An impressive description of reading on @BBCInOurTime

This recent broadcast about Tess of the d'Urbervilles on In our time has a powerful description, from Melvyn Bragg of the impact of reading and connections with characters
novels aren't just fictional constructs they are the life of people we believe in...and out imagination goes out to them...

You can listen to the whole broadcast here (the quote is at the 35 minute mark). I would suggest listening to the whole talk for the full context of the quote.

I really enjoy In our time because of the diversity of ideas explored.  Have a look their archive for different ways of exploring the content.

A few thoughts about Recipes for a Good Time (and yes there is a local studies connection)

Recipes for a Good Time by Ben Milgate
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I borrowed this book from my local public library because I have been to Portenos and the food is amazing. I wanted to see how it was described in this book. Some of the recipes, like some of the cooking with fire ones, would need not only my back yard, but those of my neighbours as well. Some are scalable, but other recipes are for parties for the entire block.

I want to try a banana cake recipe (with whisky) as it sounds amazing, as do the pickle and sauce recipes. There are some lovely salads, breads and of course many different ways with meat. It is a lovely book, and I look forward to trying some of the recipes.

This is another local studies recipe book. Parts of the book describe the search for restaurant locations, and include information and photographs or drawings of the actual locations, including interiors.

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Art Gallery of NSW and the Tang exhibition

Currently the Art Gallery of NSW has a lovely exhibition called 

Tang 唐 treasures from the Silk Road capital with some amazing items on display (including a very acrobatic dragon - maybe all dragons could be acrobatic). 


It also had a lovely timeout/create your own art section...

with a shadow wall (the photograph shows a behind the scenes view).  




The exhibition also had an augmented-reality installation. This shows part of it without the ipad with extra sensors

...and this one with the augmented view   This shows how the reality was immersive - with just a sneak peak to the rest of the gallery

I enjoyed this as part of the exhibition, as it means that art works could be shown in an original context, even if it was not real, but a lot of photographs and sensors. It was lovely to be able to look all around the spaces, staring at the floor, and ceiling as well as the walls. It was also a very interesting way to look at the information in this space.

It would be interesting to think about local studies applications, and being able to show reconstructions/imaginings from different times in history and prehistory.  Imagine being able to look at a main street area, and see it change over time.

Some thoughts about Local: recipes and stories from Sydney’s Inner West

Local: recipes and stories from Sydney’s Inner West by Stanmore Public School P&C
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a lovely book from Stanmore Public School.

It has information about the kitchen garden, and the kitchen at the school as well as short suburb histories and statistics for the Marrickville area, and includes photographs of the school.

It also has recipes, and these have photographs accompanying them. The recipes are provided by parents, locals and teachers, and there is a rather lovely 'parents to...' listed for each recipe(other relationships such as mum, grandparent, local are also included). There are recipes from local business owners, and The Henson and Cornersmith are amongst those providing recipes.

This is a genre of books I really enjoy which are local studies meets recipes.

The recipes I have tried have all worked well, and there are many more recipes to explore.

It is published by Stanmore Public School P & C.

This is the first time I have added a record to Goodreads. It would not accept a book which did not have an author. Now I have added one book, there are a couple more I will have to add.

I was also really interested to find that this book was not listed on Trove.

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