April 2022 Reading List

This is my first Anna Jacobs novel, and when I went to find out a bit more about her I see she really is a prolific writer.

Mara’s Choice is the first novel in the series called The Waterfront. I will continue on with this series and try out some of her other works too.

Mara’s Choice is a lovely story about a girl who comes to Australia to meet her father that she had always been told was dead. Left behind is a mother who is mentally unstable and her loving step father. There are a few stories intertwined but at the end she finds a new family that love her for who she is. As well as a new beau. Setting it up beautifully for a sequel.

The Uncommon Reader was mentioned a few times on the podcast – What Should I Read Next. It sounded like a fun story with the Queen finding a mobile library in her backyard and taking up the great pleasure of reading.

It’s a short read, but it demonstrated how having a love for reading can change how you look at the world, even for the Queen.

Time to get back to listening to audio books. I borrowed this from the library, after reading just the first couple of lines of the blurb which mentioned Aged Care home. I went into it thinking that it would be a bit of fun with old people drinking Chai, but it is a lot deeper than that. We get to learn about the characters in the Aged Care home and their history.

Some parts were really hard to listen to, like racism and war; so I did have to stop listening for a few days a couple of times.

I did enjoy it and learnt so much about Sri Lanka and the civil war that began in 1983, and how it affected the people. It made me look differently at people I pass every day. What shaped them? What have they had to endure?

I saw the printed book of Josiah’s Fire in the Koorong bookstore in Adelaide after a trip to The Fabric Store to buy fabric for my Aqua and Navy Circles Top, which is just around the corner. They have free car parking in the city, which is hard to find, a toilet and good coffee – what more could you want!

I’m always on the search for books on autism so that I can get a better understanidng of my son. This was a biography of the authors non-verbal son called Josiah. Josiah eventually found his voice by typing into his iPad.

These words were typed as they came to him without any spaces, just streams of characters. I have a bit of a problem with this as the placement of spaces is so important. Like my username I made for a game once – “chickensanger”. Now what do you see? I meant “chicken sanger” as in chicken sandwich, but all I see is “chickens anger”.

A lot of what he typed referred to it as being words from God. And what he was typing was definitely from someone much older than his 8 years. My favourite insight from him was:

I am lacking impulse control to make my body obey my brain. It is frustrating. I am like an amputee with phantom limbs. I seem to have limbs, but I can’t feel mine. I have to see them to know they are there. I can feel them better when I move.

I was a big fan of Silverchair in my younger days, even going to one of their concerts at the Adelaide Festival Theatre. I still remember the Daniel Johns interview by Andrew Denton and Daniel looked really uncomfortable but still insightful. I saw a fellow introvert, before I knew that word.

When I saw this book at a local bookshop I searched for it at my library as a digital book. It wasn’t available so I put in a request to purchase it. A few months later I had notification that it was available (I love this feature).

Written by Jeff Apter, a professional biographer for music figures. Jeff had interviewed Daniel Johns when he was a writer at Australian Rolling Stone, but this book has come more from research and not lots and lots of interviews. It felt a bit like going through Google searches and wacking them in a book, rather than getting to know the real Daniel Johns.

In spite of this I did learn more about Daniel Johns, but it seems like it was from a distance.

Manifest Your Destiny was published in 2003 with the premise of attracting one’s needs and desires. This feels a lot like what Rhonda Byrne teaches in the 2006 movie The Secret, ie The Law of Attraction. I have heard Wayne say on his podcast that he didn’t want to be a part of the movie because it was directed at attracting “stuff”. The house, the car, more money. Whereas his teaching in this book is to get to the desired feelings. Rather than wanting to earn more money, switch it around to manifest more money to feel more secure and less stressed.

What I take away from this book is to trust yourself. When you have a problem look within yourself for solutions rather than looking for someone or something else. Don’t share with others what you want either, this just adds further expectations. And we want to get to a state where we detach from the outcome, how it’s accomplished and when.