Category Archives: Reading

Happy New Year

Well. Here we are. Gently tiptoeing into 2023. Or, perhaps, you have never gently tiptoed anywhere and are striding forward with confidence. Whichever way, hello, we are here and the year will unfold as it will.

I am back at my desk today after an extended summer break. It’s lovely to be here again with the teapot my mum gifted me, the Totoro mug bought on a family trip to Japan, the piles of notebooks filled with scribbled thoughts. And looking out onto our familiar street, a flowering frangipani and the roses.

I’m struggling to settle though. I wonder if you are? It’s not that I have nothing to work on but rather that I am looking for a way in. I want to revisit my WIP that has returned to my inbox. For the first time with any manuscript, I resorted to sending it to two trusted readers knowing some major things were not yet quite right. It’s a big story with big themes and I want to do the best job I can. I’m still learning to drill down. I’m impatient to be better. And, at the same time, I know that perfection exists only in moments of experience, so how about cutting myself some slack?!

At least, I have started the year with two non-fiction reads that are helping me do just that!

In December, I spent some time in the art galleries and museums of our national capital and came across a little book in one of the gallery shops called WABI SABI: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life. The author, Beth Kempton, writes wisely about how beauty lies in imperfection, impermanence and incompletion. It’s a wonderful read for anyone who wonders about this. Also, in my ongoing quest to understand why humans behave the way we do, I’m finally working my way through Bessel van der Kolk’s seminal work The Body Keeps the Score. It is an excellent reminder of both the limits and power of our own abilities. And, at times, hurts my heart as I feel for my veteran father surviving with PTSD at a time when such a diagnosis did not yet exist. And for my mother and we kids who survived it too.

As for fiction, I have already devoured Jane Harper’s latest, Exiles, and adored it. A new favourite along with The Lost Man which, for some reason, I prefer to The Dry. My husband and I also did a deep dive into D.H. Lawrence after inspiration from the new movie. LOL that sounds a little blinkety blink where are you going here, Annie?! But it was merely that we found the novel form of Lady Chatterley’s Lover at a home we stayed in recently and were intrigued by the layers to be found in it that were not conveyed in the film. Lawrence’s acerbic observations of class and gender had us snorting on the couch. And disagreeing with much from our enlightened 100-years-later viewpoint – but fascinated and reading up on what is known of Lawrence.

All in all, a thoughtful start to the new year and one that I hope will bring new depth and bravery to my writing. I continue to practise yoga daily with gratitude that I find this possible and an understanding that I may yet falter before it becomes a lifelong habit! Kindness to myself, you see! I am grateful also to you for being here to read these brief ponderings, for being a willing and forgiving audience as I warm up for the big writing tasks ahead!

I will gather myself now and be brave! And I send you all bravery as you tackle your tasks for the year. May 2023 bring much happiness and bring the world to a more peaceful place.

The Books That Make Us

Dear friends, old and new

It’s cycled around to the first day of the month again and I am still in this wonderful space where I’m waiting to hear back from publishers. It’s as if I am poised, teetering, on the edge of so much possibility and it’s not such a bad place to be. It’s statistically likely that I will need to pick myself up from disappointment, but that knowledge still loiters around the corner, so for now let’s bounce onward – by going backward! Back to our younger selves.

I’ve been listening to a lot of online wisdom lately. Many festivals and workshops have gone digital for the obvious (hint Covid..well that 19 is misleading, huh?) reasons, and I’ve been able to listen to talks given in NSW in the morning and Queensland in the afternoon, all without leaving my home in WA. It’s a silver lining to what is a tough time for many. These talks, and several social media chats I’ve had recently, have reminded me what a shortcut to friendship-land it can be when you find someone who liked the same books as you as a child. 

If you’re a parent, perhaps, like me, you’ve been befuddled by the reading habits of your children. My daughter often has multiple books on the go at once, a concept that nearly makes me break out in hives. Is it her early exposure to modern tech that allows her to keep several storylines running in her head at once? Or is that something other people in older generations could do too – just not me? Meanwhile, my son prefers to read the same books over and over. This worried me for a while, until I thought about how many times I read my favourite series when I was younger. Those of you who know me well, or knew me way back when, will immediately know I’m referring to that series so many of us bookish types found comfort in: Anne of Green Gables. 

My mother worked in the library at my primary school, and I can still remember the sage green, hard-backed copy of Anne that I first discovered there. It had black and white photos in it of a movie version that I have never seen. I’ve never seen that edition since. I loved that book. I read it and the entire series over and over again. I caused my moustachioed Grade Four teacher some concern when he found me weeping in class over Matthew’s death…which taught me not to read books under the desk…and I still remember that Anne’s son (Walter)’s dog howled when he died, away at the front. Luckily, I was at home for that one. But, most of all, I remember that Anne loved words and names and making happiness out of sadness. Something little me liked too. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Gilbert was in there as well. The kind of hero I could respect. He liked smart, loud Anne , something that girls of my generation, and perhaps my particular persuasion, needed to hear.

There were other books too, many of them, but none ever took the place of the Anne series in my heart. I haven’t read them for ages, I think because I almost know them too well and there are no surprises left. But they have left an imprint on my soul, so much so that when another claims a similar love, my warm feeling of Hello! A kindred spirit! has to fight with an instinctual bristling of What? No! Excuse me, I’m sure you didn’t love Anne like I loved Anne! Oh, you did?!

And, of course, that is the thing about books. They belong to no one, not even the author really. They arrive to patch us up or fill us up or inspire us. And at the same time, they may be patching up or filling up millions of other people. It’s humbling and delightful. 

If you have time and inclination, tell me about the books that made you.