I have to apologize for what is going to be a very brief and image-less post, our broadband bandwidth has run out until Wednesday and trying to do anything without it is tear-inducing. I don’t remember dial-up being this slow. Just another reason to move to Finland, where this week they announced that access to a high speed broadband service is a basic right. Damn right Finland. Hopefully Book Depository still do free shipping there? (I’d check myself, but it would take about three hours to load the page!)

Thankfully I have these new books to keep me company:

• Cocaine Nights by J.G. Ballard
• Concrete Island by J.G. Ballard
• The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard
• Millenium People by J.G. Ballard
• Super-Cannes by J.G. Ballard
• If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This by Robin Black
• Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

In lieu of an array of fantastically interesting links, though I do recommend reading Flavorwire’s list of the 20th Century’s most reclusive authors, I’m going to tell you a story!

I had an interesting encounter with some young readers yesterday. Tired after a long day, I was listening to my ipod but the battery ran out, so I pulled a book out of my bag and started reading that instead. Soon after I did the conversation of the group of teenagers moved toward what they’d been reading. I really loved secretly listening to them talking about books, and convinced myself that it was me that caused the change of topic. Who knows.

So what are teens (male and female) in the North-West of Melbourne reading on their school holidays? A few of the titles that I caught were Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher (and they were very insistent about how great it is, reading up on it now it sounds like something I’d be interested in. Anyone read it?), Gone by Michael Grant, Inkheart by Cornelia Funke and The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. I couldn’t help but grin to myself when I heard them talking about The Outsiders. No vampires!