The Newcastle Reading List

 

I grew up in Newcastle. Well close enough. Much easier to say Newcastle, so people know where you mean. When I grew up the boys all went off to work at Comm Steel and BHP, major industries that don't exist anymore. Newcastle has been the inspiration for a number of songs. The Newcastle Song. We all grew up knowing "Don't you ever let a chance go by."

Newcastle famously rioted when a pub shut.

So you can imagine my surprise when I was catching up on a recent SMH article, and saw this written bold and large:

Newcastle is now ranked as one of the world's top five hipster cities

What? Really? Hipsters? Can a deconstructed vegemite toast really be the basis of all this acclaim?

I didn't have much of a problem with the second half of the sentence

and is welcoming a growing literary scene.

Sure. That bit is easy. I've loved attending the Newcastle Writers Festival three times over the past few years, and I'm aware of more and more writers and poets calling Newcastle home. The hipster claim appears to be old news. And I'd still agree that "you’ll see more hipsters in the first ten meters of Crown Street, Surry Hills than you will in a week in Newcastle".

One of the interesting things that the article did was include a list of Newcastle Novels, and even though the lists have been light on here for a while, I knew I couldn't let this chance go by...

Newcastle Novels

Lover's Knots: A Hundred Year Novel - Marion Halligan 1992

Paterson - William Carlos Williams 1963

Southern Steel - Dymphna Cusack 1953

The Last Thread - Michael Sala 2012

The Long Prospect - Elizabeth Harrower 1958

The Restorer - Michael Sala 2017

Sadly I haven't read any of these books. There's always so much reading to be done.

Are polka dots acceptable for over-25s?

I do like to read the weekend papers. I like all the supplements.  The book reviews. The art reviews. The recipes. Often these aren't easily available online, and it's nice to read the magazines, much like I prefer to read real books over ebooks. And yes, I even like the fashion pages. Most often they make me laugh or shake my head. "Really, $3000 for that. I don't know who buys this stuff."

Last week I read the Weekend Australian Magazine from June 11 2016 and I can't tell you how often I've thought about this silly little article in the last week. I'm not fully sure why but I was more than moderately incensed by the proposed age limit on polka dots. Do fashion people really think like that? Is it something anyone needs to think about? No wonder that the model looks downcast. I have a polka dot scarf that I enjoy wearing at the moment, and I'm a little past 25. Although it is true that you do need a certain je ne sais quoi to be able to pull off top to toe polka dots.

Glynis Traill-Nash appears to have recovered from her mistake at removing polka dots from her wardrobe and perhaps it was all a little bit of fun. I was then astonished at her suggestions for how we might include some polka dots in our mundane lives.

Like this Marco De Vincenzo dress. On sale for a mere $4, 359 (but now the price has dropped even further to $2,490)- I simply can't ever imagine spending $2,490 on a dress. Never mind that the full original price was $6, 228. And is it irony that she's picked a dress that wouldn't suit anyone over 25?

Who then needs to carry a copy of Alice in Wonderland?

Similarly while it is super cute and dotty, are we average newspaper readers meant to aspire to a handbag that is $1518 (on sale)? Perhaps we are because I can't find it on the matchesfashion.com website anymore. I do really like Mary Katrantzou's use of print and colour though.

Or an $1787 ring?

I could have written this post about pretty much any fashion article, but the polka dot comment pushed me over the edge. It's been a while since I had a bit of a rant. It was time. There, I feel better now.

Andy Griffiths and Roald Dahl's Enduring Influence

I almost read this Sydney Morning Herald article on time. Well, pretty close for me. I actually found it the weekend that it was printed. Andy Griffiths is of course one of our most popular Australian writers writing for children. I've seen him speak at several writers festivals and he always has tremendous queues of kids eager to meet him and have him sign the huge stack of his books that they've brought with them. Certainly they were in Melbourne in 2012, and he was the best selling author at the Sydney Writer's Festival just last week. He spent seven hours signing books for kids!

Andy writes in a comedic style, and obviously sees humour as an important, as did Roald Dahl. According to the article Road Dahl once wrote that the four ingredients of children's fiction were suspense, action, eccentricity and magic. Plots with ghosts were good, and so were those with chocolates, toys, treasure or money. Children, he wrote, loved to be spooked and "made to giggle". Read Roald Dahl's full advice here.

The books and authors Andy Griffiths suggests are keeping the Dahl legacy alive:

Stinking Rich and Just Plain Stinky: Grubtown Tales - Phillip Ardagh

My Life Series- Tristan Bancks

Horribles Histories - Terry Deary (some not all of course there's so many, see my reviews)

Gasp! - Terry Denton

Two Weeks with the Queen - Morris Gleitzman

The Un Series - Paul Jennings

Diary of a Wimpy Kid Series - Jeff Kinney (again some not all)

Captain Underpants - Dav Pilkey (quite a few, but still not all)

Holes - Louis Sachar (see my review)

The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales - Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith

A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket (read 1/13)

You're a Bad Man, Mr Gum! - Andy Stanton (review coming soon)

The Harry Potter Series - J.K. Rowling (read 1/7)

Demon Dentist - David Walliams (wouldn't you know it? The only Walliams I haven't read! But you can read all my other gushing Walliams reviews) July 2015-  I've read it now! (see my review)

The descriptor in the article about You're a Bad Man, Mr Gum! sounds fantastic. It's so good to live now, so that even if a book isn't published in Australia (and why would that be?), you can get your hands on it very quickly online. It will be mine, oh yes it will be mine.

Old Newspapers #2

Today I was reading an old Sydney Morning Herald, and came across a fascinating article about Damien Hirst. Usually I'm not that interested in his work- all that chopping dead animals in two, seems more like butchery than art to me. But he's making a lot more money than I do that's for sure.

This article caught my eye because it was about his dot paintings. I wasn't familiar with these. He's been making them since 1986, and yet they are apparently the least known of his themes. He was inspired to make them after his dad painted blue circles on the front door of the family home. Ok then.

Picture credit

You get the idea.


The most interesting part to my mind:

Of the hundreds of spot canvases, Hirst painted only five himself. ''When I worked out how to do it, I sold one painting for, like, 50 quid and then used the money to employ other people to paint them,'' he says.

So is Damien Hirst an artist? Or a businessman? I imagine he's been called worse.

BTW The article mentioned his butterfly paintings. I hadn't heard of those either. They're fantastic! And art I think. Unless he pays someone else to do it, which he probably does. I am somewhat sad at the usage of butterflies in this way, but I think he's highlighting their beauty by creating these kaleidoscopic, trippy images. I'd love to see one.

Old Newspapers #1

I'm a dreadful one for leaving unread or partly read papers in an ever increasing stack. I always mean to read them on the day, but somehow never get the time. Whenever I get the chance to sit down to read some, like I did this morning, I'm always rewarded by finding some fabulous articles of interest on a wide variety of topics. Here's what caught my eye today.

An inspirational article about 98 year old Jim Henry from Mystic, Connecticut. Jim had to stop schooling when he was in the third grade. He worked as a lobsterman, and then took up reading in his late 90s! Jim didn't admit his illiteracy until he was 92, and then began to learn to read and write when he was 96. Jim has since authored a book called In a Fisherman's Language.

More astonishingly I found a suggestion for Christmas presents (I did say they were old papers). The one I was particularly taken with was this one. 

Shooting modes including food and sweets! Does this mean sweets aren't food? Why would they need a different setting? Now, I got a new camera for Christmas. A snazzy Fuji X10. Does it have a food or sweets setting? I hadn't checked! 

Oh Man. I was totally ripped off. My new camera doesn't have a food OR a sweets setting. Although it does manage to take mighty fine photos in dimly lit restaurants. I just happen to know.