Come, Tell Me How You Live

- Agatha Christie

first published 1946, Harper Collins Publishers 1999

Am enjoying the non-fiction diary format at the moment. This is a travel book about camping in the desert in the late 30s and early 40s. Interesting to read the personal voice of Agatha Christie, who writes very funny anecdotes, similar in observation to Bill Bryson.

This book had me laughing at the misunderstandings between cultures. Agatha Christie goes to Syria and Lebanon with her archaeologist husband, Max Mallowan and a crew of local workmen, a sheik, chefs and drivers. Also there is a Mac, a supremely sedate and quiet architect, with whom Agatha has trouble making any conversation. They are looking for pre-Roman treasures, those dating from from before AD. 

A 'tell' is also the name of a dig site; a 'bump' in the desert that contains an old city. 

Party

sunny day luck, friends, family, playground, cupcakes and sausage sizzle

Birthday girl

presents with yawns, pancakes, cupcakes, kids theatre with friends, a sleep, more presents, and potato gnocchi for dinner with family...

favourites so far: dinosaur wrapping paper and ukelele

Party preparations underway

audio books and quilting

On a tight deadline for Joy's birthday, so combining talking books with quilting. Have listened to 'N or M'  and up to the last cassette of "And then there were None' both by Agatha Christie. I am so very glad clever Agatha wrote lots and lots of books. I find her books well written and descriptive and it's nice to have a rollicking plot of a whodunit. The only setback is the characters are always having afternoon tea with cakes and other goodies (well it's not such a big setback)

The Miracle at Speedy Motors - Alexander McCall Smith. 2008 

I love spending time with Precious and the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency. So calming and earnest with ordinary daily turmoil presented in an honoured way. Small miracles and plenty of kindness and understanding. Read this in one go. 

This week's pizza: potato and rosemary, mushroom and bacon. 

Spinach and ricotta gnocchi

Cooking together. Making our favourite dish. From Stephanie Alexander's 'A Cook's Companion'. Just like play dough; higher vegetable content. I believe this is Joy's favourite dish. She can eat an adult size portion for lunch and want more for afternoon tea.

The Night Eater

Ana Juan, 2004, Arthur A. Levine Books, Scholastic, New York

How magical is the pink marshmallow-y night eater? He travels with the moon and eats up the sky before the day comes. The drawings are so very beautiful, painterly and whimsical. 

The plot goes something like this: one day the moon tells the night eater that he has been eating too much night and is getting to be rather large; the night eater is upset and refuses to eat any more; the world is covered in darkness and it gets rather cold. The resolution comes when the night eater starts to speak and a little piece of star slips into his mouth, he forgets why he stopped eating and everyone is happy.

Sunday

What a lovely day; an unfurling tea flower, a coconut coffee sugar scrub in daisy dishes for ma and the grandmothers, some time to quilt, Miss Pettigrew lives for a day at the movies, library, yoga, lovely dinner and bath time with J. Could Mother's Day be any better?

Pizza night

Friday night is usually pizza night. This week we missed it.

Mushrooms

We went mushroom picking in Gippsland. Pine forest mushrooms, yum with garlic and cream.

Beautiful colours in the pine tree plantation; blackish green, graphite and vibrant moss green. Great toadstools. And to J's excitement signs of wombats...

We found enough to feel pleased with ourselves but not too many to feel burdened by the bounty. I guess the recent weather was not quite right. Perhaps not enough sunshine, as there was definitely plenty of rain over the last week.

Howard's End - E.M. Forster

Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd. 1965, First Published 1910

I have read somewhere that this is one of Zadie Smith's favourite books. As I really like her books that's a good recommendation. At my library this has not been a popular choice for some time as it had to be taken out of the 'stacks' in the basement. 

The influence of E.M. Forster on Zadie Smith is noticeable. This is a cleverly plotted, closely described, personal story of a group of unlikely people brought together by chance/a house. Howard's End is a grand house and a magical presence. 

A tag team of characters smoothly move the plot along. Margaret is wise and in control of her destiny. Believable private lives and small hope and dramas. I'm making it sound like a kitchen sink drama; and perhaps it is but a refined and glorious one. 

Such beautiful writing, not at all dusty or stuffy. (not sure what I was expecting)

"She must show surprise if he expected it. An immense joy came over her. It was indescribable. It had nothing to do with  humanity, and most resembled the all-pervading happiness of fine weather. Fine weather is due to sun, but Margaret could think of no central radiance here." p174

Shane Maloney - Sucked In

2007, Text Publishing Melbourne Australia

Big fan of the Murray Whelan series. Set in Melbourne with identifiable public characters. Less gory than the previous, and less personally dangerous for Murray. He is an attractive character; sarcastic, good, Labour politician backbencher. I like his developing relationship with Red, his son, now 17 / 18. I like his bumbling pursuit of Andrea-Lanie. 

"Lanie's may not have been the face that launched a thousand ships, but it definitely floated my little rubber duckie. She was cheerful, sardonic and fetchingly full-figured. Naturally, she was already taken.

Hubby had picked her up after one of the first classes, their pubescent daughter in tow. He was dopey-looking dork, reeking of academia."p.29

Not much of a mystery, more of a satire on local politics, about the cross and double cross, the improbable branch stacking election plots. But best of all is travelling through Melbourne's streets, in this case Sydney Road, Broadmeadows,  and Clifton Hill, with funny man Murray.

Backlog

Have finished reading the House of Mirth. Deceptive title, I experienced no mirth and was so very disappointed with the ending. Literature of punishment. Lily  - a frivolous girl, not rich enough for her crowd, gradually punished. Shame hovers over her and kills her. She allows a friend's husband to invest some money for her. He tricks her and just gives her money, then has 'expectations'. At times felt like reading a bodice ripper of a bestseller - shallow intrigue and obsession with status, mean women, and alien like men. I liked the spinster 'do-gooder' Gerty living in a low ceilinged flat and doing good works. She was resigned to a 'dull face - dull fate'. In comparison with Lily not such a bad deal. The setting is turn of the century New York, Monaco, Nice and the Hamptons.

Deborah Eisenberg - Twilight of the Superheroes

published  2006 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York

Short story collection. Like poetry. Sombre and wistful in tone. Unpredictable and rich. People observed with zen like calmness. Hospitals, apartments, log cabins, siblings, partners, children; small and grown...Big events (9/11, gun sales) are held back on the periphery of the writing. Set in New York city and semi rural towns fringed with forests. Will be re-reading and reading others by her. 

"In any case, at a certain point as she wandered out among the galaxies, among the whirling particles and ineffable numbers, something leaked in her mind, smudging the text of the cosmos, and she was lost..." p.60 Some Other, Better Otto