Just when you might think time is something you don’t have, along comes a book like 132 Seize the Days by Lonely Planet to blow your shallow musings out of its puddle. Targeted at full-time job holders in the UK, who on average are entitled to 132 non-work days each year (counting weekends, holidays and bank holidays), this snappy 127-page pocket book dreams up big and small ways to take breathers around the world that are relaxing, inspiring, adventurous, hedonistic, charitable, ecologically sensitive or all of the above. With ideas as grand as a 16-day jungle survival course in deepest Guyana, to fossil hunting on Devon’s Jurassic Coast, or nude camping expeditions in Croatia, this book caters to an array of tastes, budgets, sensibilities and fetishes. Written by Amelia Thomas, an intriguing and intelligent British writer, journalist and adventurer who breathes the principles of carpe diem, this book is an inspiring reminder that life is for the living. (Image by Solbeam, a perpetual pilgrim.)
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seize the days
I love touching down into a foreign place, unpacking my bags and then pounding the pavement to find a cool place for a drink. You can tell a lot about a city through its drinking holes: study up on the fashion styles of the locals, browse interior design trends and feast on the inseason ingredients in the fancy cocktails or appetiser dishes on offer. Fans of the best-selling book, 100 of the World’s Best Bars will delight in this miniature pocket-sized version. Available from all good bookstores, A Pocketful of Bars provides the jet-setting crowd with an ideal space saving travel companion of the trendsetting bars around the globe. Sixty have been selected for their sophistication of design and ability to cater to a wide variety of customers. Discover hidden gems, just opened hotspots, and tried and tested favourites from Vancouver to Hamburg, Istanbul to Shanghai, New York to Zagreb, Helsinki to Liverpool, and Prague to Prahran. No Brisbane bars in this edition, but hopefully the Bickles’ innovative new Valley superclub venue with hanging gardens of Babylon-themed beer garden appears in future publications.
There are some books I wish were made of sponge or at least structured as a torso and shoulders so I could squeeze them within an inch of their preciousness. The Adventures of Curly Pyjamas by Micheal Leunig is one such book. It’s not a new book, it was published in 2001 but, like I do with Paulo Coelho books, I stumbled across it at a time my soul was tired and grubby and needed some reassurance that everything was going to be alright with the world. Over a mere 74 pages, letters are exchanged between lone voyager Vasco Pyjama and his friend and mentor Mr Curly of Curly Flat. Their hand-written musings and sketches speak of restlessness, contentment, confusion, pure wonderment, infectious joy and matters of the heart. With simple words and quiet determination they tackle deep thoughts and soldier on through life’s grandest challenges. While Vasco Pyjama and his direction-finding duck wander far and wide observing the world and risking much, Mr Curly remains grounded and delights in the small wonders of Curly Flat such as twirling, swirling season, and the coming of autumn, which compels small children to whisper sweet eulogies to fallen leaves. It is a book that reminds me life is grand, precious and full of quiet beauty, just like Vasco Pyjama, his duck, and Mr Curly of Curly Flat.
Sydney Writers Festival kicks off from May 28 and is proudly flashing its ‘first climate friendly Australian literary festival’ tag. Festival organisers have teamed up with NRMA Insurance to offset all carbon emissions as well as introducing other initiatives to reduce the festival’s environmental impact. Hopefully the Byron Bay Writers Festival (program to be announced June 1) will take notes from the lessons learned in Sydney. Aside from the writers worthy of the ‘highlights’ page of the festival website, other interesting events include the Sydney premiere of the film adaptation of Raimond Gaita’s novel, Romulus, My Father, featuring Eric Bana; and the d-factory talks about design publications with, amongst others, the inspiring Kate Bezar, publisher and editor of Dumbo Feather magazine. d-factory is a monthly public forum in Sydney where industry insiders, students, artists and journalists get together to talk about cutting-edge design. Possibly the quirkiest experiment on the program is The Don’s Party non-stop marathon reading of Don Quixote over three nights at the Ariel Booksellers in Paddington. Interested readers are welcome to volunteer to read snippets of the famous tale along with other book lovers, festival guests, and well-known Sydneysiders, while enjoying tapas and sangria. Aside from guest lectures and debates about literature, politics, religion, sex, and yum cha, there are also literary salons, readings, workshops, launches and parties. Now, who said bookish types don’t know how to have a good time?
I feel a little under the weather today. I think I’ve been experiencing what some environmentalists such as John Seed and Joanna Macy term ‘despair’. It’s a lonely, cementing feeling of helplessness and inaction in response to the current ‘climate’ of local, national and international events. In search of an offer of knowledge-a slice of my soul, a question from the grey that matters to share with you, I opened up a book I’ve been reading called Massive Change. It proposes that a new breed of designer is needed, one who is in the words of R. Buckminster Fuller, a “synthesis of artist, inventor, mechanic, objective economist and evolutionary strategist”. Continue reading ‘buckminster fuller.’
Great writers concoct utterly convincing imaginary worlds but how do they feel about the planet they live and breathe in? Does it fill them with hope and pride, or sadden them to their socks? I happened across the Nobel Prize in Literature website which holds the acceptance speeches by Nobel laureates since 1943, including such literary greats as Samuel Beckett (1969), Patrick White (1973), Saul Bellow (1976), Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1982) and J.M. Coetzee (2003). Each of their Nobel lectures provide some insight into their view of the world from history, to politics, love, hate, war, peace, art, music, sustainability and of course, writing. The 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Turkish writer, Orhan Pamuk, “who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures”. Pamuk’s lecture is almost a short story in itself, and in part of it he explains why he writes. While his words are inspiring for writers, I also think he speak to any passionate person who is ever asked, “Why do you write/ paint/ sing/ dance/ run/ laugh/ breathe/ live?”
how to write a novel in thirty days
If you:
(a) think you’ve got a novel in your head just waiting to get out;
(b) believe you’re writing a novel but are in fact simply rearranging the only 10 sentences you’ve written that are intended as the first paragraph; or
(c) have a novel deadline for university fast approaching
– fear not, help is at hand.
Look to the horizon and you’ll see the 2007 NaNoWrMo (National Novel Writing Month) – an annual writing competition where entrants must start and finish a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. Sound a little crazy? Sound exhausting? Sound like it might produce some crappy stories? Well, you’d be spot on there. As the website notes, ‘Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.’ In 2006, 79,000 writers registered, with 13,000 reaching the finishing line. A select few have gone on to get their heavily developed stories published, a couple have started their own writing prompting website, while the rest are still getting their breath back and basking in the warm afterglow of self-pride for their sterling effort. Continue reading ‘how to write a novel in thirty days’
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