Stephen here. One thing I didn't get much time to do in Sydney was read books. Since I was walking to work I wasn't reading during the day and I was often pooped at night. Since we've not had time to watch films lately (sob) I thought I'd summarise the books I've read.
In Sydney I read a great book on the history of transportation (of crims) to Australia, Robert Hughes's The Fatal Shore. This was reasonably heavy going, but really interesting, especially when living and working in the centre of it all. (I won't give star ratings for books - since books are highbrow and thus can't be summed up just with stars.)
Also in Sydney I read half of How The Mind Works by Steve Pinker. This was also heavy going, but really rewarding. It explains so much and goes into a lot of haman nature in great detail. I finished it as we were travelling.
So only one and a half books read in the three months we were in Sydney. I'm quite a slow reader, but this is slow going even for me. Now we're travelling I'm reading more, which is good, and swapping books at secong hand stores (though I "released" How The Mind Works at BookCrossing.com).
I read BBC reporter John Simpson's A Mad World, My Masters - stories from his time reporting foreign affairs. Simpson is a great story teller and often very funny. I'd read his first auto-biographical book before I came out here and am looking forward to his next.
After three non-fiction books I dipped into fiction with Robert Harris's Enigma - a good yarn set around code-breaKing Bletchley Park during WW2.
Then it was on to Michael Palin's Hemmingway's Chair. It was well written and amusing, but I thought the plot was a little lacking. Maybe I need to know more about Ernest Hemmingway?
I've just started another Robert Harris book: Archangel (about a hunt for Stalin's notebooks). I'll let you know how that one goes.
Looking forward to the new Harry Potter next week! I think we'll splash out on that, though Anne will read it first as she reads really quickly.