When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes (Erasmus)

Photo by Susan Q Yin on Unsplash

Wie gehts? 

Sadly, during a recent parent interview night a number of parents genuinely and seriously asked me how their son could improve.

I answered with a question of my own: do they read?

Their response was entirely predictable.

Their sons have X station boxes, and the latest smart phones. But they don't read. Compared to all those tech costs (and time costs) a book is relatively very cheap (there are excellent secondhand book shops in Napier and Hastings).

Of course, I'm biased and yes, I've always been a reader. But, really, c'mon - there is always a price to pay.

Currently I'm reading a Haruki Murakami novel that I've somehow missed. I love his writing.

I recently attended a Hawke's Bay English Teachers' Association (HBETA) meeting and a presentation on dyslexia got me and my colleagues thinking.

Do we read in pictures? Or do we read in our own voice?

I tend to read in the voice of the character, or the author, and that does include pictures. When I read students' work I read in their voice (if they don't have one I tend to comment on that and suggest they do). Apparently, I am a bit of a freak.

Seems most people read in their own voice. Hmmm. Who knew?

Love and peace - Wozza

I'm tipping over backwards, I'm so ambitious (Talking Heads)

Recently, I added this link to my Jewels For The Thirsty blog - the suggestion being to read books you normally wouldn't.

Here’s a reading challenge: Pick up a book you’re pretty sure you won’t like — the style is wrong, the taste not your own, the author bio unappealing. You might even take it one step further. Pick up a book you think you will hate, of a genre you’ve dismissed since high school, written by an author you’re inclined to avoid. Now read it to the last bitter page.

But what exactly in this bizarro world would be a book that I would normally hate?

As I'll usually give anything a go, I'm struggling to think of something. 

What would you choose?

First thing I tried to do in a recent visit to The Piggery (quality second hand book shop in Whangarei) was to think of a genre that I haven't tried. I wandered around for about an hour, ended up with an armful of books I wanted to read, but nothing that was a reading challenge as outlined above.

I'm up for a challenge, so, after some further musing, and after the current pile, I'll give it another go next time I make it in to the vast urban metropolis of Whangarei.

Love and peace - Wozza 

The love you take is equal to the love you make (The Beatles)

Epilogue (You may say I'm a dreamer - the end)

Move on fast! Wozza shifts gear - into the future!

Age 59, looking out my window as the sun sets on Rochdene and the autobiography.

It's been a long strange trip so far. We've been through some things together over eleven chapters, with trunks of memories to come.

Although Keith Richards is right - you can't celebrate the future (things which haven't happened yet) but you can celebrate the idea of a future (the potential to come).

Hurrah!! Here's to the future!

It's the start of the school year and for my students that means setting some goals - I recommend two: a learning goal and a personal goal.

I wrote mine out while some of my students were writing theirs. My personal goal is to get back to writing blog posts well in advance of the publishing date. That way I'll build up a bank of posts and be able to edit more thoroughly than I have been able to so far this year. By so doing, my writing will improve.

My learning goal is an ambitious one: to read fifty books by February 2018! So far lately, my reading has centred on music magazines. I want to stretch my reading beyond that. At roughly one book a week, this goal will really challenge me, given all of the things I pack into a week.

As well as my students keeping me honest, this blog will trace my progress through those fifty books!

First up - a book of Ferlinghetti's poetry I picked up from the famous City Lights bookstore in San Francisco.

Tally ho!!

Love and peace - Wozza