Books

I haven't been updating allconsuming.net with what I've been reading during the trip. I have been slowly making my way through Kings in Grass Castles (by Mary Durack) - about an Irishman who emigrated to Australia and was one of the early pioneers in Queensland and then Western Australia. It's good but I find parts of the book tough, so I'm a bit slow with it.
Here are some other books I've acquired and read since arriving in Oz:

We found a bargain bookshop in Sydney and I got Ruby Wax's autobiography - How do you want me? I've always liked Ruby Wax, I do find her funny, but I don't think she was destined to be a writer. The story is a little all over the place, but if you do make it to the end you get a complete picture of her life. I found parts of it surprising, shows how little I knew about her. What I did like though is that she is friends with Alan Rickman - I love Alan Rickman.
I would not strongly recommend this book to anyone unless you are a Ruby Wax fan and therefore interested enough in her life to make it through this book. (Oh yeah, I got the book for AUS$6.95 or EUR4, so as it was cheap I don't feel too bad that it wasn't the best book I ever read.)

Jamie saw this next book in a shop and thought I'd like it. The main reason being he thought that there would be alot in it about penguins - and I like penguins. I wasn't sure that there would be anything about penguins in it but the front cover is so cute....
Antarctica on a Plate: She Came, She Saw, She Burnt the Toast by Alexa Thomson, is about a woman so disillusioned with her life that she thinks taking a job a the cook on a (very primitive) Antarctic base would be just the zap of change her life needed. It's an interesting story, especially when you try to imagine yourself in her shoes. This is actually a very good book and very well written I would recommend this to anyone. This book is being posted home and kept in the Hilary and Jamie library.

This was the other bargain book I got in Sydney, also only AUS$6.95. I have to admit that in many of my book choices what attracts me to pick a book up in the first place is the front cover. So the publicist for this book should be really proud of himself - a doughnut in a coffin on the front cover got me curious enough. The Fowler Family Business (by Jonathan Meades) is not as funny or interesting as the back cover and reviews will have you believe. The story is weird and quite quirky and I got quite annoyed with it. I would have given up but after making it half way through the book I was then curious enough to want to know how it ended.
This book ended up reading like a Jerry Springer show, so unless you're into that kind of thing, I wouldn't recommend it.