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Favourite Books, music and stuff

Books

I just finished The Poisonwood Bible,and am reading Wrack and this is also interesting in aspects about the Portugese discovery of Australia.

 I have recently read :The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova was good . It made me want to visit the places she described although not to meet Dracula!

:Wainrights mountain by Chester Eagle. This is a very complex book with all sorts of Historical aspects, magic realism and a diverse range of characters.( Chester's books are available at Trojan press.com.au). 

 Emily gave me a book called Inspirational about where different people get ideas  from and this has given me some new aspects to follow up.

I enjoyed the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson and also reading Dava Sobels Galileos Daughter.

 Another Junk sculptor sent me his list of favourite books ( very similar to mine!) and among them was one called Blue Highways . I enjoyed this  too.

I  have recently really enjoyed the Phillip Pullman series "His dark Materials" This will go in the all time favorites list too!

 Tons of imagination and ideas that I had never come across before.

All time favorites

              Catch 22     Joseph Heller Love the humour and the logic. A real wealth of characters and very insightful
The Master and Margarita      Mikhail Bulgarkov The Devil comes to Moscow with a 6 foot black cat. Two parallel stories in the one book and it is a delight of absurdity and beauty
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance   Robert M Pirsig A book I re read quite often and think about his comments. Very deep and sort of scary as the story unfolds but very profound
Lord Of The Rings   J. R. R. Tolkien Couldn't put it down the first time. I just love the wealth of detail, characters and of course the story

Technopoly        also    Amusing ourselves to death   

     Neil Postman

This  stuff opened my eyes to a wide range of different perceptions. Very readable and thought provoking
A short History of nearly everything   Bill Bryson I really like science that is related to our world. I suppose that is what science is but often it gets divorced . Bryson firmly attaches everthing again and this is a delight of history  and scientific concepts

The Day of the triffids   John Wyndham
 
An oldie but a goodie. Scary engrossing and very enjoyable

The hitchhikers Guide to the galaxy series   Douglas Adams
 
Such a clever man to play with language as he does. The ideas are fun and I love the idea of being "drunk" and who could not like a character with a name of slarti blart fast
The Narnia Chronicles    C. S Lewis Where do these guys get the imagination to write stuff of this quality. It just grows and grows and can be read with all sorts of views

A Mirror on the past  Barbara Tuchman

A wonderful history of the 13th century. Great writing and so this is where our world came from!

Music

Listening down the shed to Bryndle, Roseanne Cash and ELO. Also Marcel Borrack's latest album is really lovely.

My favorite Song is "The water is wide" . This is a traditional song and I have heard many versions of this beautiful piece. The best one I have come across is Karla Bonhoff's version on "Restless Nights" Classical

Beethoven      symphonies 3 and 9

Mary Chapin Carpenter Carl Orff            Carmina Burana
Thomas Dolby Handel         Water music etc
The Dixie Chicks Vivaldi            anything
Mark Knopfler/Dire Straits Wagner      Tristan and isolde
Richard Thompson Greig         Peer Gynt suite
Kasey Chambers Bizet              Carmen
Warren Zevon Tchaikovsky   anything
Neil Young Smetana   Ma  Vlast
Paul Kelly Mozart anything