Off the Beaten Page on Heron Island

Tucked into a corner of Bailies Bar at Heron Island were two lovely members of the Fun Over 50's tour group. They were reading, and I just had to introduce myself and ask about their books. Thus was born the first of, we hope, many 'Off the Beaten Page' Segments.



Miss Shirley said she is not a great reader, and prefers to cross stitch when she is home. She picked up her edition of Agatha Christie's The Collected Short Stories for the trip, thinking it would be a good format for the rhythm of a tour. One thing she neglected to check, however, was the length of the stories. Some are only six pages long, and she felt she had just gotten into the mystery when it was solved, leaving her wanting more. Dick Francis is an author she enjoys. She doesn't like books with romance or sex in them, and her friend nodded in enthusiastic agreement to that statement. They agreed they were 'past all that'.

Miss Mary, the reader of the two friends, was about a quarter of the way through a Jodi Picoult novel, The Pact. She wouldn't recommend it, however, since this was the third time she had attempted to read it on a trip. She just 'never got into it' because it had 'too much love'.

Ruth Park is an Australian author who started writing in the 1940's that Miss Mary recommended to Mrs. Baja readers. Has anyone heard of her? When I looked her up, I recognized the title of her most famous character, the Muddle-headed Wombat. She's now on my TBR list.

In general Miss Mary doesn't like chick lit, and prefers autobiographies. She says Aussies are the greatest readers.