Book Club Reading List 2006

A bunch of the Chambers girls and friends started a book club in November 2005. We try to catch up every 6 weeks or so to critically discuss (ie either rave about or bitch about) our selected book. It's great because it makes a nice change to all the legal materials I have to read at the office... and I dont do enough leisure reading anyway. Apparantly one of our Chambers boys tried to get a guy's book club up and running in competition to ours (after he was informed it was a girls only event). As far as I know it didnt get off the ground :)

Here's our reading list for so far:

1. [Nov 05] March by Geraldine Brooks (shortlisted for the British Book Awards: Best Read of the Year 2006; winner of Pulitzer Prize (Fiction) 2006 - can't understand why- this has got to be one of least enjoyable books I have read)
2. [Feb 06] The Sparrow Garden by Peter Skrzynecki (shortlisted for National Biography Award 2005) - absolutely loved it
3. [Apr 06] The Life of Pi by Yann Martel (winner of Man Booker Prize 2002) - think I read it one too many times
4. [Jun 06] On Beauty by Zadie Smith - not entirely sold on her style of writing
5. [Aug 06] Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford - a Mrs Leslie pick, so high probabiliy of it being a great read
6. [Sept 06] The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
7. [Nov 06] The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (loved it so much the first time that I thought we should all read it)
   

And this is what I've been reading in between:

1. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote (I decided to read this after seeing the movie, In Cold Blood; this edition of Breakfast at Tiffany's also included 3 of his short stories: House of Flowers, A Diamond Guitar and A Christmas Memory)
2. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom (of Tuesday's With Morrie fame)
3. The Ambulance Chaser by Richard Beasley (of Hell Has Harbour Views fame)
4. White Lies by Damian Marrett (author of Undercover)
5. Ending the Gauntlet: Removing Barriers to Women's Success in the Law by Lauren Stiller Rikleen (totally depressing view of the legal profession, particularly wrt women)
6. Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie (this was a recommendation from Sophie, and is a FAB read!)
7. The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown (I'm had been planning on seeing the movie so thought I'd better read the book - the first two thirds is an absolute page turner...the rest - not so great - I am no longer planning on seeing the movie.)
8. Bergdorf Blondes by Plum Sykes
9. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Piccoult
10. Perfurme by Patrick Suskind (not really a page turner, and a bit dark, but not too bad)
11. The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford (the prequel to Love in a Cold Climate, which we did for book club last month. Ms Mitford seems to love really abrupt endings to her novels...which is always a bit of a shock)
12. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (absolutely fabulous book recommended to me by Danielle!!! Up there with Haroun for being an engrossing read. This is going to be my next book club pick!)
13. Memories of My Melancholy Whores by GabrielGarcia Marquez (really not as risque as it sounds and quite a quick read)
14. Anonymous Lawyer by Jeremy Blachman (I actually prefer the novel to the posts on his site, Anonymous Lawyer)
15. When in Rome by Penelope Green (a nearly-thirty's story about ditching life in Sydney to live la dolce vita in Italy - didnt like the writing style, but it made me want to ditch my dictaphone and head off to Italy!)

TG's Baby Shower!!

Well, we had a perfect, sunny day for Therese's lakeside baby shower at Lake Parramatta Reserve today! Most of the PLT gals were there, and we were joined by TG's sister, and aunty-to-be, Lisa, as well as Sita(grandmother)-to-be, Mrs Evelyn Betros...aka Mrs B.

It was a great to have a catch up and chit chat. Lisa also deserves a mention for her fabulous golden syrup (?) cupcakes (they had the best marshmallow-ey icing!) ... and, of course, it wouldn't be a proper "girly event" without games!

So, with the assistance of Google, I played quiz-mistress and subjected everyone to various trivia about baby development, Hollywood bubs, the who's who of nursery rhyme and Therese specific questions. Trying to remember what went on in those nursery rhymes and who did what was a real trial on everyone's memory!

Giles organised a baby-food tasting session, where we sampled 7 jars of babyfood and tried to identify the flavour of each - bonus points if you were able to identify which 2 of the 7 were organic. I failed miserably! General consensus was that the fruit jelly baby food actually tasted kind of reasonable (I could have quite happily finished off the whole jar of the banana custard) BUT some of the vege and meat "meals" were deadset gross. Moral of the story - if you wouldn't eat it, chances are bub won't eat it either!

We ended with "Guess my Girth" - everyone got a piece of ribbon and had to estimate how much went around TG's tum (I got clearance from TG before naming the game this). The results were pretty funny: both TG and her mum overestimated her girth (big time); poor Sam lucked out and got a piece of ribbon that didn't go all the way around TG's tum; and fabulous Giles' guess was spot on!!!

Baby Stanton, in utero, now owns his/her first pair of Adidas, care of Mel :)

I think one of the most memorable moments was when Therese unwrapped the present from her mum. Mrs B gave Therese a gorgeous white crocheted bonnet and a matching baby cardy...but this was no ordinary cardy. It was made by Therese's grandmother, who passed away a while ago (and who TG was named after). So as Mrs B said, this was a present from Therese's grandmother. So Therese and Mark now have a baby heirloom...

Mel's pics of the day are here.


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Call me Nigella ...

As I had the house to myself this weekend, I had Mel, Lou, Jess, and Bel over for my first dinner party ... where I did all the cooking ... without mum's help!

Having not done this before (and not having had a trial run), I was a bit apprehensive about the whole thing (esp the risotto), but I think it worked out well. We had a yummy warm rocket and squash salad and an asparagus and mushroom risotto for the main (which Mel helped me prepare!), followed by chocolate pudding with vanilla icecream and strawberries.

Mum wanted photographic evidence of my culinary skills, so Mel very generously obliged. Pics of the spread can be accessed here.

Happy easter all!

James Blunt - I know why he jumped!

Lisa and I went to the James Blunt Concert in the Hordern Pavilion last nite. It was the first of his concerts in "Australasia" and he didn't disappoint - it was GREAT!

Unfortunately, the same can't be said about the hot dogs and his support act!

I ordered a hot dog, paid an extortionary price, and got a cold dog. Not nice. The support act, Clare Bowditch, accompanied by one of her "muso" buddies playing various percussion instruments, was worse than the hot dog ... she just really sounded terrible. Lisa and I thought that maybe Mr Blunt picked a totally crap support act to make him sound even better. It worked. Anyway, we had to put up with over an hour of her singing which was punctuated by intermittent-Sinead O'Connor like shrieking.

James on the other hand, sounded fabulous live. You could just tell that he and the band were really enjoying what they were doing. They performed about 4 or 5 funky new songs which haven't been released in Australia yet, so I'm really looking forward to the next CD. He also did a couple of acoustic versions of his songs - just him at the piano. It'd be great if he released one of those "live" concert CDs - the songs as performed on his Back to Bedlam CD are pretty sedate compared with the renditions we got yesterday.

Lisa and I were having a chat about the sort of personality he would have. "Cheeky" would be appropriate I thinkas he seems to be quite a character. A couple of time he clambered onto the huge amps (speakers?) on stage, played for a bit and then did the whole rockstar jump off them, which was actually kind of funny, more than anything else. He also made a comment before performing the song "High", that as most of the guys in the audience wouldn't be able to sing along to that song, they could take that opportunity to "have a pull" or "cop a feel" of one of the girls around them. So, he's quite a lad. Lisa concluded that his really "emotional" lyrics are basically a ploy to maximise sales to female fans :)

He has a pretty interesting background - it seems his family is not musical in the least; he was also in the army for a while and spent a few years as a peace keeper in Kosovo...

His performance of "You're beautiful", the final song for the nite, answered the question of why he jumps off the cliff into the very cold looking water in the film clip for the same song! While he was performing this song, the film clip "continued" on the screen behind the band - he jumps because there a bunch of mermaid-like women at the bottom of the ocean. I have no idea who they are, but at least I now know why he jumped : )

My place in cyberspace

Well, after regularly checking out Mel's blog, and the fabulously entertaining (although sometimes too close to reality) Anonymous Lawyer blog, I have decided to take the plunge and get my own place in cyberspace!

As Mel (aka Martha or MDiddy to the closest of her friends) has often said to me, if it wasn't for her blog, she'd never remember what she got up to in her younger years! And for all the relatives and friends overseas, it'll help you keep track of whats going on in Sydney.

When I get a digital camera and become more technologically competent, Ill try setting up an online album. One step at a time though.

So welcome to my blog :)

We'll see how long I manage to keep the blog alive ...