers. In short, the Stella Prize will celebrate and recognise Australian women’s writing, encourage a future generation of women writers, and significantly increase the readership for books by women." (definition from The Stella Prize website). My understanding is that the prize is not restricted to fiction works, but I am not 100% sure about that as the word fiction was mentioned a few times tonight.

Like the Miles Franklin award, The Stella Prize is named after one of the most famous Australian authors - Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin - who wrote under the more masculine sounding Miles Franklin name and authored books like My Brilliant Career.

The driving factor behind the creation of this award at this point in time was the fact that this year, for the second year out the last three (2009 to 2011), there was no female author on the shortlist of the Miles Franklin award, which may not be the richest prize in Australian literature, but it is certainly right up there in terms of prestige.

If that was the only basis for creating an award, I would probably question the thinking. The key question for me is not so much so much why didn't any women make the shortlist, so much as did any of the books written by female authors deserve to make the shortlist? To be honest, I can't tell you one way or the other because I haven't actually read any of the long listed books in the two years concerned. The idea of which book is best is such a subjective thing anyway.

However, when you add this with the discussions that were held earlier in the year in relation to the lack of reviews of books by females in major publications, the lack of female reviewers in those same publications and the other statistics which show that even now women don't have equality, then there is obviously a need for a prize like this. And for me, that is the major key - is there equality? Not special treatment, not anything more - just equality. I also work in a sector (social and community services) where it has been confirmed that wages are lower than they should be and that a major reason for this is that the majority of the workers in that sector are female.

The differentiation between special treatment and equality is an emotive one. Just last weekend I had a discussion with someone I know who got quite riled up at the idea of needing a prize like this because in his opinion it seemed as though it is special treatment that women are looking for. And the thing is, this person is normally a mild-mannered bloke. If we can't convince reasonable, intelligent men like him that there are definitely still blatant inequalities then it is going to take a lot of convincing for society as a whole.

One of the things that is very interesting to me about the reviewer question is the fact that I would say that probably more than 95% of the reviews that I read online are by women. When I go to author events, the crowd is predominantly women. The statistics suggest that women read more, purchase more books etc etc. Will the importance of how many reviews by women or about women's books are written for the major newspapers diminish as the online world continues to expand. I can't remember the last time I read a review in a newspaper, or even on a newspaper website, mainly because they don't usually review the kind of books that I like to read!

But here's the major reason why I will be supporting the Stella prize when it is announced next year. Of all the major prizes (i.e. Booker, Pulitzer etc), the Orange Prize lists are the ones that I consistently find really enjoyable books on. If more of those books that I love to read get more recognition, and especially when those books are by Australian women I can't help but be excited at the prospect of the longlists and the shortlists being released. Who knows,. maybe some of the excellent genre fiction around might also make it onto one of these lists one day!

If you are interested, below is the speech that Sophie Cunningham, one of the women involved in creating The Stella Prize, gave recently at the Melbourne Writers Festival, talking about Why We Still Need Feminism. It makes for very interesting and challenging listening.





A special thanks to Lisa from ANZ Litlovers who invited me to attend the launch with her!

I've been typealyzed

The first day of spring (yay!) seems like as good a time as any to have some blog related fun!

The above is the result that I got when I added my URL to Typealyzer where it analyses what kind of writing it is that I do! In order to analyse, it looks at whatever posts you have showing on your blog. Given that at the moment I am showing my "woe is me" post from last week and memories of birthday cakes past I would say that the evidence on feeling is pretty much correct. Having said that the statements about avoiding conflicts and confrontation are totally true!

Here are my results:

ESFP - The Performers
The entertaining and friendly type. They are especially attuned to pleasure and beauty and like to fill their surroundings with soft fabrics, bright colors and sweet smells. They live in the present moment and don´t like to plan ahead - they are always in risk of exhausting themselves.
The enjoy work that makes them able to help other people in a concrete and visible way. They tend to avoid conflicts and rarely initiate confrontation - qualities that can make it hard for them in management positions.

Thanks to Kerrie from Mysteries in Paradise who posted after she was typealyzed!

Readers Imbibing Peril VI

For the Northern Hemisphere peeps summer is coming to an end, fall is about to set in and so the mind of Carl from Stainless Steel Droppings turns to the creepy, gothic and mysterious and he announces the annual Readers Imbibing Peril challenge (RIP for short). For us, today is the first day of spring and so we should in theory be thinking of sunshine and warmth coming our way! Luckily for me I am not a seasonal reader and therefore I can still join in on the spooky fun!

The purpose of the R.I.P. Challenge is to enjoy books that could be classified as:

Mystery.
Suspense.
Thriller.
Dark Fantasy.
Gothic.
Horror. Supernatural.

and there are a number of different perils that you can participate in.

I am planning on participating in Peril of the Short Story as I have at least three different short story books sitting on my shelves at the moment that might fit this collection.

This year there are going to be three readalongs - Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman, Storm Front by Jim Butcher and The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson. I am definitely participating in the first and the last and I am a strong maybe for the second book! You can find out all the details of the various readalongs here.

Finally, I will also be undertaking Peril the First - read 4 books that you feel meet the RIP criteria

My possible reads include but is not limited to:

White Time by Margo Lanagan
Out of the Deep I Cry by Julia Spencer-Fleming
Tail of the Blue Bird by Nii Ayikwei Parkes
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Vaughan
Awakened by Kristin Cast and PC Cast
The Legacy by Katherine Webb
Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
The Lantern by Deborah Lawrenson
Zombies vs Unicorns anthology
Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris