The mathematically challenged amongst us might normally avoid books to do with numbers, but when the challenge is to read a book with a number in the title - well, that gives us plenty of scope to pretend we're numerically inclined without needing to do any of that pesky "counting" stuff.
Brenda Carter read The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.
Nathan Miller read The Two Rainbow Serpents Travelling: Mura Track Narratives from the 'Corner Country' by Jeremy Beckett & Luise Hercus
Australian Aboriginal Traditional Stories, Songlines and Spirituality in Pairs or Twos.
When I was asked about stories with numbers in it, the traditional Aboriginal stories of pairs or two, -boys or animals or even two boys becoming animals- sprung to mind. I vigorously searched our collection and came up with some.
However this is the rub, in Australia these stories are not well known or published, and nor is their importance to contemporary Australia’s development. In Aboriginal Australia there are many songlines and spiritual creation stories that emphasis travel between water features- both natural and man made-especially in the more arid interior, similar to Old Testament stories. These stories helped Aboriginal people move about via an oral map, and for later Europeans the stories helped settlement, the pastoral industry and droving of livestock as Aboriginal people were often guides or workers. Many roads and modern highway follow these routes as well.
I grew up in South West Queensland and was lucky enough to hear from many different Aboriginal people from different groups and sometimes even other Australians aspects of these stories. If you want to read some stories, one version I found is The Two Rainbow Serpents Travelling: Mura Track Narratives from the 'Corner Country' (in print at 299.9215 BEC, or available online) by Jeremy Beckett & Luise Hercus (although they should be called compilers). To read a wider coverage of this topic and related landscape that include parts of the Two Boys songline (which is found nation wide) Aboriginal Dreaming Paths and Trading Routes: The Colonisation of the Australian Economic Landscape by Dale Kerwin.
Sharon Bryan read Now We Are Six by A. A. Milne.
It is a fact well known and widely acknowledged, although rarely mentioned out loud, that most librarians have a literary crush on at least one author. This is why many librarians have literary-themed tattoos – because they love a particular book (or a set of books) to pieces, and feel as if the works of that author are so entrenched under their skin that they may as well be etched into their skin as well.
I don’t currently have any literary tattoos, but if I did I’d probably have something by A. A. Milne. And/Or Lewis Carroll. But A. A. Milne is the author of the book I’m spruiking today: Now We Are Six (which we have as part of a collection called The World of Christopher Robin: Containing When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six, which you'll find at c820.81 MIL in the Curriculum Collection).
This is, essentially, the third book in the Winnie-the-Pooh books. The first, When We Were Very Young, is sort of a proto-Pooh book, in that the characters of the inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood hadn’t been developed yet. This collection of poems falls between Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner and it was published during the height of Poohmania. If I can say “proto-Pooh” and “Poohmania”.
Personally, I don’t think it’s as good as When We Were Very Young, which had some heart-stoppingly good poems in it like “Spring Morning”, “The King’s Breakfast”, “Bad Sir Brian Botany” and the eternally beloved “Halfway Down” and “Vespers”. But you can’t love Milne and not love Now We Are Six. It does have its share of wonderful poems, like “King John’s Christmas”, and some well-loved favourites, like “Us Two” and “Forgiven”. And of course, like the other books in the series, it features the charming illustrations of E. H. Shepard. If you fancy yourself a fan of Winnie-the-Pooh, then this should be on your “to read” list – if you haven’t read it already.
Meanwhile, the book contains an E. H. Shepard illustration of a cat called “Tattoo”. I’m not sure if getting a tattoo of Tattoo would be an excellent literary in-joke, or just too much.
Brenda Carter read The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.
Is uni life
becoming a little dull, routine and unispiring? If so, you may need to read The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (840 DUM(P) 2C TRO/HER) and,
for more numbers, its famous quote, “All for one and one for all”.
No doubt you’ve read an abridged version or watched at least
one of the film adaptations at some stage, but the real thing is a greyer
affair with our heroes – Dartagnon, Athos, Porthos and Aramis certainly not
Disney characters. There’s even more swashbuckling action and intrigue, complete
with swordplay, romance, fortunes won and lost, mistresses kept and stolen,
poisoned wine, devious nobility, and vengeance sought and attained. It’s clear
who the villians are (could there be a more despicable character than Milady?)
but they and the musketeers are portayed as flawed individuals which makes for
a more complex and enjoyable narrative. Having said that, you won’t be
intellectually stretched by this novel but you’ll have a great escape with it
when you need a break from reality.
Already read The Three Musketeers? If so, treat
yourself to the sequel, Twenty Years After which has been described as a ‘thinking man's’ Blues Brothers, a
‘getting the band back together’ tale which is even better than the original. Twenty Years After is
available as an ebook.
Nathan Miller read The Two Rainbow Serpents Travelling: Mura Track Narratives from the 'Corner Country' by Jeremy Beckett & Luise Hercus
When I was asked about stories with numbers in it, the traditional Aboriginal stories of pairs or two, -boys or animals or even two boys becoming animals- sprung to mind. I vigorously searched our collection and came up with some.
However this is the rub, in Australia these stories are not well known or published, and nor is their importance to contemporary Australia’s development. In Aboriginal Australia there are many songlines and spiritual creation stories that emphasis travel between water features- both natural and man made-especially in the more arid interior, similar to Old Testament stories. These stories helped Aboriginal people move about via an oral map, and for later Europeans the stories helped settlement, the pastoral industry and droving of livestock as Aboriginal people were often guides or workers. Many roads and modern highway follow these routes as well.
I grew up in South West Queensland and was lucky enough to hear from many different Aboriginal people from different groups and sometimes even other Australians aspects of these stories. If you want to read some stories, one version I found is The Two Rainbow Serpents Travelling: Mura Track Narratives from the 'Corner Country' (in print at 299.9215 BEC, or available online) by Jeremy Beckett & Luise Hercus (although they should be called compilers). To read a wider coverage of this topic and related landscape that include parts of the Two Boys songline (which is found nation wide) Aboriginal Dreaming Paths and Trading Routes: The Colonisation of the Australian Economic Landscape by Dale Kerwin.
Sharon Bryan read Now We Are Six by A. A. Milne.
I don’t currently have any literary tattoos, but if I did I’d probably have something by A. A. Milne. And/Or Lewis Carroll. But A. A. Milne is the author of the book I’m spruiking today: Now We Are Six (which we have as part of a collection called The World of Christopher Robin: Containing When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six, which you'll find at c820.81 MIL in the Curriculum Collection).
This is, essentially, the third book in the Winnie-the-Pooh books. The first, When We Were Very Young, is sort of a proto-Pooh book, in that the characters of the inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood hadn’t been developed yet. This collection of poems falls between Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner and it was published during the height of Poohmania. If I can say “proto-Pooh” and “Poohmania”.
Personally, I don’t think it’s as good as When We Were Very Young, which had some heart-stoppingly good poems in it like “Spring Morning”, “The King’s Breakfast”, “Bad Sir Brian Botany” and the eternally beloved “Halfway Down” and “Vespers”. But you can’t love Milne and not love Now We Are Six. It does have its share of wonderful poems, like “King John’s Christmas”, and some well-loved favourites, like “Us Two” and “Forgiven”. And of course, like the other books in the series, it features the charming illustrations of E. H. Shepard. If you fancy yourself a fan of Winnie-the-Pooh, then this should be on your “to read” list – if you haven’t read it already.
Meanwhile, the book contains an E. H. Shepard illustration of a cat called “Tattoo”. I’m not sure if getting a tattoo of Tattoo would be an excellent literary in-joke, or just too much.
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