My Shelf of Fame

So, this is my ‘shelf of fame' mentioned in the last blog post.  I thought I would write a little about this tonight.  All the books that are signed by their authors reside here. 

I bought Backroads to Hollywood by Ingo Petzke as I was a regular at Ingo’s Gold Coast Cinematique at Bond University.  It was open to the public as well as to the university and I would toddle along and feel like a fraud getting involved in the discussions after the movie was finished, seemingly the only person there not involved in the industry!  Ingo did a Ray Barrett Retrospective over a few weeks which was great, and among the movies we saw were Don’s Party directed by Bruce Beresford and Goodbye Paradise. Ray and his wife came along too and he would say a few words after the movie (Ray has sadly since passed away).

The highlight of my membership was a dinner at Salt in Varsity Lakes, which was attended by Ray Barrett and Bruce Beresford, and I ended up sitting next to Bruce and chatting with him.  He had just finished directing a movie with John Cusack and was quite taken by how tall he was.  I asked him what his own personal favourite movie was and he said The Warrior which is a Korean movie I think and the favourite movie he had directed himself was Black Robe.  Again I felt like such a fraud with all these industry people – I also sat next to someone who had just finished working on The Proposition…. It was a great night.  Anyway, Ingo had mentioned this book so I bought it at the university shop and got it signed at one of my last meetings (Ingo eventually left Australia to take a post within the movie industry overseas). The inscription reads:

To Maxine, who loves the cinema as much as one should! Ingo 12 Oct 2005

Malicious Intent by Kathryn Fox I bought after a library talk which Kathryn gave.  It’s not a great read but it’s always good to support our local authors, but she's published and I'm not so there.  The inscription reads:

To Maxine, good luck with the writing!! Go for it! All the best wishes Kathryn Fox

The two Matt Reilly’s I’m really proud of and I got those signed at another author event.  I was very impressed with Matt’s enthusiasm for his work, he doesn’t take it too seriously - it’s meant to be over the top fun and I was also pleased to see the time he took to talk to the younger audience members.  When I got Ice Station signed he asked me where I had bought the book as the cover is not generally available in Australia.  He suggested I put it on e-bay J  There are no inscriptions in these just Hi Maxine and Matt’s signature.  I also got a photo taken with him and this is on my shelf too.

So, that’s the shelf and there’s a fair bit of room left on it yet! 

I tried to get a copy of Northanger Abbey for download from the library but it's not available and I have to go on a wait list.  Are they for real?  It's digital media why is it not always available, I don't understand it.  Then I remembered that I had downloaded Jane Austen's entire collection for the Kindle so I'll read it after Adam Bede.  Instead I went back to some discs my daughter had thoughtfully done for me and chose Carry On, Jeeves by P G Wodehouse.  I just love Jeeves and Wooster, it's dated but still wonderfully funny.  The stories are all pretty much the same, but it's the way Bertie delivers his lines - the What Ho's and yipping, gargling and inhaling.  It's really uplifting stuff and it's had me smiling on my way to work these past couple of mornings.

Big Driver the second of the Stephen King novellas is really good.  It's very violent at the beginning and I think there really should have been a disclaimer!  I'm really liking it though, and I really want to know what the victim's revenge is going to be.  This one harks back to his earlier days, and has his trademark phrase repetition.  In this case it's You Like It It Likes You, and I'm definitely liking this.

Still haven't read enough of Adam Bede to comment on it yet, but xmas is coming and hopefully I'll find the time then.

I've won a book too from  Good Reads which I'll review for them - The Celtic Dagger, so there's a bit of new reading coming along on the horizon.