This is a small exert form a short story I am writing. Hope it tickles some fancies…
I walked through the door from the Jetway to the plane the air was stagnant, circling round me in waves of heat and cold. The draft from behind urging me on, goading me almost herding me to my seat. Clamoring people all around fighting for position as if wanting to be at the front for the start of some great race. My seat is no dissimilar to those surrounding it but still I feel the urge to inspect its every detail: Is it clean? The cold clasp falls easily from the buckle as I undo the belt. I can’t help but feel a little uneasy at this but it’s not my first time so why should I worry? I sit, forgetting my cumbersome bag hanging from my back. I look around: did anyone see, no, thank goodness. Gingerly I get up from the seat and man handle the bag from my back. By this time the cabin is roaring with the absent minded chatter of legions of men, women and children vying for attention, hoping to be overheard above the din. The overhead compartment is almost bursting at the seams, looking to the opposite I see a space, hiding amongst the coats and bags. I learch ungracefully across the gangway without a moments thought and, in spectacular fashion, collide with the stewardess showing an elderly couple to their seats. Her auben hair was twisted tightly into a knot which flared at the back and ran over her shoulder on noe side. Her skin was tanned, but not unnaturally and round blue eyes which could surely bring any man to his knees. Instantly, with no influence from my brain whatsoever apologies start running out of my mouth like children running to the playground. By this time the whole plane is looking over to see what has so rudely interrupted their most important conversation. The stewardess brushes herself down and shakes aside the moment of agitation. Then, almost as if scripted by some award winning playwright she asks “May I take your bag for you sir?” I do not reply, in fact I can not. A stilted silence followed as she waited for a reply, which I am embarrassed to say never came. She delicately prized the bag from my hands and placed it, with practiced precision, into the locker. “Not to difficult…” she said with a wry smile. I apologised once more and returned to my seat. I can’t help think that she looked back at me as she walked down the aisle, but I cannot be sure. I sat staring at my knees for a few moments more, the redness slowly leaving my face. I noticed in the corner of my eye a shoe. A faded trainer of shoe, dirty with dust. I looked up the length of the accompanying leg and torso, clad in a rather faded tweed affair. A kindly looking chap, beaming down om me. “Good Day!” He gestured with a wide grin and a friendly inflection. “May I” “Oh, certainly.” My response is stilted but cordially I stand and allow passage to the window seat. A gentle waft of cologne breezes after him, not overpowering: the kind of fragrance that leaves you trying to decipher it’s ingredients, a smooth calming aroma. Once again I descend into my seat and relax back, the cabin still full of chatter, apprehension and excitement. I stuck my head up like a Meerkat surveying the savanna. I catch the eye of the stewardess and duck back down into the seat. The gentleman next to me, deep in his newspaper glances across, a gentle smirk on his face. I return to my knees, my friends for the rest of the flight.
Yesterday, I (and a few thousand other bloggers) reviewed Donald Miller’s new book, —and my friends at Thomas Nelson have generously provided one copy to give away to you.
Want to win a copy? Here’s how you can do it:
or use the form below:
Tell me a story—Leave a comment telling me why you’d like to read this book. The more entertaining the better.
It’s that simple.
The winner will be selected at random and notified via email to arrange mailing. The winner will also be welcome to review for publication here should he or she wish.
Contest closes on Saturday, so enter before it’s too late!
Sir Ernest Fisk, the radio pioneer and entrepreneur was born in in 1886. He was educated at St Mary’s and Sunbury Boys’ schools, Sunbury, before attending University College London. From selling newspapers on Sunbury station he went on to become an engineer and later worked for the Post Office as one of their first wireless telegraphists. In 1906 he went to work for Marconi. Later he would oversee pioneering work that led eventually to the development of direct wireless communication between Australia and the United Kingdom. The first Morse signals were received in 1918, while in 1924 human voice messages could be sent. He was knighted in 1937. He died in Sydney, NSW in 1965.
Radio communication by D. C. Green
If you would like to find out more about or you can check what books are available on the
Go to the on a computer in any Surrey library and you will be able to see his biography in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and read his obituary in the Times Digital Archive.
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We would like to welcome you to our new home here at – you may have found us by following a link to our old website, or maybe your browser redirected you here.
The Esoteric Book Review was created by the occult author Sorita d’Este as part of her Avalonia website which was founded in 1997. It moved to its own seperate website about two years ago during some reorganisations of Avalonia by Sorita. At that time she appointed me as the Reviews Editor and with her help I have been able to learn more about internet technology and gain the confidence to be able to now take on the massive task of administering this website by myself.
The Esoteric Book Review is a peer review. The reviews you will find here have been written by people who have many years worth of experience as practitioners of magick, devotees of the old gods, readers of tarot and weavers of the webs of sorcery. They include amongst them esoteric scholars and academics, authors, writers, teachers of wicca and members of large and prestigious magical organisations and traditions. They share their genuine opinion on the books they review, good or bad. They are volunteers who share a passion for the occult, for magick, paganism and spirituality, for witchcraft, voodoo, root magic and the old gods.
So if you are with us now, in the words of Aleister Crowley:
“Beauty and strength, leaping laughter and delicious languor, force and fire, are of us.”
156, 93, BB, LVX and all the fraternal and sororal blessings
Poor lowly book category. How you have been neglected.
I am happy to (finally) report, however, that this does not reflect my state of book consumption. I have happily been indulging on the books of those around me. (This was of course after I forced myself out of ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’. Which I read through twice. And most likely would have begun a third time if Becca had not been so excited to get her own hands on it.)
While in Waimuku I had at my disposal the impressive collection of the two well-traveled German intellectuals we stayed with, Hanna and Bernd. Thanks to them I finished a book of Maori legends and two on the history of the Gumdiggers and Kauri bushmen of New Zealand. In addition, I was lucky to pick up and tear through Susan Sontag’s final collection of essays, ‘At the Same Time’. A perfect piece to be read while farming. Sontag’s writing is unapologetically pretentious. This type of trite can only be truly appreciated while wearing dirty gum boots and flannels caked with week old mud. Instead of overwhelming, it was ironic. Intellectualism and farming, a wonderful mix.
And now in Tonga I am lucky to have found a gift sent over by Anastatsia to her father, ‘Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules.’ A collection of short stories put together by none other than David Sedaris. A fine start to my future Tonga reading nostalgia. (Yates and snorkeling around sunken ships—oh my!)
And if porches with hammocks provide nothing else, they are absolutely perfect for long days of digesting the libraries of others.
Sorry for the absence, but I have been too busy listening to music, and with a now abandoned Tumblr, and I also haven’t been bothered resetting my password, which was forgotten for the fourteen thousandth time.
The irregular schedule of blogging appeals to me greatly. I can post twice a week and no one will particularly care.
With Tumblr, there seems to be a pressure to post regularly and often. In short, Tumblr is not very good, and users of it should be chucked into a barrel of cats (for that is the solution to all criminal activities).
Have a random photo of the 33rd Regiment of Foot, famous for being in the Sharpe series of novels, by Bernard Cornwell (The series is brilliant, as are most things written by this man), and also for once being under the command of one Colonel Arthur Wellesley, who would of course later become Lord Wellington, of Waterloo fame.
In other news, I was shocked today to find two people who didn’t know where Chattanooga is. It’s abhorrent that people have no idea where random cities are. (Chattanooga is located in the American State of Tennessee (what an odd spelling), home of Country Music and Al Gore (look out for an Al Gore/Dance related blog, coming your way soon!)).
Anyway, until some other time, when I can be bothered resetting my password once more, good evening to you precious blogees, fellower adventurers throw the passageways of the internet (invented by Al Gore, of course).
