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Posts from the ‘#AusReadingMonth’ Category

1
Nov

#AusReadingMonth2020 Sign-Up

  • I cannot wait to start #AUSReadingMonth2020!
  • @Bornasbooks
  • This day has been circled on my calendar for two reasons:
  • enjoying reading Australian  writers
  • enjoying being physically fit  living in my ‘covid’ bubble!

 

Introduction:

  1. I am going to follow Brona’s lead ….and use her template for a sign-up post.
  2. I am just too exhausted…
  3. …following  USA election coverage 24/7) to create something different.
  4. Brona has put time an effort into organizing this challenge and
  5. …inspiring me yet again to read AUSSIE!
  6. Many thanks, Brona!
  7. This year I was  blown off course by the covid tsunami
  8. ..and lost many reading weeks.
  9. I did write ‘Lockdown Journals’ and review a few books.
  10. I just could not concentrate and
  11. keep my focus on fiction while reality was in my face!
  12. I did manage to read a few books….but not many Australian writers.
  13. I hope to make up lost time during #AusReadingMonth2020.

 

For AusReading Month I plan to finish and review:

  1. I thought to shake a few things up…I’m doing a bingo card
  2. …concentrating on a single genre.
  3. I am trying to do a POETRY bingo card!
  4. Reading poetry…
  5. …takes more concentration and research than a novel!
  6. The up-side….the books are between 60-80 pages!

 

  • QLD – Comfort Food – Ellen van Neerven
  • FREE SPACE – Argosy – Bella Li
  • TAS – Another Love, Another Life – Graeme Hetherington,
  • SA – Ruby Moonlight – Ali Cobby Eckermann
  • NT – Dew and Broken Glass – Penny Drysdale
  • ACT –Things I’ve Thought To Tell You Since I Saw You Last – Penelope Layland
  • NSW – Waiting for the Past – Les Murray
  • VIC –  Empirical  – Lisa Gorton
  • WA –  Nganajungu Yagu – Charmaine Papertalk Green – READING

 

For AusReading Month I plan to finish and review:
  1. I going to try to complete a 2nd bingo card!
  2. I told Brona…I’m going ‘whole hog’  and then some!
  3. My bingo card genre will be non-ficton.
  4. These books will double as options for Non-Fiction November
  5. I will try to read the Walkley Award 2020 longlist.
  6. The winner will be announced
  7. …Walkley website (walkleys.com) from 7pm AEDT on Friday, November 20.  

 

The longlisted titles are:

  • NSW – After the Count (Stephanie Convery)
  • VIC – City On Fire (Antony Dapiran)
  • VIC – Hazelwood (Tom Doig)
  • VIC – Buckley’s Chance (Garry Linnell, Michael Joseph)
  • QLD – Body Count (Paddy Manning)
  • FREE SPACE – We Can’t Say We Didn’t Know (Sophie McNeill)
  • VIC – Fallen (Lucie Morris-Marr) – READING
  • SA – Penny Wong (Margaret Simons)
  • NSW – The Altar Boys (Suzanne Smit).

 

For AusReading Month I plan to finish and review:
  1. Depending on my energy level in November
  2. I may start…a 3rd bingo card!
  3. My bingo card genre will be fiction.
  4. I may not finish this card….I will plan a few books:

 

  • QLD – An Item From the Late News (Thea Astley) – READING
  • FREE SPACE – Pearly Gates (Owen Marshall) – New Zealand

 

  1. Who am I? 
  2. Nancy Burns
  3. Where  do I live?
  4. The Netherlands
23
Dec

#AWW 2019 True Stories

 

Conclusion:

  1. Yet again, another Helen Garner book
  2. …that I did NOT want to end!
  3. She is a magnificent wirter and I am
  4. glued to the page with the vivid details she  provides.
  5. I kept this book under my pillow (IPod audio book)
  6. to transport me to the ‘reading room’ between
  7. being awake ….and asleep.
  8. Some stories I had to listen to twice
  9. …fell asleep before the ending.
  10. Who does not wake up at 3 am sometimes for no reason?
  11. This audio book was the perfect ‘sleeping pill’.
  12. Helen Garner’s voice is soothing and you drift off quickly.

 

Last thoughts:

Favorites:

  1. Selections about her sisters
  2. Cruising on  Russian ocean liner
  3. Five train trips in the region of Melbourne
  4. Stories about authors, Patrick White and Elizabeth Jolley
  5. The Insults of Age
  6. Marriage
  7. Death
  8. Labour Maternity Ward, Penrith
  9. These are only a few that really impressed me.
  10. One story I started but could not finish:
  11. Killing Daneil.
  12. Garner is known for her true crime books
  13. …and this story was just too distressing (child abuse)
  14. So, you are warned….you can just skip it…as I did.

 

  • Helen Garner delves deeply into a crime
  • so vivdly it is impossible to read….and I imagine
  • just as hard to put on paper.
  • It is an extraordinary way of writing.
  • She has to take care that
  • ..she is not “drawn into the darkness”
  • …of the subject she is writing about.
  • Her books,  for example This House of Grief
  • have taken an emotional an
  • physical toll on Helen Garner.

 

#MustMustRead

  1. A book to read leisurely….
  2. that stays with you for a lifetime.
16
Dec

#AWW 2019 Victorian Literary Best YA Novel

  • Author Ambelin & Ezekiel Kwaymullina
  • Title: Catching Teller Crow
  • Genre: ghost story (speculative fiction)
  • Reading time:  2 hrs  40 min
  • Published: 2019
  • List of Challenges 2019
  • Monthly plan
  • #AWW2019
  • @AusWomenWriters 
  • Trivia:  2019 Winner Aurealis Award  Best Young Adults Novel
  • Trivia: 2019  Winner Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards
  • Best Writing for Young Adults.

 

Introduction:

  1. A ghost girl who is staying with her father while he grieves.
  2. In doing so, she begins to help him with a murder mystery.

 

 Hook:

  1. The hook is the concept  that Officer Teller’s
  2. assistant while investigating a series of murders
  3. …is his daughter’s…ghost!
  4. Another hook is the witness’s statement that
  5. “This thing didn’t start with the fire…It started at sunset” (pg 24)
  6. And who is Tansy Webster and her angels?  Wings flapping? (pg 94)
  7. Now readers are turning pages
  8. ….curious….tension!

 

Themes

  1. Loss of a loved one and the stages of mourning or
  2. …grief are overriding themes.
  3. Injustice towards the Aboriginal people
  4. …is also a strong theme.

 

Parallels: Mike Teller vs Derek Bell

  1. Both Officer Michael Teller (Beth’s Dad) and
  2. Officer Derek Bell grew up in small town and
  3. their fathers were also cops!
  4. Gerry Bell and  Officer Teller sr.

 

Parallels:  Father and daughter –>  epiphany moments (pg 132)

  1. Both Beth (daughter) and  Mike Teller (father) have
  2. epiphany moments:
  3. Beth realizes she does not belong here (with the living). (pg 130)
  4. Mike Teller realizes he is blaming himself
  5. …for an accident he could not prevent.
  6. He feels he failed his daughter.
  7. He was holding on to a burden
  8. …something that was not his to bear. (pg 133)

 

Contrasts:  Father  vs son  (pg 132)

  1. Officer Michael teller does not want to be like his
  2. racist father. He was a police officer who did not do
  3. enough to protect the Aboriginals.
  4. Mike did not want to be one of those
  5. people who didn’t pay attention.
  6. Officer Teller took any injustice
  7. ….personally (wife was Aboriginal)
  8. when Aboriginals  are not treated right.

 

Contrasts:  Beth in “Catching Teller Crow”  vs  Else in “The Endsister”

  1. Narrator Beth is just about the same age as Else in The Endsister
  2. One is dead….one is still alive
  3. …one is cheerful….and one is confused, isolated.
  4. Beth shows no signs of ‘the teenage brain’ as did Else.
  5. It seems once you’ve died…all your problems disappear!
  6. ….mood swings, erratic behavior, ill-tempered….
  7. I will try to find a moment in Beth’s
  8. narration that shows her in a bad mood!
  9. Yes, she does cry….she had to make an important decision
  10. …about the colours.

 

Strong point:  Beth’s ghost is Detective M. Teller’s assistant

  1. This is a great plot device.
  2. Beth can linger in places once
  3. her father has left to eavesdrop
  4. on suspects conversations and actions!
  5. #Clever

 

Strong point:    Role reversal literary device  (pg 11)

  1. “He and I were the reverse of each other:
  2. I couldn’t remember my death;
  3. Dad couldn’t remember my life…” (pg 11)
  4. Another role reversal….
  5. Dad was looking after Beth when his wife died.
  6. That had kept Dad going.
  7. Now Beth was looking after her Dad
  8. ….to keep him going. (pg 13)

 

 

Strong point:  Writing style varies… for certain effects!

  1. Chapters about CATCHING...
  2. Isobel  speaks in staccato sentences.
  3. Staccato sentences are short and often emphatic to
  4. focus the reader or listener on content.
  5. This technique borrowed from poetry intensifies
  6. Catching’s aboriginal storytelling…
  7. with base emotions….earthy!
  8. This conveys certain kinds of emotions in particular,
  9. namely fear, anxiety, anger, confusion and stress.

 

Strong point:     Izzy’s storytelling

  1. These chapters are fun to read.
  2. You can lose yourself in them…
  3. let you imagination soar.
  4. I’m sure YA readers can find something
  5. in these tellings to hold on to.
  6. I enjoyed these next few lines:
  7. — Courage eats fear.
  8. — Joy eats sadness.
  9. — Choose the opposite of grey.

 

#NoWeakPoints !!

 

Conclusion:

  1. This was absolutely a stunning novel!
  2. I’ve never been so entertained reading YA fiction.
  3. I think the storytelling (Aboriginal influences) was spot on.
  4. But  the most important part of the book  for me
  5. ….was how people dealt with grief. (Officer Mike Teller)
  6. They say time is a healer.
  7. But grief is always in the hollow of your heart.
  8. It’s just waiting for something to shake it out.
  9. Beth was there to shake it out of her Dad.
  10. Because loss never really leaves you.
  11. Loss alters you.
  12. #MustRead….worthy winner
  13. Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards
  14. Best Young Adults Novel 2019

 

11
Dec

Brett Whiteley Australian Artist

  • Author: Ashleigh Wilson
  • Title: Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing
  • Genre: biography
  • Reading time:  13 hours 25 min (audio book)
  • Published: 2017
  • List of Challenges 2019
  • Monthly plan
  • Trivia: #ABIA 2017  short list (Australian Book Industry Awards)
  • @ashleighbwilson
  • @artgalleryofNSW
  • @ABIAs_Awards

 

Introduction:

  1. Of all the Australian painters who emerged during the mid
  2. 20th century Brett Whiteley  was the (Wikipedia link for more info)
  3. most mercurial, the most ambitious
  4. to make an impact on the world at large.
  5. I had NEVER heard of Brett Whiteley
  6. …and realize it was my loss.
  7. Delighted to discover this brilliant
  8. biography by Ashleigh Wilson.

 

Brett Whitely:

  1. Born in Australia, Whiteley moved to Europe in 1960 determined to make an impression.
  2. Before long he was the youngest artist to have work acquired by the Tate.
  3. With his wife, Wendy (1941), and daughter, Arkie (1964-2001), Whiteley
  4. then immersed himself in bohemian New York.
  5. Despite many affairs…Brett proclaims that
  6. he and his wife Wendy “We’re lifers.”
  7. His art depended on his relationship to Wendy.
  8. It had been that way since his early abstractions.

 

Ashleigh Wilson:

  1. He has been a journalist for almost two decades.
  2. He received a Walkley Award for his reports on unethical behavior
  3. in the Aboriginal art industry, a series that led to a Senate inquiry.
  4. He has been The Australian’s Arts Editor since 2011.
  5. Wilson follows the chronological order of Whiteley’s paintings:
  6. Early works
    Abstraction
    Bathroom series (sensual sketches of Wendy)
    John Christie (serial killer)  & London Zoo
    Lavender Bay, Australia
    Portraits
    Birds
    Landscapes
    The studio & late works

 

Conclusion:

  1. Brett Whiteley (1939 – 1992)
  2. died from a drug overdose.
  3. He was an heroin addict.
  4. The deeper problem was that his
  5. dependency was entwined with his art.
  6. Like many addicts he found it hard to imagine life sober.
  7. Heroin provided stability...
  8. …and to live without it was like to peering into darkness.
  9. It was one thing to be clean for his health
  10. …but what would it mean for his art?
  11. He was found dead at the Beach Motel, Thirroul Australia.
  12. This expansive biography
  13. Wilson gave the essential details about the death.  (ch 22)
  14. Chapters 1-21 concentrate on the
  15. …richness and variety of Whiteley’s work
  16. …and the many exhibitions he held and  prizes won.
  17. #ExcellentBiography
  18. Worth your reading time!

 

Strong point:

  1. Ashleigh Wilson Wilson takes the reader through a
  2. virtual art gallery describing and assortiment
  3. …of Brett Whiteley’s paintings.

 

Portrait of Patrick White (Brett Whiteley)

  1. Photo in frame….Emmanuel George “Manoly” Lascaris
  2. Look at White’s eyes and
  3. ….Centennial Park in the backround.

 

Portrait Vincent van Gogh

  1. On the table….a candle, a pipe, a letter to Theo and a razor.
  2. Two arrows:
  3. towards the right = good, light and sanity
  4. towards the left = evil, darkness and madness

Portrait of Gauguin

  1. Gaughin on the eve of his attempted suicide
  2. We see ‘The Tree of Knowledge, photograph of Van Gogh and a woman’s body.
  3. Brett had extended the right side to an ear shape with a bottle with a white substance
  4. labled ‘Arsenic’.

Portrait Wendy (wife)

  1. Brett Whiteley was a master draughtsman.
  2. This sketch reveals his command of line.
  3. The way Brett could capture the essence of his
  4. subject with only a few simple sweeps.

 

Henri’s Armchair

  1. This is Brett Whiteley’s debt to Matisse.
  2. He painted the interior of Lavender Bay where the
  3. …water can be seen through the window
  4. …frame at the end of the room beyond the arches.
  5. It is a domestic workmanlike scene.
  6. Two legs  on the couch and used matches
  7. …are scattered on the coffee table.
  8. There is a vase and notebook on which is written the title of the painting.
  9. As in the works of his historical model, Matisse,
  10. ….there are notes of domesticity:
  11. bed, open fire, and several works of Whiteley in the room
  12. …a sculpture, a nude drawing and an erotic drawing.
  13. There is a deep red brown color in the house
  14. …but the blue is all around.

 

My Armchair

  1. This was the most expensive painting in Brett’s
  2. September 1976 Australian Galleries exhibition.
  3. This painting’s was priced for 10.000 dollars.
  4. This was a companion piece for “Henri’s Armchair”.
  5. The blue soaked canvas inside Brett’s studio including
  6. pictures (B/W = ‘Inside an Avocado Tree’), sculptures
  7. …a view out to the Sydney Harbour and the chair in which
  8. …he sat to reflect on the art around him.

 

 

Another way of Looking….Vincent

  1. Whiteley pays homage to Vincent van Gogh and
  2. …the profound influence this Dutch post-impressionist
  3. painter had on Whiteley throughout his career.

Birds:

  1. I had to include some of the most beautiful sketches/paintings of birds!
  2. Whiteley first came to notice the captivating beauty of birds
  3. …in July 1969 during a blissful five-month stay in a small cottage
  4. in the village of Navutulevu, about eighty kilometres from Suva in Fiji.
  5. The couple, with their five year-old daughter Arkie,
  6. lived simply and happily and enjoyed their
  7. island paradise after the turmoil and bustle of New York.
  8. Wendy Whiteley summed the period up well: ‘We really did live in Paradise there.”

Kookaburra

 

Cormorant

 

 

 

The sunrise, Japanese: Good morning

 

 

 

Bookcover: (self-portrait)

7
Dec

#AWW 2019 Nine Lives: Women Writers

  • Author:  Susan Sheridan
  • Title: Nine Lives: Postwar Women Writers Making Their Mark
  • Published: 2011
  • Genre: non-fiction
  • Rating: A
  • Trivia:  This book has been sitting on my TBR for two years!
  • List of Challenges 2019
  • Monthly plan
  • #AWW2019   @AusWomenWriters

 

NOTE:

  1. Trying to get back to books with
  2. …’one’ very good eye after cataract surgery
  3. …the the other eye ready for correction in 2 weeks.
  4. #NeedCoffee

 

Introduction:

  1. Why did I wait so long to read this wonderful book?
  2. I think the  bland bookcover did not catch my eye.
  3. Ms Sheridan should have used thumbnail photos of te
  4. …talented Australian writers she was about  to introduce to this reader!

 

  1. This books contains
  2. nine condensed, compact biographies of Australian Women writers
  3. Sheridan highlights a generation of women writers
  4. overlooked in the Australian contemporary literary scene.
  5. These women writers who were born between 1915-1930:
  6. Judith Wright
    Thea Astley
    Dorothy Hewett
    Rosemary Dobson
    Dorothy Aucherlonie Green
    Gwen Harwood
    Jessica Anderson
    Amy Witting
    Elizabeth Jolley

 

  1. All had children...
  2. J. Wright and D. Green were the sole support of their families.
  3. The nine women were versatile writers
  4. poet, playwright, novelist, short stories,
  5. non-fiction (autobiography), literary critic and editor.
  6. T. Astely won Miles Franklin Award 4x, Jessica Anderson 2x and E. Jolley 1x.
  7. All shared a sense of urgency…
  8. their vocation, their ‘need’ to be a writer
  9. that would not let them rest.

 

 

  1. Judith Wright – was an important name in the emerging postwar literature.
  2. She was one of the few Australian poets to achieve international recognition.
  3. Ms Wright is the author of of several collections of poetry,
  4. including The Moving Image, Woman to
  5. Man, The Gateway, The Two Fires, Birds,
  6. The Other Half, Magpies, Shadow, Hunting Snake, among others.
  7. Her work is noted for a keen focus on the Australian environment.

 

 

  1. Thea Astley –  I am a huge fan of this writer.
  2. I did learn more tidbits of info about this woman.
  3. Critics were not always kind to Thea Astely.
  4. The ending of  The Slow Natives
  5. …was  “…too sentimental and melodramatic.
  6. I didn’t think so!
  7. Even Patrick White was harsh.
  8. Criticism should be like rain
  9. …gentle enough to nourish growth without
  10. …destroying the roots.
  11. White’s  fault finding ended their friendship.
  12. Thea Astley won Miles Franklin Award four times!

 

  1. Dorothy Hewett – After reading Ms Hewett’s short biography in this book the
  2. only thing that suited this woman is the song: Born to be Wild  !!
  3. Once I read about the tumultuous life of Dorothy Hewett I knew
  4. I had to read her books.
  5. I ordered Baker’s Dozen ( 13 short stories)…
  6. …cannot wait to read it!

 

 

  1. Rosemary Dobson – She was fully established as a poet by the age of 35.
  2. She published 14 collections of poems.
  3. The Judges of the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards in 1996
  4. described her significance as follows:
  5. “The level of originality and strength of
  6. Rosemary’s poetry cannot be underestimated…”

 

  1. Dorothy Auchterlonie Green –  She saw herself primarily as a scholar.
  2. Ms Green felt overworked and
  3. under-recognized, trapped by circumstances of her life and unsure of her capacity as a poet.
  4. She won widespread admiration for her poetry, literary scholarship
  5. her reviews and social criticism and inspirational teaching.

 

  1. Gwen Harwood – She was sick of the way poetry
  2. editors (Meanjin) treated her…no accepting her work.
  3. Ms Harwoon created several nom de plume: Geyer , Lehmann and Stone.
  4. Geyer and Lehmann were regularly invited to meet editors for lunch next time they were in Sydney
  5. or Melbourne. Geyer was evern invited to read at the Adelaide Festival.
  6. ….he respectively declined.
  7.  Awards

 

  1. Jessica Anderson – She was in a male-dominated and
  2. Anglocentric publishing world.
  3. How did she survive?
  4. She cultivated the qualities of character and
  5. strategies of survival necessary to
  6. sustain enough belief in herself to go on writing.
  7. She won the Miles Franklin Award twice…1978 and 1980.

  1. Amy Witting – For many years Amy Witting was invisible in the literary world.
  2. She won the Patrick White Award 1993
  3. for writers who have not received adequate recognition.
  4. I am waiting for her book of short stories to arrive…Marriages
  5. …I’m sure Amy Witting will have much to tell about this institution!

 

  1. Elizabeth Jolley – In a single year she received 39 rejection slips
  2. …yet she persisted.
  3. She won Miles Franklin Award 1986.

6
Oct

#AWW 2019 Gabbie Stroud “Teacher”

 

Introduction:

  1. Gabrielle Stroud was a primary school teacher from 1999 to 2015.
  2. In 2014, Gabrielle Stroud was a very dedicated teacher.
  3. Months later, she resigned in frustration and despair.
  4. She realized that the Naplan-test education model
  5. …was stopping her from teaching individual children
  6. …according to their needs and talents.
  7. Gabrielle tells the full story:
  8. how she came to teaching…
  9. what makes a great teacher…
  10. what our kids need from their teachers…
  11. and what it was that finally broke her.

 

Conclusion:

  1. This book is a good effort of a teacher moving
  2. from the classroom into a writing career.
  3. I’m sure we will be hearing more from Gabbie Stroud
  4. and I hope her writing skills will be even better.
  5. I have seen many reviews on Goodreads and I
  6. cannot agree:  this is not a 5 star book.
  7. It is enjoyable but not profound.
  8. In my opinion...less is more:
  9. less family backround
  10. — mother, sisters, boyfriend, chit-chat with daughters
  11. even more reflections about teaching
  12. — chapter 16 a teaching adventure at a Heritage School
  13. in Canada was wrapped up in less than a chapter!
  14. I’m sure there must be more to tell.
  15. Writing style: this all comes down to the reader’s
  16. own preferences.
  17. I felt that Stroud could improve her writing by
  18. less use of clichés...
  19. Ch 8:
  20. “I felt older, fatigued but the cup was still half full….”
  21. Ch 26:
  22. “…the glass is half full…but the water didn’t taste right.”
  23. Ch 30:
  24. “We all fall down Gab, our true measure is how we rise up.”
  25. Ch 30
  26. ” I did’t leave teaching….teaching left me.”
  27. Dialogue: is conversational, simple.
  28. Pathos: There were very few experiences
  29. …that stirred up my emotions of pity, sympathy, and sorrow.
  30. Problems were mentioned..but in a light, fluffy tone.
  31. I was not swept away by Stroud’s story
  32. …as I was  with the personal essays of written
  33. Ashleigh Young in “Can You Tolerate This?“
  34. This is the type of depth in the writing I hoped
  35. Stroud would tell me about….the teaching profession.

 

  1. What finally broke Stroud? (..in my opinion)
  2. Teaching was changing too fast
  3. …and Stroud’s adaptation was too slow.
  4. Jack Welch…CEO of General Electric Company 1981-2001
  5. phrased it perfectly.
  6. ..and we all can learn from it:
  7. “When the rate of change on the outside
  8. …exceeds the rate of change on the inside
  9. …then the end is near.”

 

Last Thoughts:

  1. There was one spark in chapter 5 that
  2. I thought would ignite the book:
  3. Core message…
  4. ” You showed me how to teach
  5. …now show me how to be a teacher.”
  6. Unfortunately this memoir/biography…fizzled out. 
  7. I hate flat soda.

 

8
Apr

#AWW 2019: Robin Dalton

 

Introduction:

  1. Aunts up the Cross is about Daltons’s childhood with her
  2. …eccentric extended family in Sydney’s Kings Cross.
  3. Her father was an open-all-hours doctor, known affectionately as “the gun doc”.
  4. Dr Eakin,  Mrs. Eakin,  Nana….and the close relationship the author had
  5. …with Aunt Bertie and  Aunt Juliet.
  6. Robin Dalton  is now 99…and still going strong!
  7. I loved this quote I found…
  8. Being old is not a problem, and the future not really a consideration:
  9. “I haven’t got a future, I’m practically tottering off the edge …”

 

Conclusion:

  1. I haven’t laughed so much about a book in years!
  2. This is an absolute gem!
  3. Tears of laughter while reading the theatrics the Eakin’s supper table.
  4. Tony ‘the bookmaker’ McGill is seated next to Mrs. Eakin’s aged governess Sally.
  5. Suddenly Tony unabashedly makes Sally ‘an offer she can’t refuse’! (…read the book!)
  6. Robin Dalton’s father was a tease
  7. .….and the book if filled with his practical jokes!
  8. But nothing, no nothing can compare to
  9. …the laughter I enjoyed while reading
  10. ..how Mrs. Eakin killed the plumber and
  11. ..the best joke about a fish  I have heard in YEARS!
  12. All can be found in …chapter 3…and much more!
  13. No spoilers….just a enthusiastic recommendation
  14. Aunts Up the Cross!
  15. Light, funny memoir…perfect book
  16. to lazily sit in the garden with a G&T…and laugh!
  17. You can read it in a few hours, just 142 pages!
  18. #Hysterical!
11
Jun

#20BooksOfSummer 2018

  • I must stop buying books…and start reading them!
  • What to do?  Make a list for…
  • #20BooksOfSummer hosted yearly by Cathy  746 Books
  • I selected books that
  • …I REALLY REALLY want to read.
  • List of Challenges 2018
  • Monthly reading plan
  • #20BooksOfSummer

 

  1. Deep South – Paul Theroux – (NF) – READ
  2. A Very Expensive Poison – Luke Harding (NF) – READ
  3. Why Horror Seduces – M. Clasen (NF) – READ
  4. Islander: Journey Around Our Archipelago – P. Barkham (NF) – READ
  5. From the Edge: Australia’s Lost Histories – M. McKenna (NF) – READ
  6. Flowers For Algernon – Daniel Keyes (novel)  – READ
  7. The Redemption of Galen Pike – Carys Davies (short stories) – READ
  8. The Serious Game – Hjalmar Söderberg (novel) – READ
  9. The Judge and His Hangman – F. Dürrenmatt  (CF) – READ
  10. Rice – Michele Lee (play) – READ
  11. Hunting the Wild Pineapple – T. Astley (8 short stories) – READ
  12. Down These Green Streets – Declan Burke (NF) – READ
  13. The Sun Also Rises – E. Hemingway – READ
  14. View From the Cheap Seats – N. Gaiman – READ (essays)
  15. The Deerslayer – James Fenimore Cooper – RE-READ – classic
  16. Like a House on Fire – C. Kennedy – READ (15 short stories)
  17. The Dispossessed – U. Le Guin – READ
  18. Women in Love – D.H. Lawrence – READ – classic
  19. Berthe Morisot  –  D. Bona – READ (french edition)
  20. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich – W. Shirer – READ
  21. Nation – T. Pratchett – READ

FINI !!

1
May

Cardinal Pell

 

Review:

  1. The winner of the 2017 Walkley Book Award is Louise Milligan.
  2. This her explosive book about…. “Cardinal: The rise and fall of George Pell”.
  3. Louise Milligan’s book examines Australia’s
  4. …most senior Catholic through the lens of the child abuse saga
  5. …which has dogged the Catholic Church.
  6. She tells how George Pell rose from Ballarat boy to Oxford.
  7. He rose through the ranks to become the Vatican’s indispensable “treasurer”.
  8. Louise Milligan  is an excellent investigative journalist
  9. …who has followed the story doggedly
  10. She pieced together the story with sensitivity and care
  11. ….from thousands of pages of historical documents
  12. ….and interviews with hundreds of people.
  13. The book has had an enormous impact.
  14. Last thoughts:
  15. I discovered this book by accident:
  16. …winner of the Walkley Book of the Year Award 2017
  17. The investigation is ongoing….
  18. …Cardinal Pell will appear in court on 05 March 2018.
  19. This book is groundbreaking
  20. ….and nerve wracking for the Vatican.
  21. It is impossible to add anything else to this review.
  22. My mind is exhausted and I am stunned and speechless 
  23. …about  the cover-ups concerning  George Pell and child abuse by the
  24. …Catholic Church.
  25. #MustRead

 

 

 

 

27
Jan

The Glass Canoe

 

Introduction:

  1. The novel is about a man who spends his life at the pub…
  2. seeing the world through his beer glass – a glass canoe.
  3. The novel is told through the voice of Meat Man.

 

Title: The Glass Canoe (beer glass)

  • …the glass got bigger and bigger, we stepped into the
  • glass and claimed our freedom to float away.  (pg 114)

Best quote:    about gambling:

  • He went to the races looking for the golden fleece
  • …and got shorn.  (pg 74)

Beer:

  • Beer tasted thick and nourishing…like roast beef! (pg 14)
  •  …the liquid golden god that spouted from taps.
  • …the god with no voice of his own spoken through us.
  • …we jumped into the froth of beer as if it was the spume of surf
  • …like delighted children. (pg 52)

 

Conclusion:

  1. The bar  attracts the men…like moths to a flame.
  2. Barflys used to drink to erase their aches and tiredness.
  3. Now there are only a few of them left to do a hard day’s work
  4. ….they  drink to erase everything.
  5. This book is a collection of fragments that describe
  6. inner city larrikins who belong to a tribe.
  7. Their watering hole is the bar at the Southern Cross Hotel.
  8. There were high points:
  9. The Pub Widow, Mac the copper and Territorial Animal (Blackie the pub dog)
  10. There were low points:
  11. Liz the Large, Ronny and Prudence.
  12. My favorite barfly was ‘philosopher’ Alky Jack.
  13. He is the voice of the author himself, David Ireland.
  14. He comments …about being Australian, the Queen and politics.
  15. Queen: “She’s not a bad thing […] can really hold her grog as well” (pg 37)
  16. The book is full of bars, barflys, beer, broads and brawls.
  17. At the beginning I was drawn to the quirky characters
  18. …unfortunately the last 50% of the book felt like a punctured balloon.

 

 

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