Blog Archive
September 2024
2 September 2024
Making a Reading Nook
I should have been writing a review today but there are too many other things to do. I’ve been creating a reading nook down the end of our backyard!
In fact, time has been in short supply for all of us in the last few months. Jenny and I have been preparing a deceased estate for sale since late May, and doing that led to a re-evaluation of what we were storing at home, and why. (Also, my time remains limited for working on the Reading Project!)
The fact is, it’s hard to let go of things sometimes. I don’t think this is merely an acquisitive compulsion. Things like the dining suite we bought for more money than we thought we could afford when we first got married speaks to our early aspirations. But now we were merely storing it, along with a large office desk, office chairs, and a host of other things that we were drifting away from. We’d put our prized dining room suite down the cubby when we decided to renovate our kitchen a couple of years ago. We had to move another dining suite out of the kitchen where we mostly ate, and the dining table and chairs in the dining room was moved to storage into the cubby. One of its pedestals had broken – we don’t know how – as had the back of one of the chairs.
The cubby had originally been built as a play area down the end of our backyard when our boys were very young. Rather than a traditional cubby house, we built something we hoped would evolve in its usefulness. When our boys were older it became a study area, complete with shelves, internet, a filing cabinet and the large office desk for working at. After both boys were finished school the cubby became a filming studio for my youngest son and his mates who briefly ran a YouTube channel. Finally, it fell out of use. Which made it easy to hold onto things rather than getting rid of them.
So, over the last week we’ve been slowly getting rid of things. Jenny has offered them for free on a website we’ve benefitted from in the past, and now everything but a wooden chair has gone. The next step was to start to furnish the cubby to turn it into my reading nook. I’ve been to IKEA twice in the last week. Once, to get a sofa, although I disliked their lounges so I bought a sofa nearby. And a second time to buy some shelving. Victoria helped me put the shelving together yesterday. And today, instead of writing my review for Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo, I’ve been decorating and taking books down to my reading nook that I want there.
Two pictures below show the outside of the cubby/reading nook as it is approached through our vegetable gardens. The larger photo, of course, is inside my reading nook as I left it this afternoon before coming into the house to write this. I’m looking forward to using it later in the week when I finally get a new review published!
- bikerbuddy
6 September 2024
Our new email address
It’s been looming for some time but I kept putting it off until this morning when Victoria texted to ask whether the Reading Project email address is still current. Because we’ve got a new email address. It is:
readingprojectwebsite@gmail.com
Our internet service provider, which we have faithfully patronised for over twenty years, has for some reason decided they will no longer offer any email service. Instead, we’re supposed to transfer to another company and pay an additional sum ever month to keep our old email addresses. Our first and only thought was, bugger that. So, the Reading Project’s old email address will be totally defunct by 15 September. I have updated the email address on our menus this morning. If you’ve ever had email contact with us and are likely to in the future, it may be an opportunity to change our details in your system, too!
Finally, remember to refresh your page if you are relying on the menu from the website.
- bikerbuddy
9 September 2024
Forget what I said about a new email address
It turns out, I’m a grumpy old man. But I maintain that no-one wants the privilege of paying extra for something that was once part of the price of something already being paid for. That’s my little rant about emails. But it seems the corporate world is finding ever more ways to make a buck, and emails are one of those ways: see my last blog post.
I was going to send out the Reading Project Newsletter this afternoon (number 16 if you haven’t been following) when ConvertKit, the service through which I do that, warned me that sending out flyers like that through gmail or other free public emails was not a good idea, and that these services are trending towards stopping the practice. With only six more days left with my old email if I didn’t kowtow to the corporations, I decided that it was probably best to pay for one email address for the Reading Project to avoid any future hassle. So, the email address has changed back to what it was before:
Hopefully, that’s the end of the matter. Sorry for that!
- bikerbuddy
17 September 2024
Booker Prize Shortlist 2024 Announced
It’s that time of year again. The Booker Prize shortlist has been announced:
- Held Anne Michaels
- Creation Lake Rachel Kushner
- Orbital Samantha Harvey
- James Percival Everett
- The Safekeep Yael van der Wouden
- Stone Yard Devotional Charlotte Wood
We have an ongoing project to read all Booker winners since 1969 when the prize was first awarded to P.H. Newby for Something to Answer For. The project page can be found here. If you want more information about the Booker Prize and this year’s list you can navigate to the Booker website by clicking here.
I had already bought Percival Everett’s James before it was longlisted for the Booker on the basis of two previous books of his I’ve read, The Trees and Dr No. James is based on the events of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, told from the point of view of Jim, a slave, called James in Everett’s book. I decided to go back and reread Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn before I read James. I read Tom Sawyer when I was a child and scenes have stuck in my imagination ever since, especially those involving Injun Joe. I read Huckleberry Finn about thirty years ago, and while it is generally thought to be a more mature work, it didn’t pique my imagination in the way that Tom Sawyer did as a child.
As for the others in the list, I might try to read one or two before the announcement of a winner on 12 November. Stone Yard Devotional is by an Australian author, so some would assume I would be hoping for that, but I know nothing about the book, and Percival Everett is more of a known quantity for me (based on a reading of only two of his many books, I know!)
Meanwhile, I’ve been meaning to write an update about my new reading nook in the backyard (revamped from my sons’ old cubby house), but I’ll get around to that later in the week.
- bikerbuddy
19 September 2024
Reading the Booker Shortlist
I was anticipating the Booker Shortlist announcement on Tuesday (Sydney time), hoping that James by Percival Everett, a book I had already purchased, would make it in. It did. Then I started thinking about some gift vouchers for Harry Hartogs I’d been given for Father’s Day. I’d already partially used them, but they still had enough value to buy about three more books. I couldn’t help myself. I went into Penrith immediately after posting to last blog post to buy whatever they had in stock from the shortlist. The problem was, they had the whole shortlist! What to do?
The answer was simple. I just paid extra to get the entire shortlist!
The next problem: with the shortlist now on the shelf in my newly instituted reading nook, I think it makes sense to review the entire shortlist before the Booker winner is announced on 12 November. Unfortunately, I have committed to also reading Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn in preparation for reading Percival Everett’s James, and I had started reading Tom Holland’s Dominion, which is longish. I had to make another decision. So, I’ve decided to put off Holland’s book for now, and focus on getting the six shortlisted books and Mark Twain’s novels read and reviewed by the 12 November. Thankfully, none of the Booker shortlist is too long since I have other demands on my time, too. We’ll see how this goes!
- bikerbuddy