My book appetite has returned
Books worth mentioning, my reading habits, learning to be sociable when reading & a visit to an award winning library
In this update I explore the books I’ve been reading, my reading habits, learning to be sociable when reading and a library visit to the award winning Craigieburn library.
Reading Momentum
This has been my biggest reading month since I started tracking the books I’ve read. I’ve noticed something about the momentum that comes with reading each day. I’m reading faster and I want to keep reading. This has not gone unnoticed, and my sister sent me this image via a text message.
Here are the books I’ve read over the last month. I’ve also been selectively (and actively) recommending a book I read in July - All Fours, Miranda July. My copy is being passed around my fellow fiction book club members. If the title arouses your interest, you may want to read the ABC analysis of this book here.
Between a Wolf and a Dog, Georgia Blain
I can not recall why I reserved Between a Wolf and a Dog from my local library. Blain was mentioned somewhere, perhaps in another book I read. I found it hard to get into this story on our camping trip, but got back into my deeper reading groove over the few days on our return home.
Taking place largely over one rainy day in Sydney, and rendered with the evocative and powerful prose Blain is known for, Between a Wolf and a Dog is a celebration of the best in all of us - our capacity to live in the face of ordinary sorrows, and to draw strength from the transformative power of art. Ultimately, it is a joyous tribute to the beauty of being alive.1
Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom
I first heard about this treasured read during an interview with one of our guests on the Healing through Books podcast. Mitch Albom rediscovered Morrie in the last months of the older man's life. Knowing he was dying of ALS - or motor neurone disease - Mitch visited Morrie in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college. Their rekindled relationship turned into one final 'class': lessons in how to live.
When I saw Tuesdays with Morrie on the shelf at The Bright Bookshop, it seemed like the type of read my introverted friend had suggested. I finished it while on the camping trip and gifted it to my fellow fireside reader.
“From my heart to yours” I said, as I ceremoniously handed her this little red book.
Profound thought: Books are the perfect gift for myself and others.
Long Yarn Short, Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts
Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts is an advocate for Human Rights, a lawyer, and has recently been appointed as the Inaugural Commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People. From experiences in Out Of Home Care and facing injustices to becoming a Commissioner, Vanessa has devoted her life to empowering Indigenous self-determination and fighting for justice for First Nations people and children in Australia and worldwide.
This is a must read for any Australian who’s wondering ‘how did we get here’ and what can be done to enable the healing. Turnbull-Robert’s offers deep insight and practical, meaningful suggestions for empowering community. She also shines a light on the fearful reality that continues to exist for pregnant and new mothers, at a time that should be filled with joy.
If you voted YES in the referendum and are now wondering what’s next, this is the person to get behind, support and tell all of your fellow readers about.
Revenge of the Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
It’s a bookish kind of excitement when one of your favourite authors releases a new book. If you tried to explain what Revenge of the Tipping Point is about, I would not want to read it. However, because it was written by Malcolm Gladwell I bought a copy as soon as I heard about it. He rewards the reader with his deep research, inquiring mind, storytelling genius and the final ‘connecting of the dots’.
I was introduced to Gladwell’s first book, The Tipping Point, when I was a strategic marketer, prior to becoming a corporate escapee. We were launching Red Stripe, Jamaica’s number one beer at the time, into the Melbourne market. The launch was based on a ‘seeding’ strategy inspired by The Tipping Point, and the Brand Manager asked me to read it to help explain her vision. This was before the days of Instagram influencers and when certain pubs and drinking holes had a big influence on people’s drinking choices.
Almost 25 years and six books later, Gladwell has written a follow-up to his first work that revisits many of its themes. In its self-confidence, addictiveness and lucidity the new book resembles its predecessor, but bears the mark of an older, wizened author, and one who lives in a country very different to the Clinton-era United States. Gone is much of the joyous levity, the case studies about Hush Puppies or Airwalk shoes, replaced by stories that touch on the faultlines and anxieties of modern America: opioid addiction rates, racial quotas and the transmissibility of Covid. It is fascinating and provocative; more grounded in history, conscious of its intellectual antecedents, and more willing to take risks.2
Read the Guardian review of Revenge of the Tipping Point.
During the lockdowns here in Melbourne (the pandemic) I read the rest of Gladwell’s books and watched his Masterclass - Malcolm Gladwell Teaches Writing.
The Pole & Other Stories, J.M Coetzee
After reading The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, for my fiction book club, our book club discussion encouraged me to look up the work of J.M Coetzee, a South African and Australian novelist.
Both Morrison and Coetzee are Nobel Prize winners for Literature (1993, 2003). I’m not usually a short story reader and was inspired by Coetzee’s ability to describe so much with so few words.
The Queen is Dead, Stan Grant
Grant’s writing encourages contemplation of questions I am unable to answer. Reading his perspective is one of the ways I try to make sense of the world, in particular Australia’s shameful history.
The Queen is Dead carries an urgent, undeniable and righteous demand for justice, for a reckoning, and a just settlement with First Nations people.3
I feel Grant’s inner turmoil as I read his words on the page. This is not a state I imagine, it is one he readily admits feeling. I felt the same way when I read Talking to my Country, Grant’s second book. I shared the impact Talking to my Country had on me over on Think Bespoke’s blog in Discovering what it means to be Australian. Here is an excerpt of what I wrote in 2016.
What’s had the most profound impact on me this year is Stan Grant’s second book, Talking To My Country. An uneasy feeling about what it means to be Australian has stirred within me for some time. I’ve felt it for the last few ‘Australia Days’ and I feel it whenever I hear jokes told that are at the expense of other cultures. I have an increasingly strong desire for connection to my country and what it means to be Australian. I chose Koori Continuum, an elective offered by RMIT, when I did my Bachelor of Business, Marketing in the mid 1990s. This confirmed how little I was taught at school about our traditional land owners. Some of the statistics Stan shares on how Aborigines are treated in Australia will bring you to tears. For example, an indigenous youth has more chance of being locked up than educated. This book poses lots of questions for all Australians to consider.
My Reading Habits
My appetite for reading books returned this month, with the realisation that I was six books behind my 2024 reading goal. I’ve been thinking about where I read and what I’ve been reading.
Reading at home
I have a number of places in my house and garden where you’ll find me deep in a book. Where I choose to read depends on the time of day, the weather and who else is home. My favourite reading spot is a large green chair, originally purchased by and for my Mum when she downsized from a unit to a spacious room in her final home. When she no longer had the strength to get herself in and out of this chair, we placed it in our main lounge room. It became the preferred choice for each of us to sit in solitary contemplation at either end of a busy day, or when in conversation with each other. We’re all fond of the green chair. In those bittersweet years after she passed away it felt like a part of her was still with us.
After a recent reshuffle of furniture in the lounge room, I moved the green chair to a well lit position next to the window in our dining room. It’s far enough away from the lounge room and television so I can read at any time of the day. There’s a lamp for the evenings and a foot stool and rug to stretch out and stay warm.
The image above is an AI generated version of my reading chair.
Reading can be sociable
I’ve learnt to read more socially this year. That is, to be in the same room or space with others and read. My husband is a fairly quiet fellow, so it’s easy to read while he’s pottering around me. I can easily pause for conversation and return to my place on the page when he moves on to his next chore.
On a camping trip a few weeks ago it took me much longer than it would have, if I was home, to finish the last 20 pages of Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts’ book, Long Yarn Short. I mentioned this to my friend, who’s part of my camping family and was also reading at the campsite. I did manage to finish this book, but I was struggling to find my flow in the next book I’d brought from home. I’d read the same paragraph five times and expressed my frustration, breaking the silent communion we’d been enjoying as our families were adventuring.
We agreed there’s a certain type of book you need to read when camping. A lighter read that’s not too intellectually taxing and can easily be returned to after jovial fireside conversation.
She suggested we visit The Bright Bookshop and locate said book. As an introvert, she understands the need to be sociable as well as my desire to retreat to the pages of the book when conversation had stopped.
I probably should also mention that I went for a bike ride to Porepunkah and swam in the Ovens River with my sons as part of our weekend away. There was also plenty of conversation when the sun went down and I could no longer see the pages of my book!
Libraries worth mentioning
It seems Victoria has it’s very own library that’s received global acknowledgement at the same scale received by two of the libraries I mentioned in Libraries of Scandinavia: The Third Place.
Craigieburn Library is part of the Hume libraries and won the Public Library of the Year Award in 2014 for its modern construction and use of open and flexible space. According to 1001 Libraries to see before you die, in September 2014, the Hume Libraries service was also the first public library in Australia to receive eSmart status. The eSmart initiative, developed in partnership by The Alannah and Madeline Foundation, aims to increase cyber-safety and deals with cyber-bullying by changing behaviours.
narrm ngarrgu Library is the City of Melbourne’s new library in the Queen Victoria Market precinct. According to the library’s website, narrm ngarrgu, from its name to the materials, artworks, and even the carpet design, honours and celebrates the First Nations community. The name narrm ngarrgu (pronounced nahm nar-GUW) translates to ‘Melbourne Knowledge’ in Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung language. A fellow writer and bookish friend has agreed to check out this new library with me in the very near future.
Bookish Adventure Planning
I’m looking forward to catching up with my Business Book Club co-host and Healing Through Books podcast co-host, Anna Lamb, when she visits Melbourne later this month. We’ll hoping to discuss our plans for season two of our podcast, brainstorm bookish travel adventures for 2025 and review suitable business books for book club. If you have any business book recommendations, particularly by female authors, please let me know!
Writing for therapy
Thank you for reading Confessions of an Ambivert and joining me in this moment.
The journey with my book pitch and manuscript has circled back to reflecting on how much I value writing as a form of therapy. I feel grateful that writing helps me get into my flow, creating a safe space to process my thoughts, emotions and life’s events.
I am also grateful to
Dunley and her Writing Momentum program.With love & gratitude,
KPH
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I acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the lands on which I live and pay my respects to Indigenous Elders past, present and emerging. Sovereignty has never been ceded. It always was and always will be, Aboriginal land.
goodreads book description
I can lend you my copy of Tuesdays with Morrie. I had a copy on my TBR pile at home. I am trying not to let myself buy any more new books until I make my way through this pile!