Monday, November 29, 2010

Book Crush

Book crush.

Yes. I have been known to fall a little bit in love with certain books. Once I get drawn in I can’t stand to be parted from it so it goes in every bag. Sometimes I carry it just to keep it close because you never know when you’ll have a moment to pick it up again - waiting for the train, on the train, waiting for my coffee. Right now that book is: Let the Great World Spin by Column McCann. It’s not especially new but it didn’t appear on my radar until a friend from work started raving about it (it also one the National Book Award).


Set in New York in the 70s, it begins with a crowd of onlookers spotting Frenchman Philippe Petit walking on air as he walked across a tightrope between the towers of the World Trade Centre.

Those ordinary people have witnessed something extraordinary and Irish novelist McCann isolates some of those characters and lets their stories unfold, overlap and collide. It’s such an evocative read and New York is treated with as much respect and complexity as one of McCann’s characters. It’s one of those books you read with a pencil, just so you can underline the perfect line.
Here’s just a couple: ‘‘It was a look that suggested she was part of a mystery she wouldn’t let go of’’.
‘‘A bridge lay between us, composed almost entirely of my brother’’.
Anyway. This the book I’m loving right now. More are on the way, I’m sure, but right now - it’s this one.


Photograph: Leonard Freed/Magnum
PS: If you get the chance, read the book first then watch Man On Wire - the fantastic documentary about Petit's 1974 wire-walking feat. Amazing.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Softie for Mirabel.

Finished my softie for Mirabel organised by Meet Me At Mikes. I hope he brings a smile to a little.

The pattern is from this Softies book, a great place to start for new sewers, page after page of very cute, straight forward patterns.



Recent Reads

I've read some fantastic Young Adult books lately so I thought I'd post about a few of my favourites:

Dash and Lily's Book of Dares
by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn.


He hates Christmas. She loves Christmas. He finds a mysterious note book in his favourite bookshop, she dares him to come looking for her - the mysterious, goofy Lily. A book about falling in love, or maybe not falling in love. So good.

Burnt Snow
by Van Badham

You might think you've read this story before; girl reluctantly moves to small town and meets the bad boy but trust me, there's much more to this solid, paranormal story set right here in Australia.

Six Impossible Things
by Fiona Wood

One of the best YA books I've read all year. Fourteen year-old Dan Cereill is such a good character; he's a little like Woody Allen (but more loveable). A great story about longing, fitting in and realising fitting in is overrated.

And here are two titles I'm hoping to get to very soon:

Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters
by Natalie Standiford

"The Sullivan sisters have a big problem. On Christmas Day their rich and imperious grand-mother gathers the family and announces that she will soon die... and has cut the entire family out of her will."

and

Matched by Ally Condie

''On her seventeenth birthday, Cassia meets her match. Society dictates he is her perfect partner for life. Except he's not.

Some Books I've Really Enjoyed

  • Apples For Jam by Tessa Kiros
  • Saturday by Ian McEwan
  • Philip Larkin: A Writer's Life by Andrew Motion
  • The Bell Jar by Syliva Plath
  • Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman
  • Stasiland by Anna Funder

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