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Eternal Life and how to enjoy it

Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

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The Authors Cafe

Eternal Life and how to enjoy it

January 13th 2010 09:28

Book Cover

A first-hand account by Gordon Phinn

Eternal Life and how to enjoy it begins with the ultimately perfectly timed death of no-account accountant Henry. Fed up with a wife and best friend who keep running of together Henry calls in sick at work for the first time in his life and takes off for a weekend. Unfortunately for Henry, at the time he’s driving around a sharp bend so is a Ford filled with teenagers.

It is here we meet Jack. The golf attired transitional guide who collects Henry, whisking the newly departed accountant off to the other side and a restful Connecticut like location complete with beautiful parks, comfortable hotels, ponds with telepathic ducks and all the peace you can handle, for the rest of eternity. It is the story of how Henry goes from no-account accountant to afterlife guide himself, along with murder, mayhem and the occassionally morphing into an angel for those of a religious disposition.

Gordon Phinn writes such a wonderful, moving tale in the pages of Eternal Life. As Gordon goes nightly to visit our guide Henry, the two of them together channel a description of heaven that anyone can enjoy. Now, I have no idea if it truly is channelled material. Part of me says “well it must be” while another part says “oh come on you idiot”. Either way, channelled truth or fantasy from the mind of a talented writer, Eternal Life describes a place I’d be more than happy to spend my forever living in.

Eternal Life deals with a variety of issues; alcoholism, addictions, sex – with surprisingly no mention of homosexuality beyond the gay couple who’ve just joined the choir in a small town where Henry talks to two dead soldiers - music, creative expression, humour, past lives and karmic destiny. It’s a new-age book for the novice and expert alike.
Ultimately, I don’t really care if Henry is real or a figment of Gordon’s creative imagination. I truly enjoyed this book. It made me laugh, it made smile, it made me think and above all it made death and eternity a little less of an issue. Since I started reading it I’ve been sending out calls to my Grandparents to see what they have to say, and beyond the dream I’ve had ever since my Grandmother died of sitting in a yellow kitchen drinking tea out of white china cups, and over-looking a field with a white horse outside the kitchen window, I haven’t heard a peep.

Whether dealing with loss, or just for pure interest sake, I highly recommend this book. Published by Hampton Roads Publishing Company, I purchased it from a small New Age Bookshop in my hometown for $24.95. Suspend your rational mind and just enjoy the tale. There’s only one way we’ll know if it’s true or not and I’m not in that much of a hurry to put it to the test.

Order Eternal Life at Amazon.com

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Posted By: The Virgin Traveller - Category: No Category

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Quick Update Time

December 19th 2009 09:04

Hi All,

I just wanted to pop in and let you all know I haven't forgotten about life here at the Author's Cafe. I've started University - at the tender age of 36 - and am studying for my degree in History and Politics while working full time. If I wasn't bald already, I would getting there quickly.

I have an assignment due on Friday - yes Christmas Day charming isn't it lol - due to the joy of doing this degree through Open University Australia.

Either way, there'll be a new update at The Authors Cafe in the next week or so. I'm reviewing Nations by Terry Pratchett this time. I can't wait to be able to read it.

Until then, Take Care and Chat Soon

Mike

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The Bride Stripped Bare by Anonymous

November 22nd 2009 05:28

The Bride Stripped Bare isn't a difficult read by any means. Told in "lessons" of 2-3 pages each the story moves along at a cracking pace. Opening with a wife and mother having gone missing and the manuscript discovered by our missing authors mother after her disappearance, the story takes us on a journey into the mind of a newly married 30-something and her sexual awakening.

Told in three sections, The Bride Stripped Bare opens in Marrakesh, on the authors honeymoon. Eager to experience new sights and sounds, she finds most of her honeymoon is spent by the pool as her some what boorish husband prefers to stay indoors and watch TV. During a sandstorm which pushes our bride into the Honeymoon Suite a half overheard conversation sets the scene for domestic mystery and betrayal.

A spanish scriptwriter is the catalyst for the second section of the book, and the teaching of sex to the virgin writer occupies great lurid passages that were rather uncomfortable to read on the train. I'm sure those passages and chapters would make a great how to manual for your average 16-17 year old who is experiencing those first sexual encounters but I found them more clinical than erotic and devoid of any real emotion. A lover betrayed and a love denied see's our heroine off for a gang bang in a hotel room with three strangers. I tried to think of a way to put that were it wasn't like a punch in the throat but that's how it comes out in the story and really, beyond another litany of self-hatred from the heroine it has no basis what is yet to come.

A husband and wife reconciled in the third and final chapter, with bygones being bygones and a husband who has finally figured out how to sexual satisfy his wife results in a pregnancy that see's our finally sexually aware heroine relegated to the position of the Madonna in her husbands eyes. The lack of sex between husband and wife opens old wounds and see's anger and allegations of continued cheating. While the husband is away, our nameless heroine takes off to Spain and one last fling with her now well experienced Spanish lover.

The Bride Stripped Bare is unapologetic in it's in your face language and graphic sexual content. The first time the un-named author swore I didn't blink an eye, however by the time our heroine is having graphic fantasies on her honeymoon about things I won't go into here I was blushing like a 16 year old virgin.

I was discussing this book with a friend of mine when I was reading it and I alternated between the book being more autobiographical than expected - if that's the case no wonder the author chose to remain anonymous - and that it was written by a man due to the fact the sexual content read like a Dear Playboy letter.

The bookending of the book, with the authors characters car being found abandoned at a cliff and the author and her baby son never to be seen again was absolutely redundant in the grand scheme of things. It just wasn't necessary. There is a such a strong narrative in this book that the whole mystery element of "Did she or didn't she jump with Post Partum Depression" detracts from the book and the storyline.

The Bride Stripped Bare is not the sort of book you'd give your Grandmother for Christmas. Actually on a recommendation of who to give this to for Christmas I can't really say.

All in all The Bride Stripped Bare by Anonymous is a book I have read that while enjoyable in parts just seems to try too hard with the shock tactics. Then again, as the book is purportedly written by a female for a female audience maybe I just missed the point of all the graphic talk of menstruation and giving up of personal power, and seducing the innocent to show how much fun corruption can be.

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Posted By: The Virgin Traveller - Category: No Category

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Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett

November 14th 2009 04:26

Recently I chose to quit smoking. I also decided that as a congratulatory self-gift I would take $50 of the money I had saved by not smoking and buy myself a treat each month. My first month came and went and while walking through K-Mart I found the latest Terry Pratchett Discworld novel Unseen Academicals. The search for my first months treat was over.

Unseens Academicals is the 37th novel in the phenomenally successful DIscworld Series. This particular story sees us returning to Ankh-Morpork and Unseen University, so ably mismanaged by Archchancellor Ridcully.

It also sees a street rough game called foot-in-the-ball morphed by the Tyrant Vetinari into football - soccer to those of us who aren't in Europe and the UK.

Favourite characters abound including Ridcully, Rincewind, The Chest and a special guest appearance by His Grace, Sir Samuel Vimes. There are some new characters introduced in this novel that I hope to hear - see - more of. Trevor LIkely, the lad about town, Juliet, the beautiful if slightly slow kitchen hand, Glenda Sugarbean, Mistress of the NIght Kitchen, baker of pies - with crunchy pickle onions inside - and Mr Nutt who lives only to gain worth and not disappoint Her Ladyship.

Unseen Academicals is Terry Pratchett at his best. Discovering that in order to retain a donation the wizards of Unseen University must take part in a football match every 20 years, the rotund wizards gather together - with the help of Mr Nutt and Ponder Stibbons - a team of football players, to take on the best Ankh-Morpork has to offer. After all, it's tradition and traditions must be followed.

Throw in the invention of micromail and a tin can, and you have a great novel and a wonderful way to fill in the commute to work.

Unseen Academicals is fantastic. There are so many bits that made me laugh out loud I can't begin to describe them to you. If you are a fan of Pterry or know someone who is, make sure to add this book to your Christmas Present wish list.

Just watch out for Andy Shank.. he's a nutter.

Terry Pratchetts Unseen Academicals is available from all good book shops and department stores. And make sure to follow Terry on his twitter account here Terry Pratchett

'Ho, the Megapode!'

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Wicked by Gregory Maguire

November 1st 2009 11:30

Wicked Novel Cover

I finished Wicked by Gregory Maguire yesterday afternoon and I've spent a day trying to figure out what exactly I wanted to say about this novel. I still don't know 100% but we'll give it a go and see how it goes.

I'm going to begin by saying most of us know of Wicked as the multi-award winning Broadway Musical that burst onto the scene winning it's leading ladies Idina Menzel and Kirstin Chenworth Tony awards in 2004.

I picked up the book, a massive fan of the soundtrack of the musical and pleased the musical had finally made it to Sydney. As yet I still haven't seen the musical, but based on conversations with a friend of mine who has seen the show let me start by saying, the only thing the novel and the musical have in common is the title and the character names.

Wicked begins with the birth of the green-slkinned Elphaba, whose destiny is to grow into the Wicked Witch of the West. Spanning 38 years, we witness Elphaba as a new born, teenager, young woman in her 20's and finally as a woman of 38 whose dreams are shattered and lying around her in ashes edged with guilt.

As a child Elphaba, her unionist Minister father and sexually free mother leave Muchkinland and head to Quadling Country in order to convert the heathens into the service of the Unnamed God. It's in Quadling Country Elphaba's mother births her sister, Nessarose, whose destiny is to become the Wicked Witch of the East.

Section two opens in The Shiz, as 17 year old Elphaba arrives at Crag Hall and her room mate is the socially conscious, self-obsessed beauty queen Galinda. The death of a beloved professor, followed by the death of Galinda's Ama send the two heroines of the story onto their pathways to the story outcome we know so well.

It is in the second section of the book that see's Elphaba's political consciousness open and her believe in Animal Rights comes to the front and see's Elphaba run away from school to join the Animal Liberation Army in the underground of Emerald City. Five years later she runs into a school chum who soon becomes her lover. It is when Elphaba is on her way to assassinate an enemy of the Animals that the lover is murdered and Elphaba disappears into the safety of St Glinda's Maunts for 7 years.

Section 3, see's Elphaba re-emerge into the general populace, now with the tall black hat and multi-speed broomstick that are to become her trademark. With her is a foundling Liir, and along the way Kiamo Ko, the home of her dead lovers wife Elphaba collects bee's, crows, and a monkey that will give birth to the winged monkeys so famous in the Wizard of Oz.

The Elphaba of Gregory Maguires imagining isn't wicked. She is politically powered, fighting injustice where she see's it. She is a woman with convictions, who gives herself the title The Wicked Witch of the West in response to the Munchkinlanders feeling for her sister Nessarose, who uses the political upheaval in Oz to break Munchkinland free of the power and control of The Wizard of Oz. It is Nessarose, who is the witch in the family, covering her spells behind sanctimonious prayers to the Unnamed God. It is Nessarose in the novel who is the Wicked sister and Elphaba the sister wracked with guilt over the death of her lover.

Even Dorothy's triumphant "bucket of water" moment is nothing more than an accident. Actually I was quiet annoyed with the ending. Having spent 500-odd pages reading about Elphaba, growing to care for her and wish she'd just open up and let live happen to her for a change, I felt cheated when everyone and everything she loved turned on her or died because Dorothy had arrived at Kiamo Ko.

The novel of Wicked is part political commentary, part bodice ripper, and part human rights expose. I have to admit, I wasn't expecting the in-your-face sex and adultery I found in it's pages. The discovery of Elphaba's biological father is rather interesting. Fluid sexuality, unrequited love, meaningless, drug induced matings between characters of human and Animal persuasians, I have to say a broadway musical wouldn't have been the first thing I thought of when I read this book, and it explains why there are so many changes in the storyline between the two products.

If you've seen the musical, there are enough difference - everything - that you would be able to read this novel without an preconceived notions, and if you haven't seen the musical reading this book isn't going to give away the outcome, we already know Elphaba get's a bucket of water to the head. And that's all you'll know.

Gregory Maguire is the author of several novels based on classic children's stories including Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister and Mirror Mirror. For further information on Gregory's novels click here Gregory Maguire's Wesbite

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Eat, Pray, Love

October 23rd 2009 04:04

Eat, Pray, Love, written by American journalist Elizabeth Gilbert was given to me by a co-worker, with the disclaimer “it's such a brilliant life changing book, you're going to love it so much.”

Having read the book I can't help but wonder, how can a friend of mine not know me at all?

The premise behind Eat, Pray, Love is the true story of Elizabeth Gilbert, a successful 30-something journalist and author, who after a horrific divorce, dramatic on/off relationship with a young actor and spiraling depression decides to give herself a year off to travel. To fully experience pleasure, devotion and balance.

To fully immerse herself in each of those states, Elizabeth heads to Italy for pleasure, India and her Guru's Ashram for devotion and Bali and the medicine man Ketut to learn, experience and understand how to live a balanced life.

Considering the flowery praise of critics and fans alike – the first two pages of the book are devoted to critical praise for Eat, Pray, Love - I found myself hesitant to write this review. I feel like I'm standing in Pompeii waiting for Vesuvius to erup.

I found the book to be a total exercise in self-indulgence - I realise that I appear to be the only person in the world who didn't fall automatically in love with this tale – and while I understand it's autobiographical, and therefore is inherently self-indulgent,I have to say for me the only saving grace of this book is Elizabeth's talent with the written word. Funny, poignant, envy-inducing, this is at it's heart a story about a woman finding herself and her true centre in a year of travel.

I most enjoyed the third section of Elizabeth's journey, her experiences with being balanced. The period set in Bali is an easy, enjoyable read and I found myself reading about “American style road trips, palm reading medicine men, rice fields, nutty cats, white sandy beaches and hard candies that taste like ass” with a much lightened heart and amusement in my soul. I also found myself walking home from the train station after a long busy day and dreaming of throwing it all in and renting a small compound in Ubud for $200 a week and running away from home to Bali for a lifetime or two.

I'm fairly ambivalent to the first two sections, although there were distinct periods – especially during India – where I wanted to put the book down and never look at it again. What surprised me the most was the total lack of connection to Italy in the first section of the book. Elizabeth talks of her love of the language, her adoration of the food - and if I ever get to Italy I'm going in search of the Gelato shop in Rome she describes so lovingly - , but the Italian section in the book lacks the essence of truth that is found in the final section. That was personally disappointing for me, a self-confessed lover of Italy and all who dwell within her. I wanted more from that section, I fully expected to write a flowery, praise riddled review all about the Italy section alone. Instead, I found myself wondering when we were going to get to India and when would the action start.

Eat, Pray, Love is a bit too hit and miss for me. When it works, it flies and the reader loses track of time: their mind and imagination walking the streets of Naples, sitting silently in a meditation cave in India or reveling in the beauty and splendor of Bali. However, when it falls flat, it falls flat, and moving through the words is akin to waltzing through quicksand.

There is a sequel/follow up book coming out at in 2009 called Weddings and Evictions, which detail Elizabeth's life and subsequent travels after Eat, Pray, Love concludes.

Eat, Pray, Love is published by Penguin and available now through all good bookstores.

Click here for further information on Elizabeth Gilbert and her work

Elizabeth Gilberts Website

PS: On a side note for those who have been living under a rock, this multi-million selling book is currently being filmed as a movie staring Julia Roberts as Elizabeth Gilbert. I can't imagine how they'll manage to take a book such as this and turn it into a movie. A book that deals more with the author's mind and it's twisting journey away from isolation and depression towards enlightenment is either going to be a total train wreck or win Roberts her second Oscar.

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Writing Down The Bones

September 22nd 2009 09:33

When I was 16, my aunt gave me a book written by American Poet, Artist and Novelist Natalie Goldberg called Writing Down The Bones. As a 16 year old I devoured the lessons and tools inside the books cover and set out to become the best novelist I could be.

Over the years I've done many courses on freeing the creative writer within but this is one book I continue to return to year after year.

Natalie has a conversational style to the words she has in this book. Chapters are short and sharp, and very rarely are they over 2 or 3 pages in length. Teaching by experience she lays her own insecurities bare as she advises writers to get to the truth, write what you know, and allow your energy and creativity to put pen to paper.

Regardless of whether or not what you produce is diamond or dung pile every word, every image, every experience you convey is a step towards the realisation of your goal. I have a cupboard full of journals, pages upon pages borne from the tutelage of Ms Goldberg's teaching.

Filled with wisdom and peace, I wonder if an alternative title of "Zen and The Art of Just Writing" ever crossed her mind when she released this book in 1986.

Writing Down The Bones began a revolution and currently has sold over 1,000,000 copies world wide with translations into 14 different languages.

If you are looking for a how-to book that is going to tell you how hard it is, how the words you write are written by others and how being published is such a difficult journey this is definitely not the book for you. (and on a side note sitting on my bookshelf is a book on how to write a novel that actually spends 90% of it's pages telling you it's too hard to do)

I highly recommend Writing Down The Bones to any aspiring writer, be you poet, novelist, screenplay writer or just someone who loves to write long emails to friends and family.

For further information on Natalie Goldberg, her writing, her art and her workshops please click the link below.

Natalie Goldbergs Website

Till Next Time
Mike

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Dear Fatty.....

September 20th 2009 10:52

Dawn French Autobiography Cover

Comedian Dawn French is probably best known to audiences as half of the comedy duo French and Saunders, or as the chocolate loving Reverend Geraldine Granger in the comedy series The Vicar of Dibley.

In her autobiography Dear Fatty, we are taken on a journey through childhood crushes, career highs, the difficulties faced with infertility and the devastation left behind in a young womans mind when her father commits suicide.

Each chapter is a written in the style of a letter. Sharp, short, often times silly and always hearty and honest, this is an autobiography that deserves it's position as a best seller.

I bought Dear Fatty while waiting to board a Virgin Blue flight to Melbourne. Despite the disclaimer it was side-splittingly funny, I still thought it a good idea to read it on the plane. Unless you are able to hold your laughter in - not something I have been gifted with unfortunately - or you have a polite, reserved laugh - again not me - might I suggest a good place to read it is not on a plane as it's taxiing down the runway.

Ms French writes with an ease and elegance that is to be expected of a woman who has made her career through her power to convey the emotions behind the words in her comedy.

Dear Fatty is a book that you would do well to read and I highly recommend it.

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