Thursday, August 15, 2013

Books Read between Feb 2011 and December 2013

2011
A Castle in Tuscony by Sarah Benjamin
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome
Major Pettigrews Last Stand by Helen Simonson
Gang of Four by Liz Byrski
The Messenger by Marcus Zuzac
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton
A Mistress of Death by Ariana Franklin
A Murderous Procession by Ariana Franklin
Room by Emma Donaghue
Batavia by Peter Fitzsimmons
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Tordy
The Hare With Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal

2012
The Happiest Refugee by Anh Do
The White Tiger by Ar Adiga
Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
The Botticelli Secret by Marina Fiorato
The Murrumbidgee Kid by Peter Yeldham
Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey
Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad by Bee Row and May Witwit
The Painted Drum by Louise Erdich
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Lightkeeper's Wife by Karen Viggers

2013
Fall of the Giants by Ken Follett
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
The Colour of Water by James McBride
All That I Am by Anna Funder
The Yalda Crossing by Noel Beddoe
Shantaram by Gregory Roberts
From Eskimo Point to Alice Springs by Anna Watts
The Street Sweeper by Elliot Perlman
The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
Red Sorghum (the movie) by Mo Yan
The Three Evangelists by Fred Vargus
Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth
Mrs Queen Takes the Train by William Kuhn

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Books Read since May 2009

The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society By Mary Ann Schafer (Jume 2009)
Sing & Don't Cry by Cate Kennedy (July 2009)
The Short History of Tractors in Ukrania By Marina Lewycka (Aug.2009)
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak (Sept. 2009)
A Passage to India by Ian Foster (October 2009)
Rosewater and Soda Bread by Marsha Mehran (Nov.2009)
Miss Potter by Richard Maltry (Dec 2009)
The English Patient by Ondaatje (?) (Feb 2010)
The Lady & the Highwayman by Barbara Cartland (Feb 2010)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larson (March 2010)
1788 by David Hill (April 2010)
The Girl who Played With Fire by Steig Larson (May 2010)
The Independenc of Miss Mary Bennett By Colleen McCulloch (June 2010)
Tuscan Rose by Belinda Alexander (July 2010)
Olivia & Parrot by Peter Carey (Aug. 2010)
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein (Sept.2010)
Skin Privilege by Karen Slaughter (Oct. 2010)
Water For Elephants by Sarah Gruen (Nov. 2010)

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian


Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian – Marina Lewycka – Viking Books 2005
Winner of the Bollinger Everyman Prize for Comic Fiction
‘Mad and Hilarious’ Daily Telegraph
‘Extremely Funny’ The Times
‘Outstanding’ Daily Mail
A friend of mine recommended this book to me stating that it was a really funny book so when I found myself in the TAFE library I looked up the book on the computer catalogue and not being a librarian blanked at the number flashing back at me with the word General Section – where on earth was the general section? Not wanting to appear dim I wandered around and as the number was too long to remember I took a punt and searched in the fiction section under the Author’s name- Bingo – I picked it up and put it back down, Rosemary must have got the title wrong and the librarian has put this funny looking book in the wrong section – No I look again and read the words – it is the right book but how well it is disguised to look like a mechanics manual, a kind of brown cardboard cover with graphic design straight out of the Bauhaus New Typography school of design – utilitarian block text in red and blue slightly wonky as though the printer had cut the cover not square and due to the shortage of paper this would have to do – strangely it reminds me of books my mother had brought with her/had sent from Latvia after the second world war. The covers on those were wonky too! I am not going to review the story here, others have done that. I don’t need to re invent the wheel. I just wanted to say that as a cultural production this book has summed up the journey of the refugee fleeing communism and the aftermath of WWII right up to the present day it covers the last 60 years in 325 pages – it did not win the prize for being funny – it won the prize for being a book that everyone could read and digest because the presentation of the content made it so. This is about what happened to some of the survivors of the Russian and German regimes who were uprooted from their lives to live a different life in another country. A life where not too much detail is discussed because the memories are too difficult to bear and children learn not to poke their nose into other peoples business especially their own family’s business. I found this book revealing and poignant and deeply personal to me, the child of a refugee from Latvia. I did not laugh or find it funny although I so know why other reviewers did. This humour is the way that European people who have undergone such tragic upheaval deal with life – if you don’t laugh you will definitely cry! The collective memory has not been lost on the first generation out of war torn Europe – it is just below the surface – we don’t know what our parents and their ancestors and relatives had to bear, we can guess, but we will never know because the truth is hidden to dull the pain. To understand the implications of war and the still uneasy peace from the third angle of the people caught in the middle - and to understand our current concerns about boat people and political and economic refugees this book is a must read and should be compulsory on every politicians reading list.
Aida Pottinger

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Confirmation that bulletproof lemon cake is an utter disaster

Do not try that recipe as I did - instead do this one!

Amanda’s Lemon Tea Cake – (surprisingly from my friend Amanda)

125g Butter
1 cup Castor Sugar
2 eggs
1 ½ cups SR Flour
Pinch salt
½ cup milk
¼ cup chopped walnuts
Juice and Zest of 1 large lemon
Extra ¼ cup Castor Sugar
Cream butter and sugar add eggs beat well one at a time
Sift in salt and flour with milk then add nuts and grated zest
Bake in mod oven 40 – 45 mins
Mix extra sugar with lemon juice stir until dissolved when cake is cooked remove from oven and pour over mixture while still in tin
Cool in tin and remove and serve


this one works and is great!!!!

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Salvation Creek

Summary of meeting - everyone enjoyed this book and seemingly wanted to move to Pittwater!
Easy to read, involved a lot of drinking and food, lyrical descriptions especially of the surroundings and very enjoyable read all round with tears and laughter mixed through.

MACADAMIA NUT TARTLETS


Ingredients:

1 cup plain flour
½ cup icing sugar
pinch salt
125g butter, cubed
1 tbsp cold water
1 cup whole macadamia nuts lightly toasted
1 tbsp (20 grams) butter, melted
1tbsp golden syrup
1 egg

Mix flour icing sugar & salt in food processor Add butter & process ‘til crumbly. Add water & process ‘til mixture forms a ball.
Lightly grease a 24 mini muffin pan. Divide dough into 24 pieces & press into pan to make tartlet cases. Refrigerate 30 mins
Heat oven to 180 & divide nuts between pastry cases.
Beat melted, syrup & egg ‘til smooth & pour over nuts in cases (don’t fill too full as they bubble over - I think there is probably slightly too much mixture in the recipe)
Bake 25 mins. Cool briefly in pans then place on wire rack.

Can be done in 12 patty tins.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Recipe for Lemon Cake


Lemon Cake

Virginias tried and tested (and found to fail the bulletproof test) recipe for Lemon Cake as described in Salvation Creek by Susan Duncan.

Still I think we all agreed, it tasted delicious

Ingredients:
2 lemons
200g castor sugar
250g SR flour
pinch salt
1 tsp baking powder (level)
250g softened, unsalted butter
4 large eggs

Syrup-

150g castor sugar,
juice of 1 lemon

Preheat oven 160'C, grease and line an 18cm round cake tin (This will ensure a large dip or a liquid middle says Virginia ) alternate suggestions - make cup cakes with mix or try a larger tin
Pulverise zest and juice of both lemons with the 200g castor sugar in the food processor.
Sift flour, salt and baking powder over, add butter and eggs. Process until smooth
Bake for 30-35 minutes

Syrup- Boil lemon juice and 150g castor sugar until the sugar melts.

Poke a few holes over the cake with a skewer and pour the syrup over the cake when hot out of the oven. * the most important thing about this recipe according to the book was that the butter must be soft and cool, soft butter is best. (By the time its been beaten to death in a food processor I don't think its going to make any difference! - Aida )

Thursday, May 7, 2009

This month - Salvation Creek by Susan Duncan

A national bestseller and winner, Nielsen BookData 2007 Booksellers Choice Award.

Description of book'

As I bumped across the water in a leaky tin dinghy I didn't know that the journey had begun. That the pale yellow house with a corridor of columns and long verandah on the high, rough hill would hold the key to it all...’At 44 Susan Duncan appeared to have it all. Editor of two of Australia's top selling women's magazines, a happy marriage, a jetsetting lifestyle covering stories from New York to Greenland, rubbing shoulders with Hollywood royalty, the world was her oyster.But when her beloved husband and brother die within three days of each other, her glittering life shatters. In shock, she zips on her work face and soldiers on - until one morning eighteen months later when she simply can't get out of bed.Heartbreaking, funny and searingly honest, SALVATION CREEK is the story of a woman who found the courage not only to walk away from a successful career and begin again, but to beat the odds in her own battle for survival and find a new life - and love - in a tiny waterside idyll cut off from the outside world. From the terrifying first step of quitting the job that had always anchored her to abandoning herself to a passionate affair that she knows will break her heart, Duncan never flinches from the truth or loses her wicked sense of humour. Even when she finds a paradise on earth only to discover that it may be too late. It's been said that the greatest risk in life is not to take a risk. Sometimes you have to risk everything to find the only thing you need.

Reviews

'Beautiful, dreamy writing and gut-wrenching honesty' - Australian Womens’ Weekly'

A wonderful read. Ruthlessly honest, passionate, gutsy and funny. I couldn't put it down.' - Maggie Tabberer

Or for a more truthful look at the book try these websites:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/books/loss-and-redemption/2006/03/23/1143083891765.html
http://reviews.media-culture.org.au/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3083

Product Details
ISBN: 9781863256384
Format:PaperbackImprint:Bantam Australia

Susan Duncan
Biography
After a 25-year career spanning radio, newspaper and magazine journalism, including editing two of Australia's top selling women's magazines, THE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN'S WEEKLY and NEW IDEA, SUSAN DUNCAN woke up one morning and chucked in her job. The decision followed the deaths of her husband and brother. After struggling to begin again, she finally found her own patch of paradise on earth only to discover it might already be too late when she was diagnosed with cancer herself. Today Susan lives with her second husband, Bob, on the shores of Pittwater at Tarrangaua, the beautiful home built for poet Dorothea Mackellar in 1925. Susan's bestselling memoir, SALVATION CREEK, won the 2007 Nielsen BookData Booksellers Choice Award and was shortlisted for the prestigious Dobbie Award, part of the Nita B Kibble awards for women writers.
Books by Susan Duncan
THE HOUSE AT SALVATION CREEK (Trade Paperback)
SALVATION CREEK (Paperback)
all information and images from Random House Website unless otherwise indicated

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

History of the Wednesday Readers

Has been added into the column on the right hand side.

Monday, April 13, 2009

June's Book - The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Authors' Biographies

Mary Ann Shaffer became interested in Guernsey while visiting London in 1976. On a whim, she decided to fly to Guernsey but became stranded there when a thick fog descended and all boats and planes were forbidden to leave the island. As she waited for the fog to lift, warming herself by the heat of the hand-dryer in the men's restroom, she read all the books in the Guernsey airport bookstore, including Jersey under the Jack-Boot. Thus began her fascination with the German Occupation of the Channel Islands.
Many years later, when goaded by her book club to write a novel, Mary Ann naturally thought of Guernsey. She chose to write in the epistolary form because, "for some bizarre reason, I thought it would be easier." Several years of work yielded The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which was greeted with avid enthusiasm, first by her family, then by her writing group, and finally by publishers around the world. Sadly, Mary Ann's health began to decline shortly thereafter, and she asked her niece, Annie Barrows, to help her finish the book.
Mary Ann Shaffer was born in Martinsburg, West Virginia, in 1934. Her career included libraries, bookstores, and publishing, but her life-long dream was to "write a book that someone would like enough to publish." Though she did not live to see it, this dream has been realized in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
Annie Barrows, whose career also included libraries, bookstores, and publishing, is the author of the Ivy and Bean series for children, as well as The Magic Half.