Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Nero Wolfe

Earlier this evening here (It was two hours later in NSW), I rang a long time friend from PNG days, Graham, in Sydney.

We talked about Joan and her last very difficult days and how I was missing her. Graham said that after being so long together (46 years), I must forget that she has gone and talk to her about all sorts of things.

How true. In times when I am distracted by, say a TV Quiz show, I yell out for her great general knowledge to answer a question before the contestant can. Joan was never really into TV except for a few programs and I could rely on her to answer any general subject question. All that reading....we should promote reading more!

Her library of craft and sewing/embroidery books has already been donated to a group who will sell them off to raise funds for cancer research. Her other books numbering hundreds: I don’t know what do with. I am too old to start reading SF. Can’t have empty bookshelves all around the house though.

I may start to read Nero Wolfe again. Author Rex Stout's character was a large man who tended orchids as he solved nasty crimes. One time when we were in NY, I went to look at Nero’s fictional house near the harbour. In searching through the bookshelves I found two paperback magazines from the ‘Bestsellers’ series from, I guess, the 1970s.
I will find time in the next few days to read them and hope that it rekindles my interest in reading. In Papua New Guinea in the sixties and seventies we read because there was no TV and radio reception was poor. Today, here, other forms of entertainment are too easy.

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