Our cat Whispy, keeping me company while I sit on the verandah reading.

It has been glorious weather in Sydney albeit unseasonably warm and dry. I have been enjoying sitting outside and reading. The photo above sums up my ideal reading environment – a good book, bookmark, reading journal, pen and a cat.

Where would we be without good books? I am struggling to imagine my life without regular reading. Even during my reading drought during university and my early twenties (reading economics and accounting text books does not count!), I loved reading the weekend newspapers with their long book reviews, travel pieces and articles giving rich background to the news. That has largely gone now, replaced by websites. I snuggle up to my tablet for weekend news reading but it is not quite the same.

I don’t review anywhere near the number of books I read. Among the books I have enjoyed this year but not reviewed is Lost Relations by Graeme Davison, a well known historian who in this book wrote about his own family history.  I have also enjoyed reading Awakening: Four Lives in Art by Eileen Chanin and Steven Miller which is about four women artists born in late nineteenth century Victoria each of whom had successful careers in Europe and the United States. The book in the photo is From Moree to Mabo: The Mary Gaudron Story. I remembered Janine Rizzetti’s review when I found the book in a second-hand bookshop recently. I became very absorbed reading about the legal and political history of the late twentieth century – a time when Mary Gaudron was involved in some significant court cases in various capacities as a legal professional and then as a High Court judge.

A bookmark of some sort is essential for reading, but I don’t like to grab any old slip of paper to mark my place. I like a beautifully designed bookmark and have quite a stash of them, often given away for free. It is an ideal way for an organisation to advertise a website if it is aimed at book readers. The bookmark I am currently using advertises ‘The Encyclopedia of Women & Leadership in Twentieth-Century Australia’. As well as telling me the URL for the site, the bookmark tells me that the website is edited by Judith Smart and Shurlee Swain and lists the sponsors. A bookmark is a much more effective form of advertising for people like me than an annoying television advertisement. Continue reading →