Travel diary 2 - Holiday reading

driftwood mobile photographed at dodgy motel

Two days before going away, I bought a Sony e-reader, which was highly recommended by JB hifi. I was thinking I could save some luggage space in my bag, by not packing the usual 3-4 library books as well as the impulse buys at one of the many identical bookshops at Brisbane airport, usually purchased during the extreme boredom of waiting for international flights to start.  

After discovering that the Sony e-bookstore was 'opening soon', or in other words, 'unavailable in your area', I paid for and eventually appeared to have successfully downloaded two e-books from Borders, but was unable to open the files. I took the analogue books in my suitcase anyway, and yesterday returned the e-book reader to JB. The sales assistant fiddled with it for an hour, before saying he was baffled and didn't really know much about e-readers, and nor did anyone else there. Yes, it was the same store that had recommended this apparently already obsolete piece of technology. He was keen to sell me an i-pad, but on principle I declined.

At this time of year there are lots of book reviews around, partly to reflect on another year of publications, and also to recommend holiday reading. This is what I read on holiday (paper versions only):

• I read How it feels by Brendan Cowell, which I had been reluctant to read (this was the impulse buy at the airport bookshop), because I thought it would somehow be a glorification of dodgy drunken male behaviour, based on something Cowell said in an interview. However I loved this book, it was apparently autobiographical, based on the last few days of high school (I remember it well...). I found it emotionally honest, alarmingly believable and well-written.

• I also read Let the great world spin by Colum McCann, about the day a tightrope walker called Philippe Petit walked between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in NYC, in 1974. Of course it was also about 9/11, (how could it not be?) but that was the sub text rather than the main narrative. It was about a group of people in the city on that day, who are linked in random ways. It reminded me of the Bridge of San Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder, which I loved as a teenager (probably around 1974), which had a similar theme.

• Blue Monday by Nicci French, (who is apparently two people), is about a female psychoanalyst in London who helps police solve a child abduction, as she believes one of her patients may be the criminal, and promises to be the first of many about this character. Quite disturbing, and scary at times, as a thriller should be.

• Finally, I read how to look at a painting by Justin Paton - I bought this in the Art gallery shop in Christchurch, which was the only part of the gallery that was open. The rest was closed (like many other buildings) due to earthquake damage. Art was what I needed after seeing the badly ruined city. Its a great book, and has been made into a tv series in New Zealand. He quotes artist Alice Neel: "The minute I sat in front of a canvas I was happy. Because it was a world, and I could do what I liked with it".

Now I am home, I am reading a book by Lionel Shriver, from the library, but not the one about Kevin.

I got my tax return done yesterday, and found I had not spent nearly as much on books as I had expected, in the previous financial year. (And there is more to being frugal than buying books from the Book depository.) 

more later.