Next to a circus there ain't nothing that packs up and tears out faster than the Christmas spirit.

Very little action at the bus stop. Campbell Street, Hobart. December 2010.

Boxing Day? BAH! The Easter eggs will be out soon.

This year - excluding picture books - I've read eighty-five books! Jen guessed at sixty, I was thinking seventy, so eighty-five is a sounf tally that leaves me a good selection for today's Sunday Top Five: My Top Five Books That I've Read This Year! Bear in mind that these are books I've read and enjoyed this year, not books released this year. Let's see if this year's crop can top last year...

Fatelessness by Imre Kertész

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

Popular Music from Vittula by Mikael Niemi

The Restraint of Beasts by Magnus Mills

Just missing the cut, and again in chronological order (in terms of my reading it): The Quiet American, Graham Greene; Closely observed trains, Bohumil Hrabal; Mercedes-Benz, Pawel Huelle; The Middle Parts of Fortune, Frederic Manning; The End of the Affair, Graham Greene; The Millstone, Margaret Drabble; Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, Alan Sillitoe; The Ice Palace, Tarjei Vesaas; A Kind of Loving, Stan Barstow; A Season in Sinji, J.L. Carr; and An Artist of the Floating World, Kazuo Ishiguro.

I'd happily recommend all of these. What are you waiting for?

Comments

Sue said…

Books given to Cody and Zac for Christmas 2010:

*Gorgias by Plato

*Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle

*Here On Earth: An Argument For Hope by Tim Flannery

*Weather Makers: Our Changing Climate And What It Means For Life On Earth by Tim Flannery

*Junky by William S. Burroughs

*Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis

*Life by Keith (Keef) Richards

*Tasmania - Lonely Planet Guide

*The Australian Road Atlas 2011

*RACV Tourist Park Guide

* Australian Bush Cooking by Cathy Savage

*An Explorer's Notebook by Tim Flannery

Guaranteed to keep 'em quiet for a while.

27 December 2010 at 12:36

smudgeon said…

85? My word. I think I managed 15 at most. Which does make a top 5 list a pretty easy exercise...

28 December 2010 at 09:07

Kris McCracken said…

Sue, lots to read there. Needs more Joseph Heller.

Me, I haven't watched a movie that doesn't involved animation for a good few years though...

28 December 2010 at 20:55

Sue said…

Only ever read Catch-22. A very, very long time ago.

28 December 2010 at 23:29

Kris McCracken said…

It should be read every six (6) years.

30 December 2010 at 13:06

Lost inside an adorable illusion and I cannot hide, I'm the one you're using, please don't push me aside, we could've made it cruising, yeah.

Yes it is Theme Thusday again, and today we are talking GLASS . I've three possible hooks to hang my [glass] hat on with this theme. First, the photo! Yes, it is the river again from an odd angle in an interesting light. You can just make out the bottom, which should tell you that I'm right on the shore. In some ways, the distortion of the stones below the surface reminds me of ye olde glass windows, what they call "cylinder blown sheet glass". You can still find some of this around Hobart these days. Thw second link comes from a trip I took to Venice a few years back. You're probably aware that Venice was (is?) a glass-making centre of excellence. If you have ever been there and taken the tour of the glass factories, you might be familiar with the sheer amount of coloured glass that sits at the bottom of the water there. These fragments of glass have been worn down and had their edges dulled by their time in the water, which makes them ample keepsakes for the ...

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

Happy anniversary baby, got you on my mind

No it is not a webcam, but this photograph was taken a mere forty-five ago on my way in to work. Here you can see a good old fashioned Hobart autumn morning, with the rain pelting down and me getting drenched. This one was taken on the corner of Macquarie and Elizabeth, while I was waiting for the lights to change. Come on Ampelmännchen ! Today is my wedding anniversary, an apparently I need to be showering Jen with leather -related goodies. Va-va-vaVOOM! To you Jennifer, here is a poem I wrote this very morning. Anniversary I love you i love you iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou I LOVE you I love YOU iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou I LOVE YOU iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou Happy anniversary

This will hurt me...

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