(no subject)
Settling down in to reality again. And looking towards the next time i see Graham, in September. We've already been looking at flights and he's decided to take the chance and fly IcelandAir via Reykjavik to Halifax. Price is reasonable and he won't have to faff around in the U.S. The other slightly cheaper flight had him on a US airline company, United i think, or maybe American, anyway transferring in Philadelphia with a 6 hour layover. He says he's willing to take the risk of another volcano stranding him somewhere. I guess you take that risk anyway, with weather. I've got a travel agent looking into how much it might cost if he stays over in Reykjavik a couple of nights and i join him there. We'll see. If not this year, though, we might do it next year. I was looking on IcelandAir's website for hotels and they aren't even all that unreasonable. Pretty much on par with any large city like London or Toronto and cheaper than Copenhagen, or some of them are at least. It's everything else that's expensive there! Food and drink in particular. Anyway it's an idea if not for now, for later. I think it would be a neat place to see. I know a few people that have gone and they all liked it.
2011 books:
33: The Potato Factory - Bryce Courtenay
It's about a Jewish guy, Ikey Soloman, who was a fence in Victorian London and a counterfeiter as well. His wife, Hannah and his mistress, Mary, both ran whorehouses of different types, one more fashionable than the other. It tells their stories, mostly independently of each other in much of the book. They all three end up transported to what is now Tasmania for various crimes and we see how they make their lives there. It's the first of three books about the descendents but I don't know as i'll read the others. This one was good, i really liked it even if it was a bit outrageous sometimes. i.e. Ikey is purported to be the inspiration for Dickens' Fagin and one of the young pickpocket boys he "runs" tells Dickens his name is the Artful Dodger. Hmmm.... and a prostitute ends up giving birth to twins, one black and one white, having had sex with a sailor of each color on the same night. Double hmmmm... I believe the next book in the trilogy is about the brothers.
34: A Town Like Alice - Neville Shute
It took me ages to read this because i had it on my iPod and only picked it up and read on the bus now and then. It's nearly 2000 little iPod pages! I did enjoy it a lot, though. It's the story of a woman who was taken prisoner by the Japanese during WWII along with a group of other women. They were marched from town to town because their captors didn't want the responsibility of them. She meets an Australian ringer during this time though she thinks he's died before the war is over. He thinks she was a married woman because she was looking after the baby of one of the other women. Her story is told to use by a London Lawyer who had found her after discovering she was the sole heir to one of his elderly clients, a great uncle of hers. She had told him her story and then from the present forward he tells it as he knows it from letters from her. She goes back to Thailand to say thank you to the friends she made in a village that eventually took in the prisoners and then she discovers the ringer didn't die. He discovers she was never married. It looks like their paths aren't going to cross but of course you know, they do back in Australia. It's a love story in many ways, but not overly mushy and sentimental.
35 - And Furthermore - Judi Dench
Her autobiography. It's mostly about theatre as that's what she has done the most. Quite interesting, well told. No really any juicy gossip but you wouldn't expect that.
2011 books:
33: The Potato Factory - Bryce Courtenay
It's about a Jewish guy, Ikey Soloman, who was a fence in Victorian London and a counterfeiter as well. His wife, Hannah and his mistress, Mary, both ran whorehouses of different types, one more fashionable than the other. It tells their stories, mostly independently of each other in much of the book. They all three end up transported to what is now Tasmania for various crimes and we see how they make their lives there. It's the first of three books about the descendents but I don't know as i'll read the others. This one was good, i really liked it even if it was a bit outrageous sometimes. i.e. Ikey is purported to be the inspiration for Dickens' Fagin and one of the young pickpocket boys he "runs" tells Dickens his name is the Artful Dodger. Hmmm.... and a prostitute ends up giving birth to twins, one black and one white, having had sex with a sailor of each color on the same night. Double hmmmm... I believe the next book in the trilogy is about the brothers.
34: A Town Like Alice - Neville Shute
It took me ages to read this because i had it on my iPod and only picked it up and read on the bus now and then. It's nearly 2000 little iPod pages! I did enjoy it a lot, though. It's the story of a woman who was taken prisoner by the Japanese during WWII along with a group of other women. They were marched from town to town because their captors didn't want the responsibility of them. She meets an Australian ringer during this time though she thinks he's died before the war is over. He thinks she was a married woman because she was looking after the baby of one of the other women. Her story is told to use by a London Lawyer who had found her after discovering she was the sole heir to one of his elderly clients, a great uncle of hers. She had told him her story and then from the present forward he tells it as he knows it from letters from her. She goes back to Thailand to say thank you to the friends she made in a village that eventually took in the prisoners and then she discovers the ringer didn't die. He discovers she was never married. It looks like their paths aren't going to cross but of course you know, they do back in Australia. It's a love story in many ways, but not overly mushy and sentimental.
35 - And Furthermore - Judi Dench
Her autobiography. It's mostly about theatre as that's what she has done the most. Quite interesting, well told. No really any juicy gossip but you wouldn't expect that.