Catch and Kill // Ronan Farrow

Can I begin by telling you how much I love Ronan Farrow?

Immediately after reading 'Catch and Kill,' I googled him ENDLESSLY. I spoke about him to everyone closest to me: "I just can't believe he's only 32?!"

Consequently, I put him on my list of top 5 people I'd invite to my imaginary dinner party. HE WOULD RUN THAT ROOM AND I WOULD LOVE EVERY MOMENT OF IT. By the end of dinner, we'd probably have a few personal jokes.

So, the book. Look, I know it's not a penguin but I figured that not all my books have to be penguins. And I'm the boss of this blog so there.

In Catch and Kill Ronan recounts his time chasing the stories of Harvey Weinstein's decades of alleged rape, sexual assault, and sexual abuse of women, and the case against him. 

The book is smart, fast-paced, heavy and in parts .... funny. Yes, haha funny. Ronan achieved this because he is a god and some sort of journalist extraordinaire. 

This book is an absolute page-turner and I couldn't put the bloody thing down. 

Read the book.

Quote Sunday

Civilisation and its Discontents, Helen Garner

"Say something reassuring, he said. "Say something close, before I go."

Going Solo, Roald Dahl

I remember Roald Dahl from my childhood. And I'm pretty confident that if you lined up 5 of your closest friends they could rattle off the name of RD's classics: The Witches, James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory etc. His writing is ace. I also loved his main illustrator Quentin Blake. Champion.

Before I read Going Solo, i didn't know much about the man behind the stories. I didn't know about his wartime experiences and how he got shot down over the Libyan desert. I didn't know about his time in Africa. I didn't know he was absolutely scared shitless of snakes. He really did have an amazing life.

Going Solo is one of the best books I've read in recent times. I can see why it's a penguin classic. His writing is personable, honest and warm. Not surprisingly, he is an experienced and confident storyteller.

One of my favourite bits in the book is towards the end. Whilst waiting for the Germans to attack his fleet in Greece, Dahl and his mate, David, go out in search of food. They end up purchasing a bucket of olives and two bottles of retsina wine from the locals. "Well here we are", David said, "sitting in the sun and drinking pine juice and what a terrific cock up it all is."

Love it. Go out and purchase Going Solo right now!

Solace at the bottom of a hot chocolate

I can't dress this up.

I am completely and utterly jealous of students. Yeah, I know that have deadlines, and that they're stressed, but ... still. They just look so chilled out. Thankfully I can seek solace in my hot chocolate.

Bible goodness

So, I've been doing research about the Rwandan genocide and why it happened. One of the theories which provided some ideas for the massacre (which saw 800,000 people killed in 1994) is known as the 'Hamitic Hypothesis.' The Hamitic Hypothesis was coined by a English dude called John Hanning Speke.

Background wise, once the Europeans colonised Rwanda, they started to believe that the main groups in the area (the Tutsi & the Hutu) were racially different. They reckoned that the Tutsi were superior because they descended from the northern parts of the world and were responsible for bring culture to the rest of the primitive continent.

However, the part I wanted to share with you is a paragraph from the book 'We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families.' I'm not going to go to deeply into this but I loved this writer's description of the basis of the Hamitic Hypothesis...

"For his text, Speke took the the story in Genesis 9, which tells how Noah, when he was just six hundred years old and had safely skippered his ark over the flood to dry land, got drunk and passed out naked in his text."

Absolute gold. Nice to know that six hundred year olds still do the same crap as us 20-30-40-50 years old.

Through the looking glass

On the back of a toilet door at the vic state library :

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,

Alice moving under skies

Never seen by waking eyes

I like it.

Breakfast at Tiffany's, Truman Capote

'Never love a wild thing, Mr Bell,' Holly advised him. 'That was Doc's mistake. He was always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. One time it was a full-grown bobcat with a broken leg. But you can't give your heat to a wild thing; the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to run into the wood. Or fly into a tree. Than a taller tree. Then the sky. That's how you'll end up, Mr Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky' - Holiday Golighty.

Breakfast at Tiffany's has been one of my favourite book so far. The narrator is an unnamed struggling writer who shares a building with Holiday (Holly) Golightly, a young socialite who lives in New York City. One night, she climbs into his room from the fire escape to just have a chat. And from that point onwards, he is completely intrigued and fascinated by her.

Holly is a handful and a free spirit. She is a completely loveable and colourful character who does as she pleases and entertains men like nothing else. The narrator, of course, is in love with her. He's a good sport about it though. I pretty much loved every word in this book & I would recommend it to anyone who wanted an easy and enjoyable read.

On the side - Mein Kampf, Hitler

As uni heats up for another semester (bleh), I've had to do a few whack of non-penguin related reading. Crap, i know, but some things have to be done.

So I embarked on reading selected chapters of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. Cheery stuff. For those of you unfamiliar with Adolf (yeah right) he was leader of the ruling National Socialist German Worker (Nazi) Party, and Chancellor of Germany from 1933. He also oversaw the largest genocide in human history.

Prior to Hitler’s political career, he served a short prison sentence at Landberg prison, Munich, for an attempted putsch (governmental overthrow). In jail, Hitler had a colleague named Rudolph Hess scribe Mein Kampf (meaning ‘My Struggle’ in English), his autobiography. Later, Mein Kampf was to become the Nazi manifesto and one of the most contentious books in history. It basically gives a bit of an overview about AH's racial and political views. It's kinda frightening.

To tell you the truth, I was kinda surprise that this book wasn't full of high level academic dribble. It is written in quite simple language which makes it somewhat easy to read. He does however ramble. Boy, does he ramble. So, if you'd like to get a bit more of an understanding about why history went down the way it did, have a bit of a read of AH. You may have to do it in the privacy of your own home. I got a few weird looks reading it on the sidelines at the baseball.

The Happy Prince, Oscar Wilde

'Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow,' said the Prince, 'will you not stay with me for one night, and be my messenger? The boy is so thirsty, and the mother is so sad'

I think I've been a little bit in love with Oscar since I read about him rocking up to New York customs control in 1882 saying: 'I have nothing to declare but my genius.'

What a dude.

The Happy Prince is a story of a statue which sits high above a city, on a tall column. The Happy Prince is covered in thin leaves of fine gold, and have two bright sapphires for eyes and a large red ruby on his sword hilt.

But the prince isn't happy. He is tired of witnessing all the sadness which goes on in the town. So, he enlists the help of a Swallow who is passing through the city on his way to the great pyramids to help him.

This story really is nice. And a little bit sad. And written beautifully. Read it here.

Monkey Grip, Helen Garner

'So afterwards, it is possible to see the beginning of things, the point at which you had already plunged in, while at the time you thought you were only testing the water with your toe' (pg 2)

Helen Garner is possibly one of my favourite Australian authors. She is personable, frank, and has the ability to cut to the core. I like that in a writer.

Monkey Grip was one of her first novels and was written in the 197os. Set in Melbourne, it's about Nora and Javo. Nora loves Java and Java loves junk. The book revolves around their relationship; what it is and what it isn't. It's a novel about the gaps love can reveal in your life. What happens when you get everything and nothing at the same time. When you miss somebody despite best attempts not to.

I loved this book. It reminded me of reading a diary. All that honesty and hurt. And surprising maturity. Bless H.G.

Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov

'Oh Lolita, you are my girl, as Vee was Poe's and Bea Dante's, and what little girl would not like to swirl in a circular skirt and scanties?' (pg 120)

Well, I think that sentence sums up Lolita quite well. And just for you curious folk out there, 'scanties' are underpants. Nice. The only thing I really knew about this book was it was about some old guy (Humbert Humbert) who fell in love with a young girl, Lolita.

Well, no surprises here - Nabokov is a very beautiful and convincing writer. Throughout the earlier stages of the book, you actually feel slightly sorry for Humbert as he tries his very best to keep his behaviour around Lolita above board. However, as the book pushes on, Humbert loses his cool a little bit and just turns out to be slightly intense (and a little bit creepy). Lolita has a fair bit of attitude too, which I wasn't expecting either.

Not for the faint hearted. But you gotta give Nabokov props for putting it out there

Foreword

I love reading and everything that surrounds it. The quiet, the tea, the characters.

So I'm embarking on a challenge. To read 52 penguins in 52 weeks. It initially started as 100 penguins but my lovely (and wise) friends were worried that I would become some sort of social recluse... so 52 it is.

My friend Amy will also be joining me on this adventure. The first penguin off the rank: Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita.

Watch this space boys and girls.