I forgot to name my good friend Carmel, when I was mentioning friends I was grateful for. She was lumped in with my work mates. She has leant me book 4 of the ‘Tales of the Otori’ series, ‘The Harsh Cry of the Heron’
Tales of the Otori
I have thoroughly enjoyed the entire series I’ve loaned from Carmel so far.
‘Across the Nightingale Floor’, ‘Grass for His Pillow’ and ‘Brilliance of the Moon’ were all wonderful and I look forward to reading this latest one. There is a new book ‘Heavens Net is Wide’ that goes back to the start. I will savour these ending and beginning books as I did Harry Potter.
Lian Hearn
Lian Hearn lives in Australia, yet these books are based in Japan. She weaves the landscape and mythology well and I learnt a lot from these books that helped me to understand Feudal Japan.
My Book Pile Right Now….
I have a delicious pile of books I’m currently reading in addition to ‘The Harsh Cry of the Heron’. I have James Moloney’s ‘Master of the Books’ and it every bit as engrossing as ‘The Book of Lies
Enid Blyton Characters Reappear
It’s interesting to me that I was just thinking about all the old Enid Blyton books I loved to read when I was a kid and in the mornings papers was this story: Famous Five Set to Find Fame. Made me feel almost magical.
I read the ‘Secret Seven’ series, the ‘Famous Five’ of course, but loved the ‘Faraway Tree’ trilogy and ‘Wishing Chair’ set more I think. My favourite of all the many though would have to be ‘The Naughtiest Girl’ books. I am sure I only read 2 or 3 of them, yet it appears there are 8 on this site.
If you want to learn more about Enid Blyton, The Enid Blyton Society website is absolutely a must read. It’s quite amazing to see the list of writing, there are 100s of books. When I look through the list I see many other familiar books that I read as a child.
Tomorrow all will be Beautiful by Brigid Lowry
This book is a pleasure not to be missed. It is a collection of short stories, letter exchanges, dialogues and poems delicately illustrated. She writes about the joys and tragedies and leaves you feeling hopeful and alive. ‘Tomorrow all will be Beautiful’ notices the details in life that are juicy. It’s a funny, cool book that touched me and made me feel validated as a sometimes crazy, passionate, melancholy and often mistaken person. I have put my name on the list at school to read ‘Guitar Highway Rose’.
Brigid Lowry is my latest favourite. Listening to her ‘Juicy Writing’ talk on Monday, just confirmed it. I would still love to get a copy of that writing she read to us about the mother and son, so I can weep without the eyes of my year 9s on me.