Regarding books

Nope, this isn't an entry about baked goods nor broccoli, it's about books, my favourite ones. I buy a lot of books and try to keep up with reading them, but always seem to be enticed by newspaper book reviews to buy more than I can read. And when at the book store, I linger over other books that attract my attention. The only thing that checks my spending is the cost (fancy that :). I recently nestled down at the bookstore to read the first 30 pages of Alice Sebold's 'The Almost Moon', only because it was still marked with its New Release price of $35.

My shelves contain mainly fiction, some sci-fi, a bunch of Lonely Planet guides and a few travel memoirs, only becoming turned off the latter by Frances Mayes' terrible sequel to an already annoying 'Under the Tuscan Sun'.
I buy them because I'm optimistic that if a book is good, I will revisit it over the years and eventually pass it down to whomever. (Also, I have been banned from my local library for over a year and a half now for accidentally-losing-and-then- finding-but-not-yet-returning a book.)

Anyway, most of the books sit on the shelves for years after their first read and I may occasionally revisit them. These aren't likely to be all time favourites but I am still fond of them nonetheless. The books that become fast favourites are the ones that upon finishing, I immediately start reading again. These are the ones where the language and dialogue are astoundingly original without being pretentious, there are no cliches in the story (a classic cliche is the new girl in a big city working for a publishing or fashion house...snore :) and you wished you lived through some or many of the scenes.

So here are the books which I have loved and which will probably fall apart before I bestow them on future readers:

'Neuromancer' by William Gibson
'Three Junes' by Julia Glass
'High Fidelity' by Nick Hornby
'Never Let Me Go' by Kazuo Ishiguro
'Remains of the Day' by Kazuo Ishiguro

I turned into a Grumpy Old Woman...

Today...
Originally uploaded by donna_3011

My birthday was a few weeks ago and without divulging my exact age, safe to say the following thoughts may spring to mind when mentioning this age (and over):"The clock is ticking", "No kids? What the hell are you waiting for?" but since each age is really the New Decade Before, I'm practically a kid myself...haha.

Here's how I know I'm getting older and not just older in the yearly birthday thing, but the very apparent changes that have come across me this year to signal a moving away from youth towards becoming a fuddy duddy:

I recently switched over to listening to breakfast radio on ABC Melbourne, the ABC being the government broadcaster. I'm tired of ads and radio announcers who think it's fascinating to detail their daily lives of inept partners and misbehaving kids. I actually want to hear more than a soundbite of news about the rest of the world outside of gangland murderers and celebrity births.

Further to the above point, I spend my TV viewing time watching shows primarily on ABC and SBS. If I watch CSI-type shows, I spend the hour pointing out the ludicrousness of their lab setups, their computer applications and the characters' appearance in general - quite a bit of fun actually, but probably not for my viewing companion.

Security folk no longer ask me for ID, in fact, I no longer attend places which would need bouncers.

I enjoy gardening and chatting to people much older than me about fruit trees and growing French Tarragon.

I don't have Facebook nor MySpace accounts and don't care to be poked nor tickled, online.

I have a 4 year old mobile phone that can't play music nor take photos and I like it.

I snorted with agreement with most of the last series of Grumpy Old Women.

I named my blog "Baked Goods and Broccoli"...

On the other hand, the child-like things I enjoy include doing twirls, squealing when feeling joyous and thinking up scenarios for what you would do to The Joker if he turned up at your door (the latter asked to me by a young un' to which replies were 'Throw a cream pie in his face', 'Drop a water bomb on his head'...)

But all the sentiments you hear are correct, time does pass very quickly, you should embrace the things and people you love and do all you can to make yourselves happy...holy canoli, even that made me nauseous to type. I guess I'm not too old to believe that the best years are yet to come.