This will hurt me...

I'm not certain that it's still on the market. Macquarie Street, South Hobart. January 2013. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , Robert Louis Stevenson: Madness! A nice exploration of Victorian social hypocrisy with the dichotomy of outward respectability and inward lust. I also enjoy the fact that I am reading a book by the same author as Henry. B . The Glass Key , Dashiell Hammett: An enjoyable romp with convoluted set up and a sufficiently colourful cast of rapscallions, brigands and ne'er-do-wells. Not Hammett's finest writing though. Really, any time a character says something "carelessly" "cautiously" or "callously" nine times on a page, time to get a new editor! B .

Waiting at the lights, Cnr Harrington and Macquarie Streets, Hobart. September 2012. Three books this week, and a real mix to boot! The Alchemist , by Paulo Coelho: This book has apparently sold more than 65 million copies (which puts in the top 15 in sales accoring the the lists I've seen). It has been translated into 169 languages, which makes it the most translated book by a living author. Millions of people have described it as wondrous , life-changing , and unique . I have a few words myself: trite , banal , self-important and mediocre . F . Four Stories , by Alan Bennett: A collection of four of Alan Bennett's most famous, most admired [long] short stories. All very good, Bennett has a great ear for dialogue and his capacity to shift from the filthy and hilarious to heartbreaking in a paragraph amazes me. B+ . Age of Iron by Nobel Prize winner J. M. Coetzee: Another fantastic novel that draws together themes of aging, confession, death, freedom, all framed w...

Two buildings side by side. The corner of Macquarie and Harrington Streets, Hobart. January 2012. Tuesday Q and A and I continue to steal questions from Sunday Stealing. This week I am stealing The Never Ending Meme, Part Two . 21. Did you go to your high school prom? I went to my year 10 school ball. I wore a suit. Does that count? 22. Perfect time to wake up? Around 5:30 am is good. 23. Perfect time to go to bed? When it gets dark. 24. Do you use your queen right away in chess? No, I stick to the prawns early on. 25. Ever been in a car accident? Just the odd car through a fence. No broken windscreens of anything like that. 26. Closer to mum or dad… or neither? I moved to the other end of the island. 27. What age is this exciting life over for you? I’m not sure I understand the question. I think that I will say ‘29’. 28. What decade during the 20th century would you have chosen to be a teenager? The 1990s was probably as good as any. 29. Favourite shoes you have EVER owned? There has...

Sacred Ground? St David's Cathedral, Macquarie Street, Hobart. December 2011. With the year rapidly coming to a close, I am currently sitting on 96 books read (not counting The first book - History in Practice by Ludmilla Jordanova - is a bit of a deviation from this year’s usual reading list, but I ran out of library books and resorted to digging in the cupboard for something to read. This is firmly in the ‘academic history’ camp, so will not be for everyone’s tastes. However, if you are a bit of a history buff you will surely find something worthwhile. Jordanova explores how the study of history has dramatically altered in recent decades. She does an able job at exploring what historians do, and in particular, why and how there have been such sweeping changes to the discipline. I’d happily recommend it to anyone with an interest in the topic. Second up today is Giovanni's Room , James Baldwin's second novel. Typically described as a “homosexual novel”, I think that the m...

Three Confessions, one Exposition, a couple of Benedictions and no, I don't want any Baptisms with that. St Josephs Catholic Church, Macquarie Street, Hobart. November 2011. The Internet is a wonderful place filled with the rich and varied treasures of the world holds (and My Little Pony porn). The following are some things that I've had a look at in the last week. I call this: a Compendium of Click-throughs for Monday Morning... Ever wonder why one in four women is on psych meds ? Ear stretching: Why is lobe 'gauging' growing in popularity ? Want to fight the man? How about you join in to the latest in trending memes: Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop ... The pill’s 50th anniversary: do we have freer sex and better managed fertility? Jürgen Habermas has had enough. He's going to save the EU or die trying! The BBC want to know just why are so many Poms leaving Australia ? Right here, near the end of 2011, it seems a good time to ask ourselves: where are women at ...

Things happen here. Macquarie Street, Hobart. November 2011. Another day, another [two] birthday parties... Meeting in a Lift , Vladimir Holan We stepped into the lift. The two of us, alone We looked at each other and that was all. Two lives, a moment, fullness, bliss. At the fifth floor she got out and I went on up knowing I would never see her again, that it was a meeting once and for all, that if I followed her I would be like a dead man in her tracks and that if she came back to me it would only be from the other world.

A grey old morning. (Just off) the corner of Macquarie and Elizabeth Streets, Hobart. December 2010. Christmas comes but once a year…? Thank Christ for that. There are a few things about Christmas that I don’t mind: giving presents, a few days off, some quality time in the kitchen, a cauldron of chocolate mousse. Regrettably, these are vastly outweighed by the things I loathe: tinsel , phony goodwill, the remorseless desire for material goods, the prevalence of fat guys in red suits with Rangifer tarandus sprinkled with snow despite the unmistakable fact that we here at the arse end of the world are in the middle of summer and you have as much likelihood of spotting a Thylacinus cynocephalus making love with a Raphus cucullatus to the tune of Mental as Anything’s Berserk Warriors than that hackneyed old scene. It’s about time that us here in the Antipodes start seizing the initiative and make up our own bunch of nonsense set of traditions to ram down the throats of everyone until...