I feel a book post coming on...

The end of the sixth month of the year has passed! Time for the quarterly reckoning of reading.

Since March 31 I have read:

1. Susan Kurosawa - Coronation Talkies
   
2. Rose Tremain - Sacred Country
   
3. David Mitchell - Number9Dream
   
4. Nada Awar Jarrar - Dreams of Water
   
5. Stephen Dando-Collins - Pasteur's Gambit (nonfiction)
   
6. Audrey Niffenegger - Three Incestuous Sisters (visual novel)
   
7. Audrey Niffenegger - The Adventuress (visual novel)
   
8. Annie Proulx - Brokeback Mountain
   
9. Mudrooroo - Wild Cat Falling (PFitG)
   
10. Jenny Newman - Life Class
    
11. Elizabeth Knox - The Vintner's Luck (PFitG)
    
12. Louise Erdrich - The Master Butchers Singing Club
    
13. Yoshimoto Banana - Kitchen (PFitG)
    
14. Eric Gerome Dickey - Chasing Destiny
    
15. Lev Grossman - Codex
    
16. Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner
    
17. Sandra Newman - The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done
    
18. Jonathan Lethem - Motherless Brooklyn
    
19. Andrew Nicoll - The Good Mayor
    
20. Curtis Sittenfeld - American Wife
    
21. Samrat Upadhyay - The Guru of Love
    
22. Jeanette Winterson - Sexing the Cherry
    
23. Martha Cooley - The Archivist
    
24. Haruki Murakami - Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (PFitG)
    

Voila! 24 books (although two were picture books). Of these, six were written by people of colour; I am still way way short of my goal to make that half. (For the whole year, I am running at 12/37; still a massive improvement over last year's 6/60 but Not Good Enough!) Four were on my list for Project Filling in the Gaps.

As I write this I am still working on both Sexing the Cherry and Hard Boiled Wonderland. Both should be finished by the end of the week, so I am leaving them in the second-quarter list.

Some statistical analysis! This quarter I had a definite peak, reading seven novels in two weeks! But there was also a trough, when I read zero novels in two weeks! Remarkable in both cases.

My favourites were Sacred Country, Number9Dream, Motherless Brooklyn, The Good Mayor, and American Wife.

Mardi Gras

Fat Tuesday is a little bit differen in Sydney. In fact, that's "Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras" to you! But whatever you're going to call it, I participated yesterday and had a really great time. I had so much fun, I'm STILL leaving a trail of cheerful golden sparkles.



Along with two friends who are visiting Australia from Japan, I joined the Amnesty International LGBT Human Rights float. Our sobering t-shirts reminded us that homosexuality is persecuted around the world (queer people are imprisoned in 77 countries and face the death penalty in 7!) and in gratitude for the freedom we are lucky enough to have in countries like Australia and Canada, we celebrated enthusiastically all the way from Hyde Park to Moore Park. (Google Maps says that's 2.7 kilometres, and we danced all the way, baby.) The flag you see in the photo above says LOVE FREEDOM. Sorry about the blur--I was moving AND it was moving!

A great time was had by all. After the parade, we shared excellent Thai food, and then I wandered off into the night to party until the morning bus service got started!