Xmas Reading when not going for a swim!!

Alright the temperature is so high that the only place to be is in my cool house turning the pages. And I have been doing just that. Isn't it great when you start a book and you can't live without it. No matter what you do there is always the reward at the end of the miserable activity to grab a few hours and finish a great book. No not to finish...I hate finishing any great read...but to be able to go back and spend some hours with a good friend. But there is a reward at the end...a list of books to also read! And this time I find three of my favourite writers are listed. I'll tell you about the list later.

..This image shows why I have stopped rushing to the beach or opening Facebook. Ok I have a little time to read my messages but then it is time to do my Xmas presents justice. As you can see it is a mixed bag. My partner decided that seeing I have more cookbooks than anything else in my kitchen there is one very important one missing...Australia's First Cookbook ever!! 'The English and Australian Cookery Book' by Edward Abbott.The Publisher's comment is "Australia's Mrs. Beeton". Well it remains to be seen!
I prefer to wallow in the depth of Novels so why not start with the winner of the Australian Book Industry Awards 2012 plus short listed 7 times...but who cares...in my opinion it is boring as batsh.t.
'So real, so true- this Novel sweeps you away in its tide' Robert Drewe...oh yeah? 'Past the shallows' by Favel Parrett only sweeps me right onto the next book waiting to be read.
So Bryce Courtney's The Silver Moon caught my eye once again and this book for its size is turning into a good friend. I must like to read about another author's experience of life and I do.
Then, lurking in the back, an unusual name for a book catches my interest, 'the Breaking of Eggs' by Jim Powell. I immediately recall Mrs. Powell, a third year Home Economics teacher of mine, who treated me so spitefully I wanted to give her a book on 'How to Make Friends and Influence People.'
But this would have been a waste of money...I didn't have much!
Anyway to cut a long story short, this Jim Powell is a most magnificent storyteller and of course in no way related to Mrs. Powell. If anyone has read the two books by Anna Funder relating to the history of the GDR and the Nazi times...fascist years...communist years...then this book is for you.
A great novel with so many insights I couldn't put it down. Definitely my book choice for the year.
And in the back of the book...suggested further reading...names mentioned Czeslaw Milosw...Timothy Carton Ash...Bernard Schlink and for some great laughs ...Marina Lewycka.
And because I've been involved in the NoNoWri Book or some such thing, I have managed 50,000 word Novella about my thyroid experience and hair loss... my friend was so shocked at my appearance that she lent me the book to change my life...'How Proust Can Change Your Life' by Alain de Botton. So far also a very interesting book. My hair is growing back!!
But because my novella is written in the Genre of Truth in Fiction I am also struggling to read 'A Death in the Family' Karl Ove Knausgaard. So far truth is more boring than fiction...so perhaps I will take more than the holidays to finish this book. So back to reading my favourites!!