Sue Townsend, Farley Mowat, Page 56! and a few Public Service Announcements

emembering two authors today, who've recently passed away, Farley Mowat and Sue Townsend.

I've done "why doesn't my newspaper report on the important stuff" features before, on the passing of favourite authors: Peg Bracken, Madeleine l'Engle, Norma Fox Mazer, and so on.

This time, of course, I don't even know if the local Montreal paper reported on Sue Townsend, though I'm sure they did write about Farley Mowat since he's Canadian. I heard about both of these through Twitter.

It's been many years since I read any Farley Mowat. It's possible that I only ever read one - Owls in the Family, about his childhood. Now, of course, I feel guilty about this. I'd especially like to read his autobiographical works about World War II, though the ones about Canada's North are intriguing too. Here's a list of his first 15 works:

People of the Deer (1952; revised 1975)
The Regiment (1955)
Lost in the Barrens (1956)
The Dog Who Wouldn't Be (1957)
Coppermine Journey: An Account of a Great Adventure (1958)
Grey Seas Under: The Perilous Rescue Missions of a North Atlantic Salvage Tug(1959)
The Desperate People (1959; revised 1999)
Ordeal by Ice (1960)
Owls in the Family (1961)
The Serpent's Coil: An Incredible Story of Hurricane-Battered ships the Heroic Men Who Fought to Save Them (1961)
The Black Joke (1962)
Never Cry Wolf (1963)
West-Viking (1965)
The Curse of the Viking Grave (1966)
Canada North (1967)

Sue Townsend wrote the Adrian Mole diaries, of course. For some reason I didn't read these when I was young, but only came to them in my middle twenties -- which was probably better, in a way, as only the first diary dealt with the young teenage Adrian Mole, while the others followed him at later stages. I still haven't read the last one, and Adrian Mole is now older than I am!

One of my favourites of her books is The Queen and I (and the sequel Queen Camilla), in which Labour come into power in the 80s and the entire Royal family is ousted to live on a Council estate. It was fun to see Townsend's depictions of which family members managed to adapt, which didn't, and how they interacted with the other residents of the estate.

Another good one is Rebuilding Coventry, about a woman who commits a murder, in defense of a neighbour being strangled, and then goes on the run in London.

Townsend suffered from diabetes and kidney failure, and a few years ago spoke out on National Kidney Day about the importance of altruistic organ donation. Here's the BBC interview with Townsend about her disabilities, and a more extensive interview with Townsend that also includes other topics.

Last week I read (brief interjection here to say that I've been reading a lot and have not made much progress at all on ROW80 goals. Woe is me!) Bill Bryson's Neither Here Nor There, about his travels in Europe in the early 90s, and I'm using that book for...

Page 56!

*Grab a book, any book.

*Turn to page 56 or 56 per cent in your eReader (if you have to improvise, that's okay).

*Find any sentence (or a few (just don't spoil it)) that grabs you.

*Post it.

Here's Bryson:

"Goldfish daunt me. Their whole existence seems a kind of reproach. 'What's it all about?' they seem to be saying. 'I swim here, I swim there. What for?'"
To my mind, the only possible pet is a cow. Cows love you. They are harmless, they look nice, they don't need a box to crap in, they keep the grass down and they are so trusting and stupid that you cannot help but lose your heart to them."

Hmm, I don't think he noticed, when he was in Switzerland, the annual cow battles: the Combat des Reins (Fight of the Queens). I'm not making this up! The last round was a couple of weeks ago and not only was it all over the papers, it was televised too.

(from Europe for Visitors)

I took the page 56 meme from LuAnn's Back Porchervations blog. Feel free to share!

Public service announcements!

I haven't had a chance to do this yet, but a few weeks ago, on her birthday, since it was close to the anniversary of her own successful Kickstarter campaign, Amanda Palmer asked anyone who felt inclined to go support another Kickstarter project as a birthday present to her.

There are lots of intriguing projects out there, including one that's about to begin in a few days -- photographs of real librarians by Kyle Cassidy.

Neil Gaiman recently visited a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan, with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Here's a direct link to his piece in The Guardian.

And the latest Humble Bundle books bundle features a huge collection of Doctor Who comics! Pay what you like! Proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

The WRiTE CLUB submission deadline is fast approaching!

DL Hammons explains:

"For the newbies out there, let me explain what WRiTE CLUB is? It's a modest writing competition whose inspiration was derived from the movie FIGHT CLUB. There are numerous versions of this concept around the internet, but nothing like we do it here. This unique approach, combined with your participation, continues to set it apart from the other writing competitions and is responsible for its phenomenal growth. Its essence embodies simple, good-natured competition, with lots and lots of fun sprinkled on top.

Over the course of eight weeks I'll be holding twice-weekly bouts in which the winners will advance to the play-offs, which will ultimately lead to a single champion. Bouts between who... or what... you ask. Anonymous 500 word writing samples, submitted under a pen name by anyone who wishes to take part, that's who. The writing can be any genre, any style (even poetry) with the word count being the only restriction. It's a way to get your writing in front of a lot of readers, without having to suffer the agony of exposure.

And the winners are determined by WRiTE CLUB readers!"

Care to share a page 56 sentence?
Have you participated in WRiTE CLUB?
Any other intriguing Kickstarter (or other) projects you'd like to call attention to?