To Kill a Mocking Bird and Wuthering Heights

The last two books that I've read and crossed off the list.

The first is Harper Lee's only novel, published in 1960 narrated by a 6 year old girl called Scout Finch as she observes her neighbours and family in the 1930's southern America. Scout's father, Atticus, is a local lawyer who brings his two children, Scout and her older brother Jem, up on his own. They demonstrate a great deal of respect for their hard working father and this respect grows when he is called in to represent a local black man who has been wrongly accused of rape. Atticus senses what really happened during the incident that his client has been arrested for and questions the key witnesses with intelligence and strategic focus. He has to deal with the prejudice that black people faced everywhere in those days (and appear to face still in many parts of the world), prejudice that he is targeted with, due his representation of his client.

A parallel plot involves a neighbour that chooses to stay in his home all day and is rumoured to come out at night. He is the wonderfully named Boo Radley and he later lent his name to the equally famous band.

This is a great novel; a classic in the true meaning and Harper Lee has described a society that comes alive in every page. You can see the small town that the characters live in I was fortunate to read the book before seeing the movie. I suspect the movie will, as usual, be a poor version of this wonderful, coming of age and distinctly heartbreaking novel.

Wuthering Heights is a different animal altogether. Written by Emily Bronte and published in 1847 it tells the story of the dark character, Heathcliffe and his tragic relationship with Catherine Earnshaw. It's a brooding story full of malevolence, fear, fatigue and even love. It is essentially a tragic love story.

It is narrated by a Mr Lockwood through another character Nellie and spans two generations in Yorkshire. It's a short book and that's probably a good thing; it is full of isolation (reflecting the real lives of the Bronte sisters), barren landscapes complete with typical British shitty weather and the ubiquitous class system that forms the backbone of the relationships in the novel.

I'm now halfway through the Picture of Dorian Grey so watch this space.

Italian Phrase 280410

I've decided to learn a new Italian phrase every week using the website http://translation2.paralink.com/

So here's the first one: la tua capra sta avendo difficoltà in farmacia,

which of course means "your goat is having difficulty in the pharmacy".

iTunes

Does anyone know how you can change album covers on iTunes when you have an iMac? In a lot of cases they don't have the covers at all and when they do, they sometimes make a roaring arse of it. On the PC I could copy and paste from Amazon but can't seem to do it with the Mac.

Let me know.

David Copperfield

Just finished Dickens' 900 page, largely autobiographical, novel about the boy who, despite early hardship (the loss of his Mother after the unnecessarily harsh treatment by David's dictatorial stepfather, Mr Murdstone and his spinster sister, his relationship with that austere pair and his running away from an extremely hard job as a young child in London to his only known relative, Betsy Trottwood in Dover) manages to lead an eventful life and become a famous writer.

At 938 pages it's a long text but well worth the read, written in Dickens' elaborate prose and peppered with a myriad of characters including the hideous Uriah Heep.

This was Dickens' 8th novel and it's genesis can be traced to a trip that Dickens made to Great Yarmouth. He filled his story with orphaned children, scenes from his trip and the village of Blundeston, the place he named as the book's narrator's birthplace.

This book appears in the Big Read's Top 200 at 34 but i have a better source of literary inspiration now. I recently bought "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die" (morbid title) and have read 20 of them (27 on the Big Read list), including David Copperfield. Pitiful.

I've just started To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and will follow with Birdsong. Shorter books...

Life Begins....

It's happened; I've reached 40. I'm not sure how it happened. One minute I'm leaving University about to embark on a life of adventure and mystery and five minutes later I am sitting in a hotel room in our provincial capital looking forward to an incredibly busy day at work in which, despite several reminders leading up to the trip, my boss fails to remember and continues through the day as if it were any other day. Of course, to him, it was any other day; 3 flights a lunch meeting, followed by a dinner meeting in Prince George before a return flight to the big smoke.

Time appears to have passed with lightening speed since laving University that I often wonder how quickly the next 20 years will pass. I'm wondering if I've done enough yet. I've worked for two dubious companies and one great company, gaining experience of work as I've progressed through a number of roles. I'm married to the wonderful Gingerone and have grown as a person as a result. We have two wonderrful kids and all the stresses and strains that come with that and we've made the move to a fairly foreign country and grown as a family even more. I've travelled to a lot of interesting places in the world, built a music collection that continues to expand today and read some brilliant books.

I've had a very full life so far and met a lot of close friends along the way and I feel that life is improving all the time. Sure we have our crosses to bear and, now that we live in Canada, our bears to cross but if I had the chance to live it all again, would I do the same? Would I make the same choices? Well, if I was going to make different choices I would have to be aware that I was living it all again in the first place otherwise I would definately live my life the same way. But other than a few little tweeks here and there, like working harder at school and not partying so much during my first year at University I'm not sure I would have done anything differntly. Well, I might have completed a MBA before the kids came along but I wasn't working for a company that would have had the foresight to pay for my way through the experience.

I would have gone to Spike Island, I would have gone to see Nirvana before their career took off, REM and the Black Crowes in their early years and the Smiths when I was still at school.

I would have read more. More of the classics that I am reading now so that I would had more books to tick off the Big Read list. But I am making up for that now.

So my Birthday was celebrated a couple of days late. I now have an iPod so that I don't have to borrow everyone elses and a great pair of headphones so that I can listen to the music as it was intended to be listened to. It's amazing how much these headphones improve the sound, although if you're going to buy a set, don't read the audiophile reviews. They are written by people who think the rest of us understand what they are writing about. The best reveiws ere those offered by ordinary people who reviewed their purchases on the Futureshop (think of a North American Dixons) website. Reviews I could understand.

My parents sent me a new version of Reckoning by REM with an extra disc of a concert from 1984. The other CD was the Plastic Beach by The Gorillaz. Now, that's a piece of audio art; an eclectic collection of different styles, guest performers and Mark E. Smith.

So where is all this leading to? Will we have a homeof our owwn to live in any time soon? If the exchange rate continues to remain where it is, no!! But I can't complain. I am enjoying my life here, the new friends we have met and the fact that the kids are growing in an environment that allows them to grow and develop in ways that the UK would never have allowed them to.

Here's to the next 40 years....just can't toast it with any alcohol. Hey ho.