Skip to main content

A sure sign of a good book is that you like it more the older you get.


Two photos featuring moi in less than a week, what a lucky lot you are! This here is a self portrait taken a couple of days ago as I traipsed into work, reflecting upon the dreary world of the wage slave and went about imagining a far more interesting existence, as is my wont these days.

This is notion of self reflection and imagination leads me to today’s Theme Thursday theme, one close to my heart: the blessed Library.

Now come on, give me a chance, the segue is not as tenuous as you might think. As I have noted time and time again of this very blog, my entire family – even dear little Ezra – is equipped with a well worn library card.

Not a week goes by when we’re not returning back twenty or so books to our local branch, only to ferry twenty or so more home. It’s a pleasure you see. As you can see in my sidebar, I’ve just about finished Towards the End of the Morning by Michael Frayn. It’s a clever little satire detailing the struggle against encroaching entropy of a few individuals who feel their lives and careers have stalled, with most of their day is spent complaining about work and dreaming of better things. Sound familiar?

I’ve no idea why I chose to read it when I did, and have enjoyed it immensely, despite its slightly depressing atmosphere. That’s the beauty of a library though; you can just pick a book up, give it a go, and if you don’t like it, pick up another one!

It is even easier given the Tasmanian library system these days. You can browse online, put in your card number, and stick in an order from any of the library stock. It doesn’t matter if the book (or DVD, CD, magazine, audiobooks etc) is in Rosny, Burnie or even King Island, if you click the Place Hold Now buttons, Bob’s your uncle! If it isn’t already on loan, they ship it to my local library (Rosny) within 5 days. If it is on loan, it tells you how long the queue to wait is, and notifies you by e-mail when you can come in and pick it up.

I do a lot of work advertising the Tasmanian library system.

So don’t talk to be about libraries. I know libraries.

For the record, presently I have Alas, Babylon; When the Wind Blows; Dogs; History of the Present; If This is a Man; The Magic Lantern: the revolution of '89 witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague; On the Moon; Grug and his Kite; Baby Brother; and Maisy's First Flap Book in my “Holds” queue.

Comments

Miles McClagan said…
This is bad! Not the post obviously, but that the theme is libraries! If if it was bookmobiles, I'd clean up Penguin style...

That bookmobile bus got us through some tough times...
Babzy.B said…
i like your self portrait , give space for imagination !
Anonymous said…
You should turn out to be a brilliant photographer. I really like this shot. It says a lot about you. And I like your shoes too.

Abraham Lincoln
Brookville Daily Photo
G. B. Miller said…
I love libraries. Spent all my childhood roaming and reading in one and currently spend my adulthood roaming and reading through the same.

Great way to get ideas for stories as well.

Still jealous about the weather you currently got though.
kylie said…
abe lincoln,
what does the shot say about him?
Tess Kincaid said…
Wonderful photo and post! Thank you.
Layrayski said…
Very nice libraries you have there. Sigh.

Cool reflection pose =)
Colette Amelia said…
I think you are very wise to be using the library. I wish I had done so more when the kids were little instead of buying.

Many of the books I bought with the best intentions...good to instill a love of reading in your kids and all... well many were not read or hardly read and holy cow what a lot of moola!

Not only that but having to pack them and move them and then store them when the kids got big was a little crazy. I am glad they are going to good use now though!

Good idea to get those kids their own library card. They feel so responsible and the fines are cheaper...well at least over here.
Anonymous said…
It's good that you can do work for something you care so much about. And twenty books a week for the lot of you!

Our library too,is on the 'net with a similar set-up, state-wide. But I don't mind the walk :)
Cuppa Jo said…
I think we can do that here too, go online and check out a book, from any library. But instead they ship it to the closest library and you have to pick it up yourself. I tend to need instant gratification when I want to read a book, so if it's not at the library, I go to the bookstore.
Dot-Com said…
Cool self portrait :-)
tut-tut said…
Very nice self-portrait. I'm glad you're a champion of libraries there. Have you read Michael Frayn's Headlong?
KL said…
Oh! yes books :-D...that's the only shopping I really like to do, that is book-buying. Can spend hours after hours looking, reading, feeling, touching, smelling, buying books :-). I often wonder if it is ever possible to find how many books exactly exist on earth at any one particular time!!
Ed & Jeanne said…
I think I would relate to that book you picked up. A lot of people probably would.
Kris McCracken said…
Miles, we never had the bookmobile in Burnie. We did however have a "shopmobile" which was like a corner store located in an old bus that used to come to Shorewell every two weeks or so.

I remember going in there, but honestly can't remember ever buying anything in the shopmobile...
Kris McCracken said…
Babzy, I'm all for imagination!
Kris McCracken said…
Abe, it's the thing that I like about digital. The ability to try a million possible things with little cost. A lot of the time experiments don't work, and I like to experiment! Back when I had to purchase film and expend time in the dark room, it was a little more difficult to let fly (maybe it would be different if you had the equipment at home though).
Kris McCracken said…
Georgie, the weather is always a case of swings and roundabouts!
Kris McCracken said…
Kylie, I'm pretty sure that it says that I'm a class act...
Kris McCracken said…
Willow, no problem!
Kris McCracken said…
Layrayski, does the sigh mean that your library is not so good?
Kris McCracken said…
Colette, the lending times are longer for the kids, and I don't even think they fine them either, so it is good in that regard.

We still buy them both books, but the library allows us to get them hundreds a year, which you'd never be able to afford if you were just buying them.
Kris McCracken said…
Subtorp 77, well, of the twenty, 18 are generally picture books, so it's maybe not THAT impressive.

Henry now demands a minimum of four before bed, so you need plenty!
Kris McCracken said…
Cuppa Jo, I used to buy a lot of books, but have cut back and utilised the library now that they've made it easier to use.
Kris McCracken said…
Dot-com, I'm glad you think so.
Kris McCracken said…
Tut tut, the only Michael Frayn I'd experienced was the BCC version of Copenhagen. I'd also like to see Democracy too (the one about Willy Brandt).

I'd not read his novels, and honestly can't remember why I cose to read it. I must have had someone recommend it in the past or something.
Kris McCracken said…
KL, books are a whole world in your hand.
Kris McCracken said…
VE, it's well worth a read. Initially I feared that it wouldn't have aged well (it was written in 1967), but the story is universal. It certainly spoke to me, anyway!
Megan said…
My nephew only gets three. I'm going to have to tell him to step up his demands!

Nice photo, btw...
Kris McCracken said…
Megan, tell him to pull his finger out!
Baino said…
God I wish I could go to work in shorts and runners! Although I reckon browsing online isn't quite as nice as thumbing through the fiction section and pulling something out by chance.
Kris McCracken said…
Baino, I subscribe to the maxim do it and see if anyone stops you. I met with a government minister on Tuesday and just had the shorts and sneakers on (I was wearing a shirt though, as I normally do). I always try to be “neat casual”, rather than “slovenly”, but thus far, no one has said “hey you can’t do that”.

I figure that people would judge others on the quality of their work and the force of their arguments rather than their outfit.

That said, I did get Jen to drop in the suit the last time the TV crew wanted to interview me!

I have never, and never will, wear a necktie. A fundamentally stupid and offensive item of clothing!
Kelsey said…
don't you love the online library systems? They make our lives so much easier don't they?

I absolutely love the show Dexter, I'm assuming you've seen it.. hehe.

The book is awesome! I finished it tonight, too scared out of my wits to walk to my car.. so I did a bit of skip/look-around-make-sure-no-one is-tailing-you-with-a-knife/walking.

I think that each character was cast perfectly, and that is coming from someone who usually disliked TV adaptations so...

pick it up!!!

:) Thanks for visiting,

Kels
Tom said…
Our kids loved library time and being read to as well, and even now i like sharing books with them...which is good because i have nothing bookwise in common with my wife. Your self portrait is interesting--i wonder what your blob-like reflection says about you?
CocoDivaDog said…
Your sons are adorable.
They're lucky to have you as a role model for future literacy.
lettuce said…
well i don't know...
some books i've liked, then been less keen on, then got back to liking again

maybe i'm just fickle
Kris McCracken said…
Kelsey, Jen is the Dexter addict around the house. Mind you, it gives her the frights though, she makes me get up and lock the door because she can't sleep.
Kris McCracken said…
Runmotman, are you implying that I am a blob?
Kris McCracken said…
Auntie, I've created a reading monster in Henry though, he never wants to stop.
Kris McCracken said…
Lettuce, there are a few books that I used to like, but now think are pretty poorly written (I'm looking at you Jack Kerouac), I guess the ones that I didn't like first time around I haven't gone back to!
tony said…
Talking about "the older you get" isnt it a strange thing re-reading a book years later.1 It's like your reading fresh& also remembering at the same time!
Kris McCracken said…
Tony, I will admit to not having re-read something since at least Henry was born. It's all been new stuff to me. I think that sometimes I am fearful that I will ruin the memory of how much I enjoyed something.
Unknown said…
As you can see, I am catching up on you and the family and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE your love of the library! You do know that both my husband and I are librarians??? We highly approve this post. It's wonderful to read such enthusiastic praise of our beloved libraries. Thank you Kris!
Kris McCracken said…
Thiên, librarians are among my favourite people. It's enough to make the bee-homicide small fry!

Popular posts from this blog

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.