Blog Archive

1 February 2019

Already into February! It doesn't feel like we have gotten started yet, this year. WaywardWoman is back from Europe but is very busy at work right now. Toriaz has finished a second novel but has also been equally busy. NickoHeap is trying to read and review more this year - he's onto his third book now - but he will find it hard when he returns to university. And as for me, I just finished Edward Carey's Little tonight and I've made a start on a review, but it's late and it will have to wait until tomorrow morning.

17 February 2019

Today I finally made it across the halfway point in my reading of The Federalist Papers, with Federalist 43. There are 85 in total. My reading began just over a year ago on 6 February 2018. I originally thought I would have the whole thing complete in a few months, but the project has become one of those things I return to when I have the time. You can access the contents of my summaries of the papers by clicking on the image.

My interest in the Federalist Papers was first piqued when I read Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton. I became interested in that book after my son introduced me to Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical based on Chernow's book

19 February 2019

This week NickoHeap, our occasional reviewer who has picked up the slack from WaywardWoman while she was in Europe last month, began a podcast on YouTube with some of his friends from high school. The podcast is called Eyebrow Razor and so far a pilot episode has been uploaded. I'm told the podcast will be dealing with various issues NickoHeap and his friends find relevant to their lives. The pilot podcast can be viewed by clicking the image below.

22 February 2019

I normally wouldn’t spruik a company or corporation on this website, but I felt the announcement from Big W here in Australia that they will be providing books to children free of charge over the next twelve weeks needed a little bit of a cheer. Sure, it makes them look like good corporate citizens which is a form of marketing in itself, but maybe that sort of self-interest from other companies would be a net benefit to the community. Big W’s plan is that they will release a new book each week free of charge. They are making millions available. And how do you access these free books? Are they available with a purchase? No, you just go to the front of the store and take one. That’s it. They state in their website, which I reproduce here in case the link later disappears:

The connection between access to books and the child’s future success and wellbeing is very well established. Research indicates that just 10 minutes of reading time a day can expose a young child to over 600,000 words in just one year, positively impacting childhood literacy.

It’s difficult to get kids to read in the digital age, so I hope their efforts are well appreciated and that we see more large companies investing children's futures.