Now We Are Six

Today, the 5th May 2012, marks the sixth anniversary of Cat Politics Blogspot. And how better to celebrate the occasion than with another cat pic, this time Ms Lizzie curled up on her Aussie woollen mat.

As regards the title of this post, Now We are Six is of course a book of poems by A A Milne, which I received as a birthday present when I turned seven. I admit it puzzled me at the time why I was given a book celebrating turning six one year after the fact, but I enjoyed it nonetheless, being even then a voracious reader.

I know I haven’t written much about books recently, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been reading. It is rather because I have been reading so much, that I  don’t write about books. No sooner do I finish one book, than I start another, either on my Kindle or a book from my private library.

Currently I’m rereading my collection of Janwillem van de Wetering detective novels.

I recently did a post on these on my other blog, Eye Candy For Bibliophiles, and that inspired me to read them again. If you don’t know the author, Janwillem van de Wetering was a Dutch born writer who led an interesting and adventurous life, and also wrote a series of novels featuring two endearing police detectives namely Sergeant Rhinus De Gier and Adjutant Henk Grijpstra who work for the Amsterdam Municipal  Police Department Murder Brigade.

The novels are mostly set in Amsterdam and have their own idiosyncratic style. The humour is gentle and off beat, and the detectives highly unusual. The books are a relaxing and laid back reading experience. And a cat features every so often - Sergeant de Gier’s Siamese cat, Oliver who is a real character in his own right.

Van de Wetering also wrote two books on his experiences living in Zen Buddhist Monasteries in Japan and America. He wrote his detective novels in Dutch, then translated them into English himself, so his books have his own engaging writing style.  He claimed that both language versions were different.

If you want to know more about this very interesting writer check out this article on his Philosophical Exercises.

I certainly will continue with this blog and Eye Candy for Bibliophiles for some years yet. These days I find that I enjoy writing and it gets easier to do the more I write. I’m not interested in creative writing for myself; I’ll leave that to the experts and appreciate their efforts. I’ll just stick to plain old prose.