Minette Walters: Disordered Minds - Reviews

This is an intriguing novel.

It wasn’t much of a park, barely half an acre of wilted grass off Colliton Way where local people walked their dogs in the mornings and evenings. During the day it was hardly frequented at all, except by truants who hung around the trees that lined the fences. The police rarely visited it and, anyway, there was a hundred yards of open space between the only entrance and the offenders. In the time it took two overweight coppers to lumber across, the teens were long gone, vaulting the low fences into the gardens that formed the rear perimeter. As complaints came in thick and fast from homeowners whenever this happened, the police, preferring an easy life, tended to leave the youngsters alone.

Book Reviews by Danny Yee (fiction nonfiction)

This Australian site is well worth visiting. Who is Danny Yee?

In February 1992 I was an unmotivated computer science postgrad, spending way too much time playing computer games (netrek and xbattle). I can’t remember what prompted me, but I started writing short descriptions of the books I was reading and mailing them to twenty or so friends. My goals were to keep in touch with my friends, to make myself think more carefully about what I read, and to start discussions about books…

NSW Department of Education and Training Home Page

I find I have some bureaucratic hoops to go through before I am officially retired. I was in fact misinformed about this at The Mine because my employment has been a touch odd: I resigned in fact in the early 1980s and have been “casual” and lately (in part) “temporary teacher ESL”. I now find I must fill in a “separation form” — the above is my search for that. Guess what? They do not have the form online! You can only get them in schools. So I must report to The Mine on day one next year to get the form.

Actually I was going in anyway to tidy up a few things…

Lines from a Floating Life: RUMFITT Jeremy, First Strike, Cambridge, Vanguard Press 2004

I wrote the above entry back in November 2005, and now the author has struck back

Hi there - enjoyed your comments on my book. Didn’t know First Strike had reached Down Under. How did you hear about the book? Did you get it from your local Library?

All the best.

Jeremy Rumfitt

Revised postcolonial musings

On my Angelfire site I have just had fun revising an item from my 2004 diary on Robinson Crusoe and The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (London, Faber & Faber 1999)– the latter I really enjoyed, by the way. [They are now here on WordPress.]

Oh, and there are pics. Some of you might like them.

Related to which, one of my borrowings today from Surry Hills Library is Colonialism and Homosexuality by Robert Aldrich (a University of Sydney historian), London and New York: Routledge, 2003. One of the good things in History in recent years has been history from the margins, or “subaltern” history, which often throws new light on familiar people and events and/or unearths what has been buried. The flat earthists, John Howard for example, don’t like this. This book seems eminently readable and very interesting.

Saving Fish From Drowning - Book Reviews - Books - Entertainment - smh.com.au

Look again at what Amy Tan has to say about writing in The Opposite of Fate (2003). There are many wonderful essays in that collection. My Hong Kong Australian coachees very much enjoyed “Arrival Banquet”, which I shared with them as a possible supplementary text for the HSC “Journeys” unit. Ben said it was SO Chinese! And Tan is indeed a great mediator between cultures, with a humorous but empathic eye.

She also has a sharp pen when needed. Irony is implicit in the quasi-magical narrative method of Saving Fish from Dying (2005) with its multifaceted examination of cultural (mis)understandings and questioning of tourism — among other things. “Writing with stinging irony about oppression, genocide, culture clashes, religion, media spin, and corruption, [Tan] slyly considers the unintended consequences of everything from a thwarted seduction to a war based on lies.” (Donna Seaman in Booklist 1 Sep 2005.)

A couple of quotes:

Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan: Reviews

This is what I am reading at the moment. The reviews on the above site — seventeen of them — show only one really unfavourable, with three saying it is outstanding. I am enjoying it so far, unusual as it is to have a dead narrator…

Scholars Scrutinize the Koran’s Origin

This is very interesting, and something that really needs to be fearlessly embraced in my view. There is no reason for Muslims to fear for the essential principles of their faith in such a pursuit, even though it must be said that the status of the Qu’ran is even more critical in Islam than that of the Bible in Judaism and Christianity.

The author of that piece linked above is Alexander Stille. I am currently reading his The Future of the Past (2002), “a fascinating journey through Egypt, China, Sicily, Somalia, India, Madagascar.” This is a really wise book, if wisdom consists in the ability to get beyond ideological baggage and see ambiguities. As John Freeman says:

Christmas Day

M turned up last night with a box of chocolates. My brother rang first thing this morning from Tasmania, where it is 13 Celsius, unlike Sydney (40-ish yesterday!) Just back from church now — really nice. Lots of hugs. Even kisses: Sam’s was good Now to Sirdan’s for lunch, and the idea after that is to kidnap Lord Malcolm for a while.

Update on Lord Malcolm

You recall I mentioned Lord Malcolm being in hospital; I visited him today and he is showing every sign of surfacing again — putting on weight. The brain scan found nothing too nasty, but cardiology (so far so good) is not complete yet. He won’t be available for Christmas though; we had proposed going down to see that new bridge on the South Coast road.

Lord Malcolm

I spoke last night to Sirdan and hope to speak to Lord Malcolm, perhaps to see him, today. He is likely to be in hospital for some time. Our Christmas plans are on hold.

See also The Body: HIV/AIDS Resource; UNAIDS; AVERT.org; HIV AIDS Positive Stories; Aids Council of NSW.

Note Stages III and IV of HIV Infection. Lord Malcolm has been living with Stage III for some time. And doing it brilliantly.

Well that’s that at The Mine

Just back from my last end-of-term drinks (at the Bat and Ball)as a staff member at The Mine, though it is likely I will reappear there in various casual and consultative guises. It’s a more inclusive place and much less macho than it was twenty years ago, and that is all to the good.

"Our shared, core values are but a myth underpinning this new racism" — SMH — Laksiri Jaysuriya

I have obviously found non-blogging insupportable, but I will be cutting back…

Today’s opinion piece by Laksiri Jaysuriya does raise an important issue. There has been no doubt about the ideological shift in multiculturalism as conceived by our present government which went out of its way in its first four years to avoid the term. See Revision or Ideological Makeover? Floating Life on “Face the Facts” for a clear demonstration of this.

Jaysuriya argues:

Howard out of touch on racism

This poll in today’s Sydney Morning Herald is so remarkable, and to me so encouraging, that I am breaking my break, if you know what I mean, to share it with you.