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Autumn Has Arrived But Not Much is Slowing Down.

I know most people do a good clean in the spring time but as winter approaches and we're enjoying fall colours I have decided to reorganise my library collections. The main collections I have of course are the Penguin Books. I have them on a few different shelves plus quite a few in boxes in a closet. No more, I am in the middle of organising them series by series as I go. Hopefully the list of all of my Penguins will be accessible by series titles. More on that later.

I have the main series finished and put on the bookshelves that take up an entire wall in our front room. Previously I had all the non Penguins on those shelves and the Penguins on the smaller shelves. No more. The non Penguins are going through a serious cull and several boxes are going to auction.  I can read anything I like either through library books or Kindle and I don't need so much STUFF in the house. A good winter's project when it isn't so nice to be out motorbiking around the country side. It is a work in progress and once finished I will post up the final photos. I am currently putting the King Penguin series onto Library Thing and finding them their very own shelf. They are lovely old books with their interesting illustrated hard covers and they deserve their time to shine on my shelves.

I also finished an interesting book, non Penguin, I got from the library.  Into the Abyss by Carol Shaben is the true story of a young Canadian bush pilot who under extreme pressure from the company he works for  to keep flights on time no matter how bad the weather, crashes the small plane he is flying killing everyone except for the rookie Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman, the prisoner he is transporting, himself and a Member of Parliament.

The story is written by the daughter of the MP. The Canadian mountie is very badly injured, the MP has lost his glasses and can't see anything, the pilot is badly injured but can walk and the prisoner being transported is doing everything he can to save all of them. He becomes the real hero of the story but the repercussions for him are great.

Their main adversary was the snow storm they are trapped in and the extremely cold weather that only northern Canada can present.

The friendship that develops between the four men is very interesting as it progresses over several decades. The information related to the small airlines that employ bush pilots across northern Canada's remote areas is quite disturbing.

I really enjoyed this story. I felt I got to know all four of the characters well. The four men couldn't be any more diverse. The pilot's and injured passengers were real and the rescue suspenseful. The reader learns a great deal about the past of each man and how their friendship remains through the following decades. The accident occurred in 1985 and the story ends not long ago. The bond between the four men is quite moving.
I cared about all of the men and wanted to know how this accident impacted on them, some better than others.

The only negative I can give this book is I got irritated when the author wrote in the third person all of the time, but whenever referring to her father during the last half of the book she dropped back into the first person. The book wasn't about her, it was his story but sometimes she sneaked in there as a character.

I found that annoying as she appeared to lose her objectivity a bit. There is a very good section at the end of the book of notes to let the reader know how she acquired all of the information in the book. I would recommend this story to anyone who is interested in aviation and likes a good survival tale in the wilderness.

The other book I'm reading (or should say listening to) is the unabridged edition of Moby Dick. I began it a few months ago but couldn't concentrate as life was happening. Now things are slowing down I'm enjoying listening to it in the evenings on my MP3 player. I am not that far into it, maybe chapter 12 or 13 but am enjoying it so far. I didn't expect the humour in it. Parts of the story are quite amusing. There are more than 100 chapters in this book and I find I need to jot down a few words as I go to keep the stream of thought continuing so I don't forget bits of it. So far so good.

The past week has turned out to be quite productive and I've even managed to get in a few rides on the new Scooter that I have named "Penguino".  I expect Penguino and I will be doing some penguin hunting once I point out where the various places are. Yes, I do anthropomorphise both my pets and my scooters. Yesterday I stopped at a country market and found two Penguins I didn't have. It is always fun to be out on the bike and finding Penguins at the same time.

I'm hoping for more bike adventures in the coming weeks and am very much looking forward to a "new" reorganised library in the house. Stay tuned. Posted by Travellin' Penguin at 17:57