Eye Spy... inspiration

I take so much inspiration from what I'm reading that it was the first thing I thought of when I read Cindy's Eye Spy theme for this week. So that, and the idea that she might decide to stop eye-spying has brought me out of the lurkers closet to join in Eye Spy... for the first time.

So this is my inspiration - the stack of books by my bed - warts and all.


Top to bottom:
Jung: a Biography, Deidre Bair (current read - see below)
The New Buddhism, David Brazier (library book, not started)
A multitude of Sins, Richard Ford (short stories, sat untouched on the bookshelf forever, kind of interesting)
Buddhism for Mothers, Sarah Napthali (I went straight to the chapter on anger, good book, fits with my values)
You are your Child's First Teacher, Rahima Baldwin Dancy (bought as a reminder to myself and to gain some tools but not as inspirational as I had hoped)
The Seven Spiritual Laws for Parents, Deepak Chopra (the only one in the stack I've read twice. Deeply inspirational, a must read.)
Madame Brussels: This Moral Pandemonium, LM Robinson (I'm friends with the publisher, a really interesting, compact read)
Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino (A favourite author but not my favourite of his books)
Homesickness, Murray Bail (likewise)
Vehicle Maintenance for Women, Charlotte Williamson (WTF? No it's not a novel, it's one of those $5 pick-ups from a work book club. Unopened.)
The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery (I read this as a kid and didn't get it. As much I would like to say I found it life-changing now that I'm older I'm afraid to say I still don't get it.)
Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain (Having worked in restaurants years ago I was engrossed from the first page but somehow put it down half-way through and haven't picked it up again.)

Needless to say some of them have been sitting there for a long time. Most have been started, only one has been finished.

The one on top is my current read and I'm only about 100 pages in. It's from the library. I think I'd better check out how many times I can renew it before I have to return it.


Fascinating but physically quite a chore to read due to the sheer size of it. I'll say a bit more about it when I finish it (if I finish it).

Of the list above it is definitely the Chopra book that I found the most inspiring, however Italo Calvino's Marcovaldo and If on a Winter's Night a Traveller changed the way I thought and felt about literature; and Murray Bail's Eucalyptus resonated deeply with me for the way he uses language and for where I was at physically and emotionally when I read it.

I'm hungry for more literary inspiration so I'd love to hear what your all time must read is!

A quiet day at home

Cooking Jeffrey's delicious and simple pasta sauce which is loved by all and fortunately makes 1.5 - 2 litres so there is some for the freezer to rescue me when I am disorganised (which is often so it never seems to last very long).

Knitting with the bamboo yarn I recently bought. It felt so nice I just had to start without anything in particular in mind. Then I frogged it and started practicing some ribbing. Still not sure what I'm doing but I'm enjoying it anyway.

Reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I'm not very far in yet but already it's the best book I've read in ages. I loved it from the first page.

Soon I'll be waking the boys for music but there's just enough time for a cup of tea in front of the fire with my knitting.

What I'm reading

It's fair to say I have eclectic reading taste but who doesn't? We all have varied interests and most of us can traverse between them consecutively if not concurrently. So my three most recent reads are/have been:

The Alchemist by Paul Coelho image

This is a book I have always meant to read so I eagerly borrowed it from a friend recently (swapping it for Eleven Minutes incidentally, which I loved). Not on the same planet obviously and I knew that before I started but as much as I wanted to adore The Alchemist I had to persist with it against my will. I found the tone condescending in its parable-like simplicity and the plot was not enough to distract me, until the climax in the last 20 pages or so which I did enjoy. I finished the book satisfied with the 'message' and it's final delivery but overall I was disappointed.




Next I embarked upon Other People's Diaries by Kathy Webb image

I didn't have high expectations of this novel, it was a gift from my mum by an unknown (to me) author (or authors as it turns out), and is packaged in a large (read pulp fiction) format familiar from the best sellers shelves in Target. I enjoyed it as a pick-up-put-down-20-minutes-at-bedtime-read but as I anticipated I didn't enjoy the writing; it was too plot driven and the plot was too exposed by the lack of good writing. I am inclined to think it suffered from being a (long distance) collaborative work - too much focus on the characters' stories and not enough on the words.




Right now I am reading (or trying to read) Murray Bail's Homesickness image

I adored Eucalyptus and on the strength of that I bought The Pages for myself for Christmas and enjoyed the writing immensely. So I was thrilled to find Homesickness in a thrift shop recently and eagerly paid $1 for it. The first 16 pages were a confusing blur but then it calmed down to boring and dense. It's certainly not a bedtime read and I am still in the first 60 pages so I will try to persist in daylight but the jury is out on this one.

What I'm reading

Mitten Strings For God by Katrina Kenison

It's like a meditation, I'm reading a chapter each night and letting it resonate. This book is a beautifully written reminder of how hard it can be to slow down but how valuable it is to do so.