Book Gems and Touring

Anytime I pass, let alone walk into a bookshop, I’ll always find something I want to take home and add to my TBR- To Be Read pile. Seperate to the TBR pile is the MRT- Must Read That pile. I’m too scared to count the former and I wouldn’t be alone in saying the latter is too big to count. During the trip to Tassie last week the TBR pile grew a little and shrunk a bit.

Despite my best efforts to finish reading Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls prior to the trip I found it was a book which needed to be read slowly and I only just finished it prior to coming home. I cannot praise The Silence of the Girls highly enough and there were often times when I re-read passages just to enjoy their beauty.

My main reading failure of the trip was not spending enough time with Ellen Van Neerven’s Comfort Ford. Each time I pick it up I find something new to savour and I only managed to do this a once on the trip. I was sitting quietly whilst photographs were being taken, thankfully of a building and not me, and I opened the page to this intensely beautiful poem. You can just feel the sadness building to that poignant last line.

The trip back on the ferry was calm and pleasant and I spent most of the time reading Jane Rawson’s From The Wreck. One of the nice aspects of being on Twitter is the ability to tweet to an author when I start reading their book and to say how much I enjoyed reading it afterwards. There was also a bit of banter about avoiding being shipwrecked, the subject of the book, which adds to the enjoyment of giving positive feedback.

Now a little note about tourist brochures. My wife and I both enjoy walking but our knees don’t appreciate steep tracks as much as they used to. In one of the brochures we found a place called Snug Falls which was only a short drive south of Hobart. The brochure suggested the walk to the falls was pleasant, it turned out to be a grade 3 track which took some effort to complete. The falls are stunning, which you can see from the photo below, but I don’t imagine that we’ll ever get to see them again.

Lastly I must apologise about the tardiness of this post. Holidays, work and other time constraints have made it difficult complete it and although I’d like to add a few more things they can be left for another day.

Top image: The Book Cellar Campbell Town, Tasmania                                                               Bottom image: Snug Falls, Tasmania