I have been sent this questionaire thing 3 times in as many days
I never do them but in this case - well these gals are pretty special
so here goes:


1. One book that changed your life?

Anne of Green Gables - I read it when I was about 8 and fell madly
in love with Anne and reading! I've never stopped.
(sometimes to the dismay of my husband)
Now I'd like to strangle Anne. Her freckled face smiles back at me from licence
plates and god know how many signs but never ever can I forget
her author Lucy Maude Montgomery for giving me the wonderful gift
of reading.


2. One book you have read more than once?

I have a long list but a favourite would be 'The English Patient'
I am mad about Michael Ondaatje - His poem The Cinnamon Peeler
is my most favourite poem of all times
Here is it: A treat
for those of you who know it
and for those of you who don't

THE CINNAMON PEELER by Michael Ondaatje
If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
and leave the yellow bark dust
on your pillow.

Your breasts and shoulders would reek
you could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
though you might bathe
under rain gutters, monsoon.

Here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbor to your hair
or the crease
that cuts your back. This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler's wife.

I could hardly glance at you
before marriage
never touch you
-- your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
I buried my hands
in saffron, disguised them
over smoking tar,
helped the honey gatherers...

When we swam once
I touched you in water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
You climbed the bank and said

this is how you touch other women
the grasscutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.
And you searched your arms
for the missing perfume.

and knew

what good is it
to be the lime burner's daughter
left with no trace
as if not spoken to in an act of love
as if wounded without the pleasure of scar.

You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
peeler's wife. Smell me.

3. One book you would want on a desert island?

Raft Buiding for Dummies maybe or Long Distance Swimming for Dummies
but then of course I'd also need, 'How to Fend off Sharks'

4. One book that made you cry?

Airs about the Ground by Mary Stewart. I can feel tears pricking
my eyes even now as I think about it. In a nutshell:
Someone steals one of the Lippizaner Stallions.
Years later in a far away pasture this old piebald horse (He has been dyed)
is seen dancing to circus music.
Finally he is returned to his stable where fresh bedding is waiting
and his name is still over the door.
Ooh and can I ever forget Black Beauty?!

5. One book that made you laugh?

almost anything by John Irving.. any of the Reginal Hill, Pascoe and Dalziel
detective series

6. One book you wish had been written?

Harry Potter - can you imagine my bank acct??

7. One book you wish had never been written?

none I guess.. hate stuff maybe

8. One book you are currently reading?

A new Swedish detective series I have found by Ake Edwardson

9. One book you have been meaning to read?

I have a list a mile long but sitting waiting is:
The Professor and the Madman - Simon Winchester
A Natural History of the Senses - Diane Ackerman
2 mysteries by Eliz George
and another by Robert Wilson -- (he will be 1st)