Book of the day
Lion: A Long Way Home
Saroo Brierley
(UK: Penguin, 2017; USA: Berkley, 2015)
Five-year-old Saroo lived in a poor village in India, in a one-room hut with his mother and three siblings… until the day he boarded a train alone and got lost. For twenty-five years.
This is the story of what happened to Saroo in those twenty-five years. How he ended up on the streets of Calcutta. And survived. How he then ended up in Tasmania, living the life of an upper-middle-class Aussie. And how, at thirty years old, with some dogged determination, a heap of good luck and the power of Google Earth, he found his way back home.
Lion is a triumphant true story of survival against all odds and a shining example of the extraordinary feats we can achieve when hope endures.
Available in the UK via ‘My Local Bookshop‘ search engine, or via Amazon (Lion: A Long Way Home
Available in the USA via Amazon (A Long Way Home: A Memoir
Facts of the day
21 January
1879 The date of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift: a British garrison of 150 held off 3000-4000 Zulu warriors. Eleven Victoria Crosses and a number of other decorations were awarded to the defenders.
New Year
New Year’s Day is the oldest celebrated holiday. The Babylonians began celebrating New Year’s Day on 23 March in around 2000 BC. The end of March was the logical choice for the New Year because it’s the beginning of spring and it’s also when new crops are planted. The Babylonians festivities would last for eleven days, and each day was celebrated differently.
Book
Author and television screenwriter, Anthony Horowitz, has three tips for writing fiction:
- Read more
- Write more
- Believe in yourself
Writers birthdays
1561 Francis Bacon (UK)
1592 Pierre Gassendi (France)
1654 Sir Richard Blackmore (UK)
1729 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (Germany)
1788 Lord George Gordon Byron (UK)
1820 Hermann von Lingg (Germany)
1849 August Strindberg (Sweden)
1887 Helen Hoyt (USA)
1894 Charles Langbridge Morgan (UK)
1898 Ben van Eysselsteijn (The Netherlands)
1904 Arkady Gaidar (Russia)
1906 Robert E Howard (USA)
1916 Harilal Upadhyay (India)
1917 Herwig Hensen (Belgium)
1922 Howard Moss (USA)
1937 Joseph Wambaugh (USA)
1938 Joe Esposito (USA)
1945 Michael Cristofer (USA)
1957 Francis Wheen (UK)
1970 Alex Ross (USA)
1980 Subhash Ram Prajapati (Nepal)
Jokes of the day
‘My dog used to chase people on a bike a lot. It got so bad, in the end I had to take his bike away.’
Cartoon: Haldane, ‘Owl and the Pussycat’ cartoon, Punch
Jolabokaflod 