Turns out I *have* read The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, but it was so long ago that I've forgotten the details. Doesn't matter, she's such a pleasure to read every time.
Just finished The Children's Bach by Helen Garner, after everyone telling me for years to read it. I found it at the Federation Square book stalls, started it at Melbourne Airport and read most of it waiting for my delayed plane and during the flight, then lost it unpacking and only finished it yesterday morning. It is wonderful, you were all right. The sheet-folding scene on pp. 56-7 of my 1985 McPhee Gribble Penguin edition is so close to Rosemary Dobson's poem 'Folding the Sheets' that I am at a loss to know which came first, the dates of origin being very close. (They are good friends: I have often read postcards from HG to RD and helped RD to write letters to HG. I've never met HG.) I was quite startled when I found it.
I also finished Sophie Cunningham's Melbourne. I borrowed it from a friend, but I'm going to need my own copy. My copy of Kerryn Goldsworthy's Adelaide should be arriving any day now, requested from my mother-in-law as a birthday gift (she doesn't accept 'don't buy me anything, oh maybe just a voucher' as a response, I have to name a title). I can't wait to read it.
Is that the time? I meant to get out of bed at 9, it's now 11.20. Better do something useful with the day; I printed last night until midnight in my uggboots -- such a luxury to have the house to myself! And the cats, of course. They're all over the bed right now. I slept in my big King-size bed last night squished up between two big furry animals... might as well have had the whole family in there, the amount of room I got.
*happy*
{ahem... I do miss the boys, of course.}
4 comments:
and of course I totally believe your last statement duckie....
Oh I love the idea of *Adelaide* being a birthday present!
Re The Children's Bach, my mother read it back in the late 80s when my parents were staying with me in Melbourne. I came into the living room and found her crying over the end. Thought it might be something to do with her own persona as a Housework Goddess (she would have reacted to disorder exactly the same way), but no: 'Oh, poor Athena!' she said.
Your mum sounds lovely. I had the same reaction, but with brow-knitting, not tears!
A Helen Garner I haven't read. Thanks for the recommendation - I will have to hunt it out and add it to the piles.
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