TWANG!

One of the rubber bands in my left knee went TWANG! this morning. (I’m assuming there are rubber bands in there; also cogs, kapok stuffing and bits of lego.) Am home with frozen chicken breast applied thereupon. Vigorous day of thumb-twiddling planned.

But haven’t you been wondering what I’ve been reading? Remember my stroppy rant a while back about having nothing to read? Since then I’ve been plodding through wholesome and self-improvey Bill and Janet while having brief, torrid affairs with other more exciting tomes. Bill and Janet understand that it’s an open relationship and they’re fine with sharing the real estate on the bedside table.

While we were in Bundaberg (pre-flood, and thanks, the Curmudgeon’s family are all fine) I tore through Cloudstreet again. I’d forgotten how much I loved that book. On the ABC Book Club you can see eloquent people gushing about it more eloquently than I could manage.

I snapped up When we think about Melbourne from the new book shelf of the library.

This is a love letter to my city. When people ask if I’m from Melbourne, I have a standard line – that my birth certificate states Fitzroy as my place of birth and you don’t get much more Melbourne than that. I’m also the mongrel child of migrants from quite different places… also quite a Melbourney set-up. Other than a two-year stint in the USA and a couple of shorter-term trips, I’ve lived within two maps of the Melways (with an S) my whole life. I share Jenny Sinclair’s outlook and spent much of the book nodding and sighing. She roams around her affection for this town and pokes at it from lots of different angles, many of them quite surprising.

The last in the recent trio of reads is Stephen Fry’s second autobiography, The Fry Chronicles. (Thanks for the birthday present, Ma! It’s coming your way next…) I’ve loved Mr Fry since I was a teenager and I’ve read his first autobiography, Moab is my Washpot, oodles of times. The second one is not as much fun simply because I relate more to young Stephen obsessed with lollies than I do grown-up Stephen with a classic car collection and stories about telly and stage producers who he claims are very famous and powerful but I wouldn’t know from a bar of soap. That said, he spins an excellent yarn, he uses lots of big and funny words, and is as likeable as ever. I just wish he’d accept that he’s likeable and we all like him. The self-loathing, apologies and hand-wringing get a bit wearisome. Just look at what a delightful and beautiful young thing he was (the Shakespeare Masterclass sketch kicks in at nearly 2 minutes)..

It’s raining bugs… but there’s a book drought

The flea bomb is working… now and then we find a bug in its death throes. Sadly, many of these bugs are innocent of heinous clothes-eating crimes. I’m terribly sorry that our friendly spider population is collateral damage. Vale, daddy-long-legses.

While at Ma’s house, I plucked a novel from her shelf for a quick holiday read – Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult. It made me cranky after a hundred pages or so because it was so formulaic. I read ahead, and lo, an amazing twist right at the end, who’d have expected it. Astonishing. The inevitable coupling of the two attractive, competent, single characters introduced at the start was the last straw and I flung the book on the table. Mild treatment really, considering my well-established proclivity to toss pulp fiction across the room in disgust.

Ma, in her wisdom, pointed out that if I knew what sort of book it was, why did I start reading it? Good point. And, she noted, I do an awful lot of complaining but what was the last book I read that I actually liked? Gooder point. I couldn’t remember.

So, livebirdians, I’m looking for recommendations. A novel. Or two. That won’t make me howl and roll my eyes. That doesn’t have the author’s name in gold uppercase type larger than the book’s title. That wasn’t written to a formula.

How do you find good books? Whose opinion do you listen to? Book clubs on the telly? Reviews in the paper? Book blogs? Your favourite librarian or fiction vendor? Do tell.