Nothing is real (David Copperfield, John Lennon)

Wie geht's?

Books bought:

• Glory Days - from gumboots to platforms (Ian Chapman)
• A Tale Of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
• Kidnapped (Robert Louis Stevenson)
• Robbers' Roost (Zane Grey)
• White Butterfly (Walter Mosley)
• Mojo (Feb. 2020)
• Beat Instrumental (August 1969)

Books read:

• David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
• Mojo (Feb. 2020)
• Beat Instrumental (Aug. 1969)

As indicated on my Jewels For The Thirsty blog yesterday, having finished David Copperfield, I'm feeling a little culturally bereft.

Once into the swing of Dickens, his characters come alive and it's like I've been living in 1850, sneaking peeks at David's journals as he writes.

Now that I'm done, I miss them.

Nick Hornby says he struggled reading things for a while after finishing his copy, and I get that. So, my solution is to go bang up to date with the latest Mojo. 

That and an old music magazine from England - Beat Instrumental from 1969. I bought it for the interesting article on the then 20 year old Rory Gallagher. Interesting because, even then, he's holding his battered guitar!

The Beat Instrumental and all of the books bought recently come from the Little Red Book Shop in Hastings, all except for Glory Days - that was a free copy from a stall at one of our favourite coffee shops, in Waipawa.

After that, I'm not sure - I think I'll go for one of the westerns - Zane Grey or Louis L'Amour. That should provide a nice change of pace before I launch into Turgenev's Fathers And Sons.

Love and peace - Wozza

Look at him sitting there with his hooter scraping away at that book (Paul's grandad to Ringo in A Hard Day's Night)

Wie geht's?

Books bought:

• Showdown At Yellow Butte (Louis L'Amour)
• David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
• Fathers And Sons (Turgenev)
• Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)

Books read:

• The Polysyllabic Spree (Nick Hornby)
• David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
• That Glimpse Of Truth (David Miller)

Deeply ashamed at my failure to buy a book for a while (as reported in the last post) I made it a priority to visit The Little Red Book Shop last week.

Actually, it meant two trips because the first time, when I went midweek, they were 'exceptionally closed' (according to the sign on the door).

I was on a mission to buy some Dickens in particular. That's also a source of shame.

As an English teacher and a lover of literature, I have to come clean and admit that, although I've enjoyed David Lean's films and BBC adaptations, I've never really read any Dickens; A Christmas Carol and that is it. I know! None of the biggies!

From time to time, I've flirted with the idea, but never followed through (when Fran stayed with us a few years ago she was reading a Dickens' novel and I felt a sense of shame then too).

Until the Nick Hornby collection that is, and his devotion to David Copperfield. If it's good enough for you Nick, it's good enough for me!!

Ivan Turgenev's classic was an impulse buy ($3) as I searched for the Dickens. I was sure Nick makes mention of it in The Polysyllabic Spree and regardless - I love stories about fathers and sons.

The Louis L'Amour is there because I couldn't find any Zane Grey and I had a hankering to read a western!

Especially after reading Steven Crane's short story in A Glimpse Of Truth to Jacky. 

The Bride Comes To Yellow Sky has some wonderfully descriptive passages:

The California Express on the Southern Railway was due at Yellow Sky in twenty-one minutes. There were six men at the bar of the Weary Gentleman saloon. One was a drummer who talked a great deal and rapidly; three were Texans who did not care to talk at that time; and two were Mexican sheep-herders who did not talk as a general practice in the Weary Gentleman saloon. The bar-keeper's dog lay on the board-walk that crossed in front of the door. His head was on his paws, and he glanced drowsily here and there with the constant vigilance of a dog that is kicked on occasion. Across the sandy street were some vivid green grass plots, so wonderful in appearance amid the sands that burned near them in a blazing sun that they caused a doubt in the mind. They exactly resembled the grass mats used to represent lawns on the stage. At the cooler end of the railway station a man without a coat sat in a tilted chair and smoked his pipe. The fresh cut bank of the Rio Grande circled near the town, and there could be seen beyond it a great plum-colored plain of mesquite.

Okay - it's back into the David Copperfield for me. Caio for naio.

Love and peace - Wozza

Did you write the book of love? (Don McLean)

Wie geht's?

Books bought last month: 

• none

Books read: 

• Murder as Usual (Hugh Pentecost)
• Brenner And God (Wolf Haas) Abandoned
• Mojo January 2020
• The Polysyllabic Spree (Nick Hornby) On-going
• Swimming Home (Deborah Levy) On-going 
• That Glimpse Of Truth (short story anthology) On-going
• The Boy In The Stripped Pyjamas (John Boyne) On-going

The idea for the above list is down to Nick Hornby who compiled his monthly literary essays (?...not articles, not reviews) about his monthly reading habits for US literary magazine, Believer. Each essay in the collection begins with his list of books bought and books read. So, there you go.

Of course, being insanely wealthy and living in north London means he can cruise around trendy niche bookstores and supplement the plethora of free books that drop regularly through his letterbox by buying up large. Must be nice.

Lucky sod! I bet he's a regular visitor to Upper Street's Waterstones and I bet the remainder stores he talks about used to be across the road, just down from Caffè Nero, and the charity shops. 

In contrast, I bought diddley squat. Nada. Zip. Nought.

But I read a surprising amount, or tried to, at the very least.

Petty jealousies aside, I've loved Nick's stuff since I picked up the jacket of Fever Pitch in Auckland's Unity Books back in 1992, and noted that he was the same age as me (born in 1957), he had a teaching background, and he supported the same team as me (Arsenal F.C.). Not only that - he lived overlooking Highbury.

If there was ever a book written for me by a bloke who could be my brother, Fever Pitch was it!

The essays in Polysyllabic Spree are pretty addictive. I know - a book about reading books, right? But the lad does well. Back of the net for the most part.

I was looking to expand into the hard boiled detective genre (if Patti Smith and Rory Gallagher love them, there must be a reason) , which explains Murder As Usual (good enough but not overly exciting) and Brenner And God (which had a tiresome narrator so I ditched it).

The Glimpse Of Truth is that nifty short story anthology that Jade bought me last year - it's the one I read aloud at night to Jacky. Patchy best describes the standard of stories. The dire life conditions of Victorian Britain produced some pessimistic writers/stories if the ones in Glimpse are anything to go by. But we have had one hilarious story by an Australian writer about his dog and we're currently reading/listening to a Stephen Crane story about a western marriage which is memorable.

Teaching a Year 9 English class explains why Boy In The Stripped Pyjamas is in the list and the Deborah Levy is there because I love her writing and happened upon this short story collection before Christmas at the Little Red Book Shop. I've only just started it.

Speaking of the Little Red Book Shop - clearly, I need to get back there and stock up so that I fill that Books Bought column.

Love and peace - WNP

Arrows of neon and flashing marquees out on Main Street (The Grateful Dead)

Welcome to a Fun-Packed cultural corner! 

Time for an update on what is motivatin' me over the hill this week.

Look and Learn article: Excellent piece on Sherpa Tenzing. Loving too the old ads in these magazines from the sixties. I think I remember Sky Ray 3 iceblocks (cool name), or something very similar... memory plays tricks.

The ad for some girls' mags, June and Princess Tina (cool names), that I used as the feature image above is a complete, gay hoot!

TV: Blacklist on Netflix is real fine. We are currently munching our way through season 3.

Sport: I signed up to Sky's BEIN sports channels in time to see all the drama of Arsenal's to and fro battle with Leicester last saturday. So great to have the premier league back in my living room in living colour.

Literature: I believe I'm at week 28 in my mission to read 50 books in 52 weeks. The last item on the list I mentioned was book 29 from week 24 - Warren Ellis' Gun Machine.

Since then, I've chewed through book 30 Assessment Strategies for Self-Directed Learning (Costa, Kallick), sexy title huh, book 31 - Up In The Air (Walter Kirn) and now I'm on book 32 - Nick Hornby's Juliet Naked.

Gun Machine was superb. Warren Ellis (no, not the musician in Nick Cave's band, but yes, the guy who did Castlevania) is a terrific writer with a mind and imagination like the tip of something very sharp, like a razor or a pin or a, um, sword - you know, like rilly sharp! 

Up In The Air was a tad disappointing. Another case of the movie version taking the lead character and writing a completely different story around him. Bizarre.

Somehow I missed Juliet Naked when it came out. It's pretty good - not up there with his best but sitting nicely under About A Boy. I have a nagginly vague feeling that I have read it before but I've now put that down to Nick's familiar prose style.

Record find of the week: Robert Hunter's debut from 1974 - Tales of the Great Rum Runners. I've kept an eye out for this ever since seeing the cover in an album cover book. What an amazing cover right?

Being a Grateful Dead fan means I'm very familiar with his stuff. So I was thrilled to get my mits on this in the $10 sale bin at Real Groovy while in Auckland for Jerrrrrrey!

K. You're up to date!

Love and peace - Wozza

Ain't too hard for me to jam (Michael Jackson)

Week 16 and Book 18: Slam (Nick Hornby) joins the party.

It's a return to About A Boy territory and style for Nick with Slam. Part of the haul from The Piggery a few weeks ago, I have avoided this book for years.

The skateboard schtick doesn't spin my wheels but hey, this is the guy who gave us Fever Pitch. So, I'll bite.

Nick can write, so I'm quietly enjoying the book. The teenage angst and the teenage pregnancy themes are convincing and well handled but...for me, it's not as accessible as About A Boy, and doesn't trouble Fever Pitch at the toppermost of the poppermost of Nick's back catalogue.

Fever Pitch. Now THERE'S a book!

Love and peace - Wozza