What a hectic week!! From meetings to setting up a new Facebook page for work to guide dog help with Jay and taking my step-sister out for lunch. I have barely had time to stop and take stock of where I am going. I have taken time each evening to read and also downloaded some new books for my VRS.
Among those, and the one I chose to read first is:
A biography, Rebecca was a young woman living in an English coastal town when she first read George Eliot's book 'Middlemarch'. Re-reading it, she found that the novel offered her something that modern life and literature did not. The author leads readers into the life the book made for her and also retells the life of Eliot.
It is a talking book I am thoroughly enjoying and it may persuade me to read 'Middlemarch'.
I am still reading Susan Cutsforth's book about their annual pilgrimage to France from Australia to renovate their old farmhouse and to live the village life visiting flea markets, enjoying the cuisine and instilling the French lifestyle into their very being.
On the recommendation of the WLM Facebook page I purchased several books recently so need to get busy doing more reading on my kindle. Among the latest purchases are:
AN INSPRING TALE OF A VOLUNTEER TEACHER ABROAD!
Namibia is a country of intrigue and mystique. Many of the country’s regions are economically deprived, but rich with culture and tradition. For one year, Wes Weston lives and teaches out in the rural countryside. Water and electricity are intermittent, donkeys and livestock roam the school grounds, and the pace of life is almost at a standstill. But Weston learns invaluable lessons in this new environment, ultimately discovering that perhaps one person can’t change the world, but the world can certainly change one person.
Watermelon is Life is a lighthearted and humorous travelogue of a volunteer teacher in rural Namibia. It is the second book in the Do U English series, chronicling the educational misadventures of Wes Weston. Follow along with the extraordinary journey, as Weston attempts to teach the world. (less)
On the recommendation of a friend I also purchased:
An extraordinary insight into life under one of the world’s most ruthless and secretive dictatorships – and the story of one woman’s terrifying struggle to avoid capture/repatriation and guide her family to freedom.
As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal communist regime. Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and to realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life. Given the repression, poverty and starvation she witnessed surely her country could not be, as she had been told “the best on the planet”?
Aged seventeen, she decided to escape North Korea. She could not have imagined that it would be twelve years before she was reunited with her family.
She could not return, since rumours of her escape were spreading, and she and her family could incur the punishments of the government authorities – involving imprisonment, torture, and possible public execution. Hyeonseo instead remained in China and rapidly learned Chinese in an effort to adapt and survive. Twelve years and two lifetimes later, she would return to the North Korean border in a daring mission to spirit her mother and brother to South Korea, on one of the most arduous, costly and dangerous journeys imaginable.
This is the unique story not only of Hyeonseo’s escape from the darkness into the light, but also of her coming of age, education and the resolve she found to rebuild her life – not once, but twice – first in China, then in South Korea. Strong, brave and eloquent, this memoir is a triumph of her remarkable spirit. (less)
All the reading I am doing is giving me itchy feet again. I need to get out my travel planning journal and start doing some research. I have dreams of returning to Europe as well as exploring some places a little closer to New Zealand. Guided tours are so expensive I feel I still need to travel by the inexpensive options. I have several friends travelling at present and am quite envious of them.
Jay is much improved since his session with the guide dog instructor on Thursday, hopefully if I continue to take a back pack with a rug in it he will settle and allow me to enjoy the company of my friends over a hot chocolate.
I am hoping to get back to my writing today. Yesterday was spent pouring over writing websites, magazines, ideas and wondering why I always put it off, I am not getting any younger. I need to write with a voracity I have never done before and pour words onto pages every day. Wish me luck!
I finished 'Love by Deception' on Friday and wondered why this woman let so many useless men into her life. Did she have low self esteem, was she so gullible that her own self did not matter or was she just sex mad. I can totally understand one mistake, maybe two if on the rebound, but 4 men who controlled and abused her? I also wonder how they managed to move on so quickly to their next victim who would also be subjected to their lies and control. While she admits to writing this to assuage herself of these men and her experiences it does read a little like a self pity party.
Moving on, I trawled through the many books on my kindle and chose;
This very moving story of an American soldier suffering from PTSD and the dog who literally saved his life and sanity is wonderful, particularly as Tuesday looks so much like my Jay. I was very amused after reading the description of Tuesday's eyebrows going up and down in curiosity to watch Jay perform exactly the same movement while hoping I would feed him some popcorn. The internet and Facebook have several mentions of the credibility of this story. This may be so, but no one could be diagnosed with PTSD without interrogation and consultation with several doctors. I am glued to this story and am a bit disappointed that it is so fine today or I could have used the dreadful weather as an excuse to read.
Again I have been taken in by advertisements on the WLM page and bought two very interesting looking books this morning. They are;
This book consists of 12 short stories set in this beautiful city. The stories are spread over time and include a blind woman learning her way around Venice by feel, death, romance and lost spirit. It even has a cat!
This is the story of two IT technicians from Edinburgh who were made redundant and decided to move to Italy. This book chronicles their trials and tribulations and is apparently a really funny read. I am looking forward to starting it.
Last night both my dogs were constantly barking at something in the garden behind my rosemary bush and refused to come in. Further examination found a cat hissing and snarling at them. Having forced both dogs to come in I pulled the curtains and assumed they had given up. During the evening the rain forced the cat, or perhaps it was just a kitten, to move into Chocolat's kennel. After saving it from my dogs I gather it slept the night there as it was still in the kennel this morning. Jay's barking inside annoyed me so much I picked up the cat and took it out onto the drive. I discovered it had a bell on it so assume it had just got lost trying to get home. I hope it stays away tonight.
Somehow I lost everything I had written by clicking on a key which took me to some type of editing page. Very frustrating. Last time this happened I found the draft later but cannot even find the draft button this time.
I cannot believe that it has been a week since I posted, where has the first week of my holidays gone!
Yesterday we had the first WLM meet up here in New Zealand. Zoe from Auckland came down and we had a lovely time at the Hamilton Gardens although it was very cold! Great to be able to talk about books and to learn more about a member.
I gave up reading 'The Rehearsal' by Elinor Catton, I could not follow the story and could not remember what had happened when listening to the book the previous night. After deleting it I decided to read;
I am having a bit of difficulty accessing this book as it is the third in a series and I have not read the other two. The search for the holy grail has been going on for centuries so this is one version, set in the Middle ages.
I finished 'French Illusions' on my kindle and am now reading;
As the sub-title suggests this is a very harrowing story of one woman's choice of men. Despite her insistence that she could not physically leave I find it difficult to believe that a vivacious outgoing women who travelled widely, therefore had her passport, could not leave by disappearing into another country. I know the feeling of being unable to leave a marriage but had no means of escape unless aided by others. It will be interesting to see what excuses she uses as to her ongoing choice of men.
