This will hurt me...

Tree. St Davids Park, Hobart. December 2012. Sunday Top Five ? So, at the end of last year I set myself to goal of knocking over 75 books this year. Thus far, I've knocked over 104 and am hoping to get through a few more before the year is out. Which leads me to... My Top Five Rated Books That I've Read This Year! Of Mice and Men , John Steinbeck The Painter of Signs , R.K. Narayan Tortilla Flat , John Steinbeck Cannery Row , John Steinbeck The Sense of an Ending , Julian Barnes Property , Valerie Martin The Glass Canoe , David Ireland Bring Larks And Heroes , Thomas Keneally Life and Fate , Vasily Grossman The Lost Thoughts Of Soldiers , Delia Falconer An interesting mix, to be sure. Three Steinbeck novels, three from Australians, an Indian love story, Barnes' mediation on memory, an exploration of gender and slavery and a lost Soviet classic. If I had to pick one? Tricky. Very tricky. Gun to my head, I'll go with The Glass Canoe ...

Ezra at rest. Our front yard, Geilston Bay. November 2012. Theme Thursday . WHISPERS. From the Old English hwisperian . Itself from the Old High German hwispalōn . Similar to the Old Norse hvīsla . WHISPERS. Across time. WHISPERS.

Elves under trees. St Davids Park, Hobart. July 2012. Grass , brother. GRASS . Uh-huh. That's right. GRASS , Carl Sandburg ILE the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo, Shovel them under and let me work-- I am the grass; I cover all. And pile them high at Gettysburg And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. Shovel them under and let me work. Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor: What place is this? Where are we now? I am the grass. Let me work.

Sunrise over Howrah. Seen from Sandy Bay. July 2012. A little late today, but bear with me, I have the flu and stuff to do this morning. Two books finished this week. First up is Bring Larks and Heroes by Australian author Thomas Keneally. I haven’t read a lot of Keneally ( Schindler’s Ark and Gossip in the Forest being the other two), and this book is a good reason to further chastise myself for that fact. It’s a ripper! Stylistically, it’s worlds apart from my assumption of his approach. It brings to mind a more accessible Patrick White, with a keen sense of tragedy without ever weighing down the who enterprise. In it Keneally probably helped kick of an entire re-interpretation of Australian history: that of our past as a penal colony. It’s a brutal but beautiful book. Rich in history and imagery, the tensions in those first few years of colonisation at the remote ends of the Earth resonate with tension. Men vastly outnumber women. The Irish – both convicts and those pres...

The morning sun at the right angle can trick you into thinking that it is Autumn. Franklin Square, Hobart. June 2012. It's cold. So very, very cold. Long Distance I , by Tony Harrison Your bed's got two wrong sides. You life's all grouse. I let your phone-call take its dismal course: Ah can't stand it no more, this empty house! Carrots choke us wi'out your mam's white sauce! Them sweets you brought me, you can have 'em back. Ah'm diabetic now. Got all the facts. (The diabetes comes hard on the track of two coronaries and cataracts.) Ah've allus liked things sweet! But now ah push food down mi throat! Ah'd sooner do wi'out. And t'only reason now for beer 's to flush (so t'dietician said) mi kidneys out. When I come round, they'll be laid out, the sweets, Lifesavers, my father's New World treats, still in the big brown bag, and only bought rushing through JFK as a last thought.

Sunshine on my shoulder. Franklin Square. March 2012. Theme Thursday already and it seems clear that we have well and truley had a change of SEASON down here at the arse-end of the world ™. Unfortunately, we appear to have waived goodbye to Summer and are entering into the gloomier mornings of Autumn. I cannot be certain, but I suspect that the shift has triggered a dose of SEASONal affective disorder in the youngest member of the clan. The fact that he is three-years-old and a boy seems to rule out early-onset-menopause as the cause of his sudden cantankerous irritability. Everybody else in the house just seems flat, and I suspect that we won’t snap out of it until the leave shift to a raging red and golden yellow and start committing suicide.

The morning sun over Storm Bay. Calverts Beach, South Arm Peninsula. January 2012. Watery Wednesday today and we celebrate with a Watery Wednesday today and we celebrate with a shot of the lovely (slow rising) morning sun over the water as it starts to burn off the cloud. This one was taken down at Calverts Beach, and you can see Storm Bay out to the south of South Arm Peninsula. I understand that it got its name when Abel Tasman was forced by a storm to take his ships out to sea before they could anchor back in 1642. No storms on this morning though!

Hoe he'e nalu down south. Calverts Beach, January 2012. I thought that this Watery Wednesday I'd share an image that demonstrates just how much Hoe he'e nalu has taken Tasmania by storm. If you're not familiar with Hoe he'e nalu - or stand up paddle surfing for those of you who don't speak Hawaiian - it is an ancient form of surfing, and for a time was the preserve of surfing instructors to keep an eye on large groups of students. Now it seems that every bugger and his dog are in on it! Some claim that the Hoe he'e nalu craze can be explained by the ease with which beginners can master the art, and the excellent inner core workout that you get from all of that stand up paddling. However, I remain unconvinced by these explanations. My own theory is that in standing up, one’s legs and arms are not dingling and dangling in the water, tasty little treats for any passing Great White. Moreover, if you do happen to spot a roaming monster of the deep – which ...

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...

Roll up roll up roll up! The greatest show on Earth right here underneath the big top! Mayfair Plaza, Sandy Bay. July 2011. No, nothing at all like a circus. Actually, it really is a whole lot of phone calls, submissions, questions and (occasionally) answers. It almost makes one feel like a clown.

Lord won't you save me because I sure have sinned... St George's Anglican Battery Point, as seen from King Street Sandy Bay. July 2011. When I first moved down to Hobart I used to live directly opposite this church. It was lit up with spotlights all through the night and would ring its bells religiously every Sunday morning. ALL morning. Christ it was annoying.