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Posts from the ‘Australian Authors’ Category

6
Nov

#AusReadingMonth 2021 Cookbook nr 1

  • Author: Donna Hay
  • Title: Basics to Brillance
  • Published: 2016
  • Monthly  plan
  • #NonFicNov 2021
  • #AWW 2021
  • #AusReadingMonth2021   @bronasbooks

 

Background and authority.

  • Donna Hay (1971)
  • Author of 27 bestselling cookbooks
  • Her books are known for their simple recipes
  • …and beautiful photography.

Identify the intended audience.  

  • Foodies: love her recipes
  • Professionals: irritated that this self starter has become rich and
  • famous by peddling recipes that a child could master.
  • Nancy: not one of Donna Hay’s fans…after reading her book!

 

Conclusion:

  • Strong point:
  • If you love beautiful food photography…this is you book.
  • I am more interested in cooking….and not picture gazing.
  • This coffee table size cookbook is not
  • …something that is easy to use in the kitchen!
  • Strong point:
  • Ms Hay includes handy “notes” in each recipe.
  • Weak point:
  • Many recipes include references to basics…
  • for example: chicken base soup “see basic recipe”
  • or…basil pesto “see basic recipe”
  • …but I wish she would include the
  • page number where the reader can
  • …FIND the ‘basic recipe”. 
  • I lost time and interest searching in  this
  • chunkster of a cookbook!
  • Weak point:
  • Buyer beware!
  • ratio price/quality 
  • 36% of the book is filled with full page food photography
  • 32% recipes (some were spread over 2 pages that easily could have been 1 page)
  • 32 % miscellaneous – glossary, measurements, bio of Ms Hay, Thank-you note and index
  • Weak point:  personal note…all recipes are printed on black paper
  • …depressing and difficult to read!
  • Last thought:  not recommended
5
Nov

#Novella nr 2: NovNov – AusReadingMonth 2021

 

Quick Scan:

  1. Chapters 1-12  
  2. Introduction characters and backstories
  3. …marriages, childhood, deaths, abandonment.
  4. Chapters 13-16
  5. The tension rises to a boiling point: Gordon (son),
  6. Mother and Levi (Gordon’s lover) are all about to make
  7. a life changing decisions but it
  8. …is unclear to the reader what that will be!
  9. Conflict: should mother just listen to her son’s plans
  10. …or try to stop him from making a grave mistake?
  11. Chapters 17 – 23
  12. The story reaches the climax
  13. ….during Gordon’s 30th birthday dinner celebration.
  14. Chapters 24 – 32
  15. The resolution…each character embarks on their own paths.
  16. ..and perhaps those paths will cross each other in the future
  17. ….at least Nigel Featherstone ends the book on an optimistic note!
  18. Conclusion:
  19. Ending:…feels like the sound of a bell ringing.
  20. #Bravo !!!   Nigel!

 

  1. Strong point:  Structure – Alternating narrator:
  2. ch 1 Son (Gordon) and  ch 2 Mother (Lynne)…etc
  3. Strong point:  Thoughts and inner dialogue
  4. 70% of the book is inner dialogue that
  5. raises the emotional level in every scene!
  6. It reveals the truth, the darkness, hopes and dreams
  7. …that are often lost in direct dialogue.
  8. Mother (Lynne) is worried about her son
  9. …but cannot let him notice her concern.
  10. Son (Gordon) feels his heart is torn in half.
  11. ..one  part  for his lover (Levi)  the other part
  12. for his determination to continue with
  13. …the “Year of Living Ridiculously”.

 

Major theme:  loss, abandonment

  1. In chapter 9 we hear Mother say words that left me puzzled.
  2. Gordon: “Is there anything you need while I’m up the street?
  3. Mother: “No, just make sure you come home.”
  4. Gordon “…of course I’ll come home…”
  5. Mother: “Than that’s all I need.”
  6. As you read Nigel Featherstone  adds layers
  7. with backstories about the characters and their lives.
  8. Only then does this short dialogue between mother and son make sense.

 

Characters:

  1. Gordon (Donian, nickname) 29 yr, born 23 October 1981
  2. Levi Greenguard  (Jewish social worker, Gordon’s  lover)
  3. Mother (Lynne)
  4. Eddie (stepfather) – recently deceased
  5. Margie Ardmore (friend of Mother…feels like an aunt for Gordon)
  6. Patric Finn (…just mentioned as mother’s first love)
  7. Minnie and Lenah ( Gordon’s step-sisters)
  8. Ailis Kildare (Lynne’s  mother, from Ireland, died in Hobart 62 yr)
  9. Father – (name?) died 6 months later
  10. Shanie Doyle – G’s childhood friend …followed him from Hobart to Sydney
  11. Delia Canola – Shanie’s fiancée

 

Best Quote:  chapter 19

  1. “I think birthplace is a matter of DNA.
  2. You can try running from it….
  3. ….but it’s always in you, mapping you out.”

 

Locations:

  1. Mother takes a flight from  Hobart, Tasmania to…
  2. Sydney – Gelbe, NSW (inner-city suburb) – Gordon’s appartment
  3. Convict-era cottage on 11 Union Street (polished doorknob) (backstory)
  4. Point Puer (place where Patric Finn made a film)
  5. Battery Point…where Shanie used to live
  6. Battery Point House  – owned by mother Lynne
  7. Gleeson House (1839)  (..the family home Hampton Road, Hobart)
  8. …is about to be sold at an auction…so Mother is visiting her son Gordon.
  9. Sydney apartment (Eddie’s  place at Manly on the Corso)

 

Title: “I’m Ready Now”

  1. Ch 27 – quote … to bookend the story: 
  2. Mother: “There’s a future in abandonment, so it seems.
  3. I’m ready for it.”
  4. Ch 30 – quote … as Levi leaves he says to Gordon:
  5. “marriage is not out of the question”..in the future. 
  6. Levi calls for a taxi  and says “Yes, I’m ready now”.
4
Nov

#Novella nr 1: NovNov – AusReadingMonth 2021

 

Introduction:

  1. Sometimes I search days for a good book
  2. …and sometimes one just falls into my lap!
  3. I ordered this book a year ago.
  4. This year for #AusReadingMonth I am determined to
  5. sweep through my Kindle TBR and read as many Aussie
  6. authors as I can.
  7. Also this review is ….for #NovNov @746Books

 

Conclusion:

  1. Veritigo is a stunner.
  2. Luke and Anna, thirty-something…. decide on a change.
  3. Worn down by city life they flee to a sleepy village by the coast.
  4. One senses that the change of living area is only nothing more than as escape
  5. for a couple who have difficulty communicating.
  6. The neighbours are strange but authentic.
  7. The problem is the drought.

 

  1. The book felt like a compact box of chocolates.
  2. I ate the first few bonbons (part 1) and
  3. as I continued to  remove the layers (part 2)  of paper
  4. only to come deeper  (part 3) into an exquisitely crafted novella.

 

  1. Chocolate and this story are
  2. so addictive that one cannot stop reading/eating it.
  3. “this book is unputdownable!”

 

  1. The last layer was one one the best descriptions I’ve
  2. ever read of a bush fire….incredible!
  3. #MustRead
  4.   …absolutely a “coup de coeur”.
27
Dec

#Fiction The Yield

 

Quickscan:

  1. Language shapes our thinking.
  2. Indigenous languages see the world in particular ways.
  3. There are three stories:
  4. Poppy Albert – built a dictionary of his language
  5. Granddaughter August –  returned home for his funeral
  6. Reverend Ferdinand Greenleaf – defender of
  7. ….“the decent Natives whom I have lived amongst”

 

Strong point:  

  1. Each narrative has a distinct writing style…remarkable!
  2. The ways that the author uses words, sentence structure
  3. …and sentence arrangement all work together
  4. to establish mood, images.

 

Strong point:  

  1. A sentence in chapter 6 struck a nerve.
  2. Thinking about all the people
  3. who have died in USA due to Covid-19.
  4. How the families must now cope with such grief and loss.
  5. …Ms Winch captures the moment for me:
  6. “…And just like that the home became just a house…”

 

  1. Albert:  40% of the book
  2. What does your this character want in the story?
  3. Determined to answer the call of the spirits (ancestors)
  4. …urging him to remember. (Prosperous Mission)
  5. – personal narrative about family  told in the form of
  6. …definitions of aboriginal words.

 

  1. Rev. Greenleaf: 23% of the book
  2. What does your this character want in the story? 
  3. Determined to set the record straight
  4. …as to what happened at the Prosperous Mission.
  5. Rev. Greenleaf mentions  it was
  6. “not the sentiments that
  7. divided us…but the words.” (pg 148)
  8. Central in the book is the…
  9. importance of the Albert’s dictionary.

 

  1. August: 37% of the book
  2. What does your this character want in the story?
  3. Determined to honor her grandfather Albert (Poppy)
  4. …and save ancestral lands from a mining company.

 

Conclusion:

  1. To be honest….the book was OK.
  2. I enjoyed  2 narratives:
  3. Poppy’s dictionary and Rev. Greenblatt’s letters.
  4. August? 
  5. Ms Winch writes with great insight of the
  6. unraveling of  August…when exposed to loss.
  7. She has made some mistakes when her
  8. life seems to be careening out of control.
  9. But I felt the “unraveling” was a bit too lengthy.
  10. August keeps  floundering around in their own distress
  11. …until chapter 33 when she finally decides to stay with her family.
  12. The last 9 chapters were full of action
  13. …and August’s new found purpose.
10
Nov

#Non-fiction Fallen

Introduction:

  1. Lucie Morris-Marr is an award-winning freelance investigative journalist
  2. …who has covered the entire Pell case.
  3. The long-anticipated decision of the jury…what did they decide?
  4. Did  Pell win the appeal?
  5. Did the verdict trigger a storm of feelings 
  6. …among advocates and survivors?

Conclusion:

  1. I read Cardinal  published by Louise Milligan in 2017.
  2. Ms Milligan peeled back the layers of George Pell’s life to reveal in detail:
  3. G. Pell’s youth
  4. the building of the case against…the cardinal from historical documents
  5. the cover-up by the Catholic Church concerning alleged child abuse by G. Pell.
  6. It was an impressive book and won
  7. ..The Walkley Book of the Year 2017.

Why is Ms Lucie Morris-Maar’s  book different?

  1. Ms Morris-Marr continues the narrative where Cardinal ended
  2. …the inside story of the Pell trial.
  3. The “Cathedral Trial”  started nearly 14 months after the cardinal
  4. was first charged for multiple allegations of child sexual abuse.
  5. A choirboy may have been a small, powerless adolescent soprano
  6. but his voice will resonate for years to come.

Last thoughts:

  1. Strong point:
  2. Ms Morris-Marr revealed her personal struggle  (mentally and physically)
  3. while writing this book.
  4. Ms Milligan on the other hand… remained outside the narrative of Cardinal.
  5. Weak point:  it is difficult to make a trial procedure exciting
  6. …only Helen Garner can do that!
  7. Personally, I enjoyed Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell
  8. more than I did Fallen.
  9. Ms Miligan’s book made my whole body go cold….
  10. Ms Morris-Marr’s book is seeking the extraordinary in the ordinary
  11. …a trial procedure: questioning witnesses, jury deliberation, mistrial and retrial.
  12. Weak point: Fallen  – Ms Morris-Marr connects the dots of research.
  13. …but does not give me much emotion about the trial.
  14. Strong point:  Cardinal – Ms Milligan creates with the help of
  15. research, observation, description and reflection
  16. an intense book…full blast… drama.!
  17. So, I don’t think Fallen will win The Walkley Award 2020
  18. ….my advice read Cardinal ….the winner of The Walkley 2017!

UPDATE: 10.11.2020

  1. Today an unprecedented report
  2. about Cardinal McCarrick of the United States
  3. who was defrocked of his red hat and
  4. …dismissed from the clerical state for
  5. sexual abuse and harassment was released
  6. in 2017 by Pope Francis I.
  7. Why so important?
  8. For the first time the Vatican is willing to confront
  9. the MISTAKE made by a pope and now saint, John Paul II
  10. in appointing Theodore McCarrick as Archbishop of Washington DC in
  11. 2000…and a cardinal the following year.
  12. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!

Timeline:

  1. 29 June 2017 – Victoria Police announced they were charging Pell with a series of sexual assault offences with several counts and several victims.
  2. 1 May 2018 – Pell was committed to stand trial on several historical sexual offence charges.
  3. August 2018 – The Cathedral Trial …for the allegations of misconduct in St Patrick’s Cathedral.
  4. 13 March 2019  – sentencing Pell to serve 6 years in jail Pell was also registered as a sex offender.
  5. 21 August 2019 – the Court of Appeal issued its ruling, which upheld the conviction.
  6. January 2020  –  special leave to appeal Pell’s conviction should be overturned.
  7. 7 April 2020 –  the High Court unanimously granted leave to appeal,  quashing Pell’s convictions.
  8. 14 April 2020 –  it was reported that Pell was under a secret investigation by Victorian police regarding a separate allegation of child sexual abuse committed in Ballarat in the 1970s.
  9. October 2020 – allegations that €700,000 had been transferred from Vatican accounts to a witness against Pell. (Pay-Off??).
  10. “Vatican categorically [denied]” interference in the trial of Pell.
  11. Hmmm,   I wonder….
21
Jan

#AWW2020 Wild Sea: a history of the southern ocean

  • Author:  Joy McCann
  • Title: Wild Sea: a history of the southern ocean  (258 pg)
  • Published: 2018
  • Genre: non-fiction
  • Rating: C+
  • Trivia:  2019 Australian Book Industry Awards (ABIA) longlist
  • List of Challenges 2020
  • Monthly plan
  • #AWW2020   @AusWomenWriter

 

The Southern Ocean:

  1. Solo sailors call it ‘the South’, as if to emphasize its alien difference.
  2. The Southern Ocean is a place most of us have never been to
  3. …and never wish to visit.
  4. It is a realm of cold grey skies and raging winds
  5. …that eternally circulate round the bottom of the world.

 

Antartic Circumpolar Ocean Current:

 

 

Ch 1 Ocean – continental drift

  1. Pangaea –> current pattern of continents –> creation of oceans
  2. The continents  don’t change or move independently
  3. …but are transported by the shifting tectonic plates.

 

 

 

Ch 2  Winds

Clipper Route…. took advantage of the Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties winds….92 days London — Sydney 1862.

 

 

 

Ch 3  Coast

Located in the southern Indian Ocean off the eastern coast of Africa and just north of Antarctica are the Kerguelen Islands. A French territory, this island group (known as Îles de la Desolation in French) is considered to be one of the most isolated places on Earth.  (…2 little white dots!)

 

 

Ch 4  Ice     

  1. To sail from the Southern Ocean towards the open waters of the Ross Sea you have  to push through the ice a number of times….an ice barrier 100 miles wide.
  2. As the Southern Ocean is dominated by strong westerly winds it encourages a clockwise route.
  3. Antartica is only accessible for a few weeks in summer (January-February).
  4. By March ships risk being trapped in sea ice until the next spring.
  5. The ice begins to close in trapping you for the winter
  6. ….an experience no one is likely to survive.

 

 

Ch 5  Deep

  1. The ‘twilight zone is formally known as the dysphotic zone.
  2. Below 1000 meters lies the midnight zone…complete darkness.

 

 

Ch 6  Current

  1. ANIMATION of Antarctic Bottom Water
  2. A remarkably detailed animation of the movement of the
  3. …densest and coldest water in the world around Antarctica.
  4. The whale  is the totem of the Mirning people (Ngargangurie)

 

 

Ch 7   Convergence

  1. The Southern Ocean is no longer simply a remote space devoid of human habitation.
  2. The Earth is dependent upon the ocean’s heartbeat of seasonal ice
  3. …its carbon-filled lungs and slow circulation of its deep currents.
  4. Ocean covers 80 per cent of the Southern Hemisphere.
  5. Australia sits at an ocean cross-roads.
  6. Changes in the southern oceans may also alter the
  7. ….climate processes that control rainfall over Australia.
  8. We need to understand the influence of the
  9. …southern oceans on climate and sea levels.
  10. This book is a good place to start!
  11. #Bravo Joy McCann

 

Conclusion:

  1. Detailing a mysterious realm that’s as vital to our existence as the air we breathe.
  2. Wild Sea: a history of the southern ocean
  3. is instructive, covering an area of knowledge that receives very little press.
  4. As the title says …it is a history
  5. …and Joy McCann uses many 19th C references.
  6. I must applaud the author because in her NOTES
  7. …she also  includes many links to websites
  8. …(Kindle edition) with a trove of information.
  9. The only weak point in the book is
  10. ….I was  always tempted to leave the text to often and explore
  11. the links  she provided!
  12. PS:  book contains some beautiful illustrations
  13. ….perfect viewing with Kindle!
  14. (…I never knew an albatross could be so big!! …see foto)
  15. Reading tips:
  16. Roving Mariners: Australian Aboriginal Whalers and Sealers in the Southern Oceans (2012)
  17. Slicing the Silence: Voyaging to Antarctica – T. Griffiths (2010)
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.
17
Dec

#AWW 2019 Drylands

 

Introduction:

  1. Helen Garner once said in an interview: ‘
  2. Not being able to read after cataract surgery for 10 days
  3. …..was unbearable”
  4. I know how she felt.
  5. Desperate to quench my reading thirst
  6. ….I’m listening to Drylands by Thea Astley. (7 hrs 17 minutes)
  7. Perhaps when I can enjoy better vision
  8. ….I will re-read the paperback version.
  9. Astely’s prose is worth savoring again.

 


Conclusion:

  1. In her flat above Drylands’ newsagency,
  2. Janet Deakin (voice of the author herself…)
  3. is writing a book for the world’s last reader.
  4. She describes a cast of oddball characters
  5. in the small bush town of Drylands.
  6. ...desperate housewife’s ‘Walk to Canossa”
  7. …unnerving bar noise ‘seeping in like conscience’
  8. …staring at the closed bar ‘the Legless Lizard’ with
  9. its door bolt ‘hanging like a limp hand’
  10. But the town is being outmaneuvered by drought
  11. and begins to empty
  12. “…pouring itself out like water into sand.”
  13. As Janet decides to sell her store
  14. “it wasn’t  dust she wanted to shake off her feet
  15. ….it was memories”
  16. Last scrawled message on her desk: ‘Get a life…‘
  17. Her response: ‘Too late.‘
  18. These are just a few tidbits
  19. I remembered while listening
  20. to Thea Astley’s last masterpiece.
  21. #Bravo

 

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)

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