Indian temple art and architecture, music, writing, photography, travel, reading and anything else that makes the world go round...
Music
Classical mainly - though some 60's stuff too - Bob Dylan, Beatles, Sinatra etc. I'm definitely into opera, go as often as I can, especially Wagner, Strauss and Puccini, but, bizarrely, if I had to pick my Desert Island composers they would have to be Mahler, Schubert, Beethoven and Bach...
Movies
Old films. I love Lawrence of Arabia, and any other old films with Alec Guinness in them. I just love his voice...
About me: ..
Hallo. Welcome to my blog. Here's a bit about me. I've been around a while, - not the age I told MySpace, cheeky lot. Well, I'm not giving away secrets ... What does age matter, in anycase? Since almost everyone on MySpace professes to be 30-something, why not me?
I've been a research psychologist in England, Australia and New York - working on the Apollo Space Project (doing unbelievably ghastly things to unsuspecting volunteers!)
Later, in England, I taught, ending up as head of languages at a comprehensive school in Surrey (glutton for punishment, me!) In 1999 a spinal injury forced me to retire (oh, what a pity!), giving me back my life and enabling me to concentrate on my writing and on completing an MA in South Indian Temples.
I specialise in a group of gorgeous medieval temples in Karnataka, an area I have got to know well over the last 20 years, and which provides the setting for part of both my novels.
Other places I love - Oxford, Bonn, New York, Snowdonia, Sri Lanka and Surrey - all feature in one or other of my novels too. My first novel is "The Moon's Complexion" (2005). Find it on www.goldenford.co.uk or www.ireneblack.co.uk or www.amazon.co.uk or as an eBook on www.virtualtales.com - in India you can buy it in rupees at http://pothi.com/pothi/book/irene-black-moons-complexion.
My second novel "Darshan" (2008) is available from Goldenford, Amazon or order from bookshops.
Who I'd like to meet: Fellow writers and readers of good literature! Anyone interested in Indian, south-east Asian and Far Eastern art. Also people who love classical music.
Tag - I'm tagging five of my friends and asking them to describe and explain the most interesting object they possess. Not the most valuable, not the most beautiful, just the most interesting. I hope you don't mind my choosing you, Irene.
If you can, please write a short blog about it, and then tag five more friends to do the same. You can read mine on my blog today. I'm looking forward to reading yours.
Hi Irene, thanks to you too for the friendship. Good luck with your writing and thanks for stopping by. Waving a big hello from the Sonoran Desert, USA.
I note you have completed your novel 'Darshan'! Congratulations! Unbelievably, my 1st novel 'Julian' which had a reincarnation theme (purely fictional - it was not meant to have any real religious viewpoint) has Julian's previous life called, you guessed it - 'Darshan'!!!
Hope you're having a good weekend Irene. So busy at the moment I haven't had time to read much but have subscribed to your blog so that will jolt me into doing it.
x Jan
