Share your bookshelf

You know what makes me happy? My books. You know what makes me happier? My books on their new bookshelves!!! In the process of putting them there I realised I've got so many gaping holes in my collection. In part it's because I love to lend my books to people and I've forgotten who has what (but now I have my borrow book that's yesterday's problem). Also, we've moved so much I have lost some along the way, which is sad, but I hope someone else found them and loved them.

Anyways, I also realised that I've been holding off (well, holding off by my standards... ha!) buying heaps of stuff I want, including classics I've maybe read but don't have a copy of, until I had somewhere outside of a suitcase to keep them. And now I do. So I've decided to create my own meme. Please put it on your site with your answers and link back here, then I can see what should be added to my reading list and find a home on my shelves. So here is the "share your bookshelf" meme... I've answered all the questions here on my site, but obviously you can just cut and paste the questions and change it for your blog.

For bibliophiles, there is no such thing as a single favourite book. There's a book for all occasions. Tell me your top reads so I can have something new to discover.

Favourite childhood picture book:

Then, it was probably any of the Golden Books. I don't remember any other picture books I was particularly attached to.

Most nostalgic early reader:

This one is easy for me. Anything Enid Blyton. I had all Mum's old Blyton books from when she was a little girl, and I read them over and over and over. I think my favourite of those was the Magic Faraway Tree series. Or Famous Five. I just wanted to be George, and have a dog like Timmy...

Picture books or early readers you wish had been around for your childhood:

My favourites are all picture books, and it's a toss up between any of the Todd Parr books (they're bright and cheerful, they promote tolerance, self-acceptance and alternative family models including adoption, fostering, gay parenting, single parenting and split families), Shaun Tan's beautiful new Tales from Outer Suburbia (non linear, wildly imaginative stories) or Princess Smartypants, which is a great counter point to the regular 'princess' crap little girls are inundated by.

First book that made you cry or scared you so much you couldn't finish it:

Seven Little Australians or Little Women or one of the Anne of Green Gables series. Not sure which came first, but I was so traumatised by the death of characters I'd grown attached to I found it almost unbearable. I still have trouble re-reading stories where I dread an upcoming death.

Favourite teen read:

This is hard. I was completely sucked in to Babysitter's Club, Sweet Valley High and all those serials aimed at girls. I suppose the ones that stand out the most are the Judy Bloom books. They were fascinating for all the obvious reasons, but also because they were the first to feel like they connected with my own early and pre teen experiences of bullying, the sudden division into boy/girl camps and starting to feel removed from your family.

What book can you see influenced your reading habits later in life:

Nancy Drew was a precursor to my love of murder mysteries and the crime/thriller genre. I loved her so much. So. Much. Pity the movie was so terrible.

High school curriculum book you loved the most:

Such a cliche, but still true, To Kill a Mockingbird.

High school curriculum book you hated the most:

I didn't really hate any of our books, but I did hate that we studied next to no classics and no poetry (except awful, awful Australiana).

Favourite author or genre for a light summer read:

Anything Agatha Christie or even more pulp-ish in the crime/mystery genre; Lisa Gardiner, Patricia Cornwell or even old-school Raymond Chandler.

Favourite author to sink your teeth into when you want a challenge:

What author makes you swoon:

Truman Capote. I hadn't read any of his work until relatively recently, only in the last couple of years, and from page one of Breakfast at Tiffanys I was totally hooked. I didn't realise how page-turning his writing was. It made my heart sing and I went straight out to buy all of his work, which I then devoured immediately. Something about his writing is so enchanting, and it took me completely by surprise. I thought he was one of those authors people had built a mythology around, but now I'm a huge fan.

What book do you wish you had written:

High Fidelity or maybe About a Boy. Rarely do books make me laugh out loud, but both of these did that. I wish I could make characters that people connected to like these two.

Biography or autobiography you love:

Heart Garden, which is all about Heidi Museum of Modern Art and one of the people I'm fascinated by, Sunday Reed (who, by the way, Nicole Kidman's daughter is named after. About five years ago when I told Himself I wanted to name my imaginary daughter Sunday he said it was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard of. Now Nicole beat me to it. No fair.).

Favourite funny book or writer:

About A Boy and High Fidelity are definitely up there, but I think I love them more as stories that are filled with pathos and characters I love rather than comedy books.

Character you want to be:

I want to be Miss Marple when I grow up, but right now I wish I were Tuppence, another one of Agatha Christie's characters (whom she features in quite a few short stories). She has a heap of spunk.

Character you want to pull off the page and into your arms:

I've never been into the Mr Darcy type, or the Romeo type. I think it's probably one of Raymond Chandler's broody noir types.

Character who'd be your best buddy in real life:

I'd love to be Sunday Reed's best friend, but she was a real person that Janet Rice wrote about in her novel Heart Garden, not a character. And I'm pretty sure I would have been too scared to talk to her, such is my adoration.

Favourite poet or poem?

Gwen Harwood. I don't really love a huge amount of poetry (I think I'm too impatient when I read it), but her poems about women, motherhood and identity are amazing.

Favourite hometown book or author:

Arnold Zable or Barry Dickens. I've spent a lot of time with Barry and his stories always ring true on the page, but are even more golden being told first person. Arnold Zable's books suck me in entirely, I have to read them cover to cover as soon as I get them.

Favourite book set in your city:

What the Dickens by Barry Dickens. He has a great way of making previous eras of Melbourne come alive.

The book which opened up a whole new world for you:

Gwen Harwood's letters to her friends throughout her life. It made me think about friendship differently, to accept that sometimes we're separated by huge distances but we can retain intimacy with kindred spirits, no matter how much time we spend apart. I hold that lesson pretty dear, true friends are the ones you can pick up a conversation with any time.

Book you wish your favourite director would make into a movie:

I love great sci-fi movies, so I guess I'd like some more Phillip K Dick. Or the Chronicles of Prydian teen fantasy books, which are based on Welsh mythology which I loved growing up.

Book that you either loved or hated the movie adaptation of:

High Fidelity. The book and the movie are totally different, but they both work incredibly well and are in my Top 5 lists for books and movies.

Favourite title:

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Freakin awesome. Also goes down as a great book/movie adaptation, but again the two are totally different... is that the key, do you think?

Most enjoyable collection of short stories or essays:

Other than Anne Enright's recent collection, Talking Pictures, I'd have to say Peter Carey's Fat Man in History (I still recall unsettling emotions every time I think of the various stories, and the cover introduced me to the art of Jeffrey Smart, who I now love) or Julian Barnes History of the World in Ten and Half Chapters (which has the best narrative running through it, while still maintaining exceptional autonomous short stories throughout).

Book you think other people would miss/skip/underestimate:

I've been reading a lot of teen fiction this year. Curiously people seem to think reading Harry Potter is cool but all other teen fiction is out of bounds. Personally I think there's some really engaging, interesting writing coming through these areas. Two series I read with gusto are Twilight (which I think everyone is starting to hear about because of the movie) and Penni Russon's Undine. When I talk to people about Twilight I get "Vampires? Teenage love story? With werewolves?" which is all true, but doesn't begin to cover what is so page turning about the series. Remember what it felt like the first time you found someone irresistibly attractive? That teen angst that comes with pumping hormones and new sexual interest? These books express those emotions and so much more. It's Anne Rice combined with Judy Bloom and it works. There's plenty of pandering to American morality (no sex before marriage, kiddies!) but it doesn't undermine the authenticity of her characters and it's fun. Undine I found because I came across Penni's blog. I found her posts about writing the books fascinating, and her ability to write in such an engaging way about her gorgeous little girls made me curious about her professional writing. I was so pleased that her characters and the novels as a whole are just as interesting as her writing about her own world. Great for adults as much as teens, I think.

Best book you read this year:

I did a lot of rereading, or pulp reading. My brain wasn't up for much. My Columbian Death by Matthew Thompson was a highlight. I know Matt, so it was amazing to read a novel of his own experiences in which I could imagine him (and his lovely wife) going through it all. Also Anne Enright's Taking Pictures. It took my breath away.

Now over to you! Feel free to skip categories or add your own. For those who don't have a blog, feel free to add incredibly long comments!

Case of the Mondays #7

I've spent the weekend in Sydney saying goodbye to a dear friend who leaves the country very soon.  Today I'm in Canberra, where I'm spending some time with Himself and planning to meet up with various people to discuss our upcoming issue of Green Magazine.  Case of the Mondays? Nowhere in sight.  

You know why?  Because life happened... my friend is leaving Sydney, I wanted to see her, and I could.  I could get in the car on Friday with my partner, drive up to Sydney, then over to Canberra on Sunday afternoon.  If I (or Himself) worked in an office with more draconian views, that would be impossible.  I probably wouldn't have been able to afford the plane ticket, so I would have had to skip seeing her before she goes home, probably for good, to her home country. Or I would have had to rush back for work Monday.  Surely that would lead to a case of the Mondays.  

Himself was able to, literally, work on his computer as we drove.  Mobile internet+mobile phone = mobile office.  I sat in the drivers seat and we kept going down the highway while he emailed workmates and journos, sent national press releases and spoke to his boss, a Senator, while she flew from Canberra to Sydney to Canberra to Perth throughout the day.  How freaking cool is that?  I have to say it beats being forced to sit at a desk all day.  He was able to do his job, I'm able to do my job up here for the week, and all it took was a little flexibility.

Friday Find

So I finally found a version of the "new" Star Wars I can stand to watch.

http://failblog.org/2008/09/16/subtitle-fail/

Timely reminder

And I've just found this article. While I do raise my eyebrow at the idea of "beating" CFS (for most it's an illness we manage for the remainder of our lives, even if we manage to come through particularly bad patches), it's great to see someone with a profile like Layne Beachley talking about their experiences of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. For even more perspective, read some of the comments of others below her article. You'll see there are some people who feel they are 'cured', many more who know they aren't, along with a breadth of other experiences. I think the most important thing to take from it are that no two experiences are the same, and for every 'solution' that works for one person, there are two more it didn't work for. It's a really, really tough illness to treat, let alone discuss (even amoung people who suffer from it). I do believe that the important part is that we stop pushing it under the carpet and keep discussing. The stigma is often the most debilitating aspect... or is that just me?

More on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Thanks to a link from Lauredhel to another shirt on this site, I came across a great shirt I intend to purchase pronto:

Notice 'fatigue' instead of fatigue. That's because our chronic 'fatigue' is more like chronic pain, brain-fuzz, exhaustion etc etc... fatigue doesn't even come close.

And also the original text from a letter I was given a while ago, which is worth re-posting:

Having CFS means many things change, and a lot of them are invisible. Unlike AIDS and Cancer, most people do not understand even a little about CFS and its effects, and of those that think they know, many are actually mis-informed. In the spirit of informing those who wish to understand ...

... These are the things that I would like you to understand about me before you judge me...

Please understand that being sick doesn't mean I'm not still a human being. I have to spend most of my day flat on my back in bed and I might not seem like great company, but I'm still me stuck inside this body. I still worry about school and work and my family and friends, and most of the time I'd still like to hear you talk about yours too.

Please understand the difference between "happy" and "healthy". When you've got the flu you probably feel miserable with it, but I've been sick for years. I can't be miserable all the time, in fact I work hard at not being miserable. So if you're talking to me and I sound happy, it means I'm happy. That's all. I may be tired. I may be in pain. I may be sicker that ever. Please, don't say, "Oh, you're sounding better!". I am not sounding better, I am sounding happy. If you want to comment on that, you're welcome.

Please understand that being able to stand up for five minutes, doesn't necessarily mean that I can stand up for ten minutes, or an hour. It's quite likely that doing that five minutes has exhausted my resources and I'll need to recover - imagine an athlete after a race. They couldn't repeat that feat right away either. With a lot of diseases you're either paralyzed or you can move. With this one it gets more confusing.

Please repeat the above paragraph substituting, "sitting up", "walking", "thinking", "being sociable" and so on ... it applies to everything. That's what a fatigue-based illness does to you.

Please understand that chronic illnesses are variable. It's quite possible (for me, it's common) that one day I am able to walk to the park and back, while the next day I'll have trouble getting to the kitchen. Please don't attack me when I'm ill by saying, "But you did it before!". If you want me to do something, ask if I can and I'll tell you. In a similar vein, I may need to cancel an invitation at the last minute, if this happens please don't take it personally.

Please understand that "getting out and doing things" does not make me feel better, and can often make me seriously worse. CFS may cause secondary depression (wouldn't you get depressed if you were stuck in bed for years on end!?) but it is not caused by depression. Telling me that I need some fresh air and exercise is not appreciated and not correct - if I could do it, I would.

Please understand that if I say I have to sit down/lie down/take these pills now, that I do have to do it right now - it can't be put off or forgotten just because I'm doing something. CFS does not forgive.

Please understand that I can't spend all of my energy trying to get well. With a short-term illness like the flu, you can afford to put life on hold for a week or two while you get well. But part of having a chronic illness is coming to the realization that you have to spend some energy on having a life now. This doesn't mean I'm not trying to get better. It doesn't mean I've given up. It's just how life is when you're dealing with a chronic illness.

If you want to suggest a cure to me, please don't. It's not because I don't appreciate the thought, and it's not because I don't want to get well. It's because I have had almost every single one of my friends suggest one at one point or another. At first I tried them all, but then I realized that I was using up so much energy trying things that I was making myself sicker, not better. If there was something that cured, or even helped, all people with CFS then we'd know about it. This is not a drug-company conspiracy, there is worldwide networking (both on and off the Internet) between people with CFS, if something worked we would KNOW.

If after reading that, you still want to suggest a cure, then do it, preferably in writing, but don't expect me to rush out and try it. If I haven't had it suggested before, I'll take what you said and discuss it with my doctor. He's open to new suggestions and is a great guy, and he takes what I say seriously.

Please understand that getting better from an illness like this can be very slow. People with CFS have so many systems in their bodies out of equilibrium, and functioning wrongly, that it may take a long time to sort everything out.

I depend on you - people who are not sick - for many things.

But most importantly, I need you to understand me.

It's going to be easy being Green.

Oh yeah! I forgot to share my exciting news. I'm the new editor of Green magazine. I'll be managing my own publication again, which is fantastic. It comes out often enough to keep me busy but not so often I'll be overwhelmed, I can work from just about anywhere, it's an area I'm passionate about. Doesn't get any better than that.

Case of the Mondays #6

After a fortnight of blog silence, I'm back for another installment of Case of the Mondays! For those who haven't caught the series before, rather than lamenting all the things I miss about having a more active, full life as I used to prior to CFS, I've decided to celebrate each week that passes without someone asking "has someone got a Case of the Mondays?" in a chipper voice by noting the many and varied aspects of office life I don't miss in the slightest. Yes, I love Office Space. You should to.

This week? Lets discuss the physical surrounds of almost every office. You know what I mean. That carpet (thin polyester scratchy stuff... eeewww), the cheap particle-board office furniture (which leak chemicals into the air, often in levels considered unsafe for continued exposure), the 'ergonomic' chairs (which either won't adjust their height or the back pushes forward so you're stuck like you're leaning in to the wind), humming computer monitors (mine at home never hum, but put them in an office and it's like they're speaking to each other in hive mind hum sounds) and, worst of all, fluro lighting. Those lights are terrible for our health, flatter no-one and when they start that flickering they induce suicidal tendencies in everyone. The only thing they have going for them is their good eco credentials, given how little energy it takes to operate them. Unfortunately, that's not enough to redeem them. Working in an airless office, surrounded by equipment that never works quite as it should... just another thing that is bound to give me a Case of the Mondays.

Case of the Mondays #5

It's a long weekend here in Melbourne. Well, a split long weekend, in which many people take off Monday so they can truly appreciate the 'real' day off, Tuesday, making a giant Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues extravaganza. You might think this gives me a reason to shake off the usual Case of the Mondays, the idea of recreation on a Monday instead of work. You're wrong. It just highlights more ways that our usual nine-to-five week gives us all a Case of the Mondays.

On long weekends, we relish the idea of more time for ourselves. Maybe a BBQ with friends, maybe an extra day to potter around home, maybe a chance to get away. Sounds so lovely, especially heading into warmer months, doesn't it? Only, with the exception of pottering around home, long weekends mean instead of sitting in a busy office dealing with other people all day, your day is dealt with a crush of other (inconvenient) people... only this time you don't get paid for it. Everywhere you turn, everyone else is trying to get in on this relaxing caper, ruining your chance to relax.

Booking a weekend away is either impossible or costs double what it would at any other time, a shopping trip encounters full car parks and hungover shop assistants, relaxing drinks with your friends means packed bars and pubs (and in the case of this weekend in particular here in Melbourne, drunken horse racing refugees). There is no escape from everyone else trying to escape. Those precious hours of freedom are spent negotiating how to avoid all the other people with their free time.

Also, is it just me or does having a Case of the Mondays on Tuesdays actually feel worse? Long weekends seem so much harder to return from. You've had that extra day and somehow your body and brain have decided that 24 hours extra without checking in to work means it must go into holiday mode. My parents seem to suffer from this badly. It should be said, though, that after their time off over Christmas they seem to have a giant Case of the Mondays well into February. You know how some people have seasonal affective disorder? My parents have return to work affective disorder. It really worries me. Tomorrow they return from a short jaunt away on their 'long' weekend, so we'll see how they fare when they return to work on Wednesday. Can you get a Case of the Mondays on Wednesday? When does it stop being a Case of the Mondays and start being a Case of the Hating My Job?