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Posts from the ‘Australian Women Writers’ Category

14
Apr

#AWW 2019 Ashleigh Young

 

 

Conclusion:

 

Bones

  1. This would not have been my choice to start an essay collection.
  2. Topic was not a good hook...not funny or emotional
  3. …just a bit strange.

 

Witches

  1. Story took me back to the carefree summer days on a beach.
  2. I can’t remember the last time
  3. …I jumped into the ocean….how sad is that?

 

The Te Kūiti Underground

  1. Absolutely enchanting…author’s memories of her father.
  2. “…he became in my eyes more and more eccentric,
  3. …and I became  more narrow-minded.”

 

Postie

  1. Just a story that leaves the reader
  2. with a message from an eccentric French postman:
  3. “ …how wonderful it is if we just keep going
  4. …a simple stumbling block…can change
  5. the entire story of out lives and deaths.”
  6. #SmileOnMyFace

 

On Any Walk

  1. Once I start a walk…I never turn back.
  2. I just remember how far I’ve come
  3. .How much distance would be wasted
  4. …if I turn back?
  5. Once I’m home …the coffee tastes so special!
  6. Ashleigh Young will…
  7. #NeverGiveUp

 

Big Red

  1. I’m speechless….
  2. We are introduced tp author’s family
  3. …mom, dad and 2 brothers.
  4. Ashleigh Young is an amazing talent
  5. …..one of the BEST essays.

 

Window Seat

  1. We’ve all been there
  2. …on a plane with a talkative passenger next to us.
  3. Only this passenger….could she be and angel?
  4. #Spooky

 

Black Dog Book

  1. What you possess…you loose.
  2. Happy family dog story….but sometimes 
  3. Mom has to make the difficult decision
  4. …and call the vet.
  5. #HardToSayGoodbye

 

Katherine Would Approve

  1. Anecdotes about the period when
  2. Ashleigh Young was director of 
  3. Katherine Mansfield Birthplace House
  4. …in Wellington, New Zealand.
  5. #Job

 

Wolfman

  1. What to do when a harmless comment stings?
  2. #ThinkBeforeYouSpeak

 

Can You Tolerate This?

  1. After reading this essay I had to close my Kindle
  2. take off my glasses and close my eyes.
  3. #PowerfulWriting
  4. …one of the BEST essays

 

Seas of Trees

  1. Eye-opener about a disturbing
  2. …social trend in Japan: hikikomori.
  3. Creative young people becoming modern-day hermits.
  4. #PTSS

 

Bikram’s Knee

  1. If you are determined to find a way back to strength
  2. nothing is unfix-able.
  3. This is a very, very personal essay about Ashleigh’s
  4. Struggle to accept the awkwardness of her body.
  5. She keeps waiting on the  gym bench, elbows on her knees
  6. head in her hand
  7. .…waiting for transformation.
  8. #Yoga #Running
  9. ….one of the BEST essays.

 

Unveiling

  1. The author visits a Maori ritual
  2. …unveiling a headstone of a family member.
  3. She will write a story to
  4. accompany the photographs her friend is taking.

 

On Breathing

  1. So funny about a simple decision
  2. ,,,author decides to breath noisily
  3. …when she feels puffed 
  4. during a taxing bike ride.
  5. #Quirky

 

On Going Away

  1. Insightful look at relationships…
  2. Going away and then coming back together
  3. …this surge of
  4. anger and relief is toxic.
  5. Solution:  compress it into one moment
  6. …like stepping into a manhole.
  7. A sharp, pure accident with a beginning and an end.
  8. #Insightful

 

Anemone

  1. Heartwrenching…to try to reach into the past
  2. and hold on to some one…
  3. …to try and stop time.
  4. #Depression

 

Lark

  1. Heartwarming observations and anecdotes
  2. about a woman who decides
  3. …to write a book  about her life.
  4. The story is clearly referring to
  5. …Ashleigh Young’s mother.
  6. #Hysterical
  7. ...one of the BEST essays.

 

 

Last thoughts:

  1. Extremely well-written set of essays
  2. …in quiet, elegant joy-to-read prose.
  3. External circumstances
  4. …family, job, body shape or where you live..
  5. cannot determine your happiness.
  6. Ashleigh Young shows us
  7. happiness depends on what we are given.
  8. This a book  best read ‘slowly’…
  9. I was not ready to say goodbye…
  10. ..to Ashleigh Young’s beautiful writing.
  11. I’m anxiously waiting for her next book!
  12. #MustRead

.

13
Apr

#AWW 2019 Fiona Wright

 

Introduction:

  1. Wright examines her own anorexia and the significance of hunger.
  2. She  writes frankly and movingly about a
  3. …difficult and very personal subject.
  4. She provides insights into her reading,
  5. …travels and her interactions with others.
  6. In several essays Wright relates
  7. …her experience to that of characters.
  8. In novels  there are characters who starve themselves:
  9. For Love Alone by Christina Stead,
  10. Cloudstreet by Tim Winton and
  11. The Bluebird Cafe by Carmel Bird.

 

In Colombo    …malnutrition, she misses it

  1. First sentence: I’ll always remember the
  2. …particular intensity that malnutrition brings on,
  3. …I know that I miss it still.
  4. Reaction:  Hunger keeps the author separate from
  5. the rituals of society not only in Colombo.
  6. 70% impressions of the writer’s apprenticeship at a newspaper
  7. ….30% about her illness.

 

In Hospital   …sickest

  1. First Sentence: At my sickest, a lover once folded a
  2. blanket over my shoulderblade before curling against my back to sleep.
  3. Reaction: Hunger is a mediator, it stands between the author and the world. Hunger is addictive. Hunger is support, it is scaffolding. Hunger became my safest state.
  4. 100%….very powerful, personal and disturbing.

 

In Berlin     …interesting facts

  1. First sentence: I felt smaller in Berlin than I ever had before;
  2. the Northern Germans are, by and large, a big-boned people,
  3. …the shanks of their legs are particularly impressive.
  4. Reaction:  The author visits a labour camp, Sachsenhausen.
  5. The body never forgets starvation. 
  6. Sad…the author bought food to give her
  7. …pantry shelves an appearance of normality.
  8. “I didn’t choose my hunger. That no one ever does.”
  9. Wright describes returning to a family she
  10. …lived with during her studies 10 years ago.
  11. She had been well then.
  12. She did not know what lay ahead.

 

In Miniature  …presenting a paradox

  1. First sentence: It seems a strange place to start writing about the miniature,
  2. but I want to begin on the internet, because I found there,
  3. for a time, a thing I could hardly have conceived would have existed,
  4. a community of illness, specifically for the kinds of illnesses that
  5. …we often keep silent and hidden within ourselves.
  6. Reaction: Breathtakingly  beautiful…how Fiona Wright sees her
  7. …fascination with miniature reflected in her illness.
  8. This essay was poetic!

 

In Increments   …sickness personified “gnawing”

  1. I’ll never know the point where my physical illness
  2. ..gave way to something different,
  3. something more complex, but more and more I think
  4. …now that hunger was always with me, always
  5. …gnawing away somewhere in me, and my illness
  6. …just allowed this hunger to assert itself in the only
  7. …way that could possibly have been acceptable to me.

 

In Books I    …analogy in books

  1. The year that I first became ill, when my physical condition first developed,
  2. …was the first year that I studied Australian Literature.

 

In Books II    …analogy in books

  1. There are books I have had with me in
  2. …hospital waiting rooms that I can never re-read without re-reading, too,
  3. …the traces that they carry of the spaces that I took them into.

 

In Group  ….mother vs daughter

  1. There are some conversation that you shouldn’t have with your mother,
  2. especially if you are a poet, and especially if you are a
  3. …poet four months into you third stint of group therapy.

 

In Passing   …sad news

  1. I received the news digitally, in a text
  2. …from my old housemate, Kat.

 

In Hindsight  …looking back

 

  1. I resisted, for a long time, reading any anorexia memoirs,
  2. …even though I’d been reading about
  3. ..the condition in fiction and textbooks.

 

Conclusion:

  1. The cover of Fiona Wright’s book keeps catching my eye.
  2. What kind of story is behind those eyes.
  3. Fiona Wright (born 1983) is an Australian poet and critic.
  4. Small Acts of Disappearance: Essays in Hunger (2015)
  5. is a collection of ten essays that detail the author’s
  6. own experience with anorexia.
  7. The longest essay is ‘In Group’
  8. …the shortest is ‘In Passing’.
  9. The best?  I loved them all.
  10. I wrote down a few words about the first few essays.
  11. Each one  draws me in with the first sentence.
  12. After reading one essay
  13. ….I have to get up and do something else
  14. …I must let my thoughts settle.
  15. Fiona Wright has shared her life
  16. …stripped bare and gray as sheet-iron.
  17. The more Fiona thinks about her body
  18. the more she knows it is no longer her own.
  19. Her body tries to fold up at the first sign of danger
  20. …as if disappearing into a shell.
  21. #MustRead
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!
5
Apr

#Stella Prize 2019 shortlist Jamie M. Lau

  1. Well, this ends my reading shortlist #StellaPrize 2019.
  2. I’ve done my best!
  3. Unfortunately I cannot purchase
  4. Little Gods or The Erratics in The Netherlands.
  5. You can read my review os Axiomatic on Goodreads.

 

Shortlisted books: 4/6  

 

Quickscan:

  1. The novel centers around Monk (15 yr girl)
  2. Monk lives in Chinatown with her failed-artist-father
  3. She introduces her new found
  4. …friend the mysterious Santa Coy to her dad.
  5. Her father adopts Santa Coy as his artistic disciple.
  6. The chapters are fragmented
  7. …and reveal situations Monk observes.
  8. These vivid and intense vignettes move from
  9. Chinatown, casinos, music, tv-static, love, hunger and violence.
  10. Title:  chapter ‘Everybody’s Dying in the Summer””
  11. …pink rock that two amateur pushers gave you isn’t a mountain,
  12. …it’s a crater.”

 

Strong point:  poetic technique

  1. Style: poetic
  2. Clear, concise, and uncluttered style
  3. … and with a confident voice.
  4. Lau uses bullet points, snippets of a letter,
  5. shopping lists, menus, chats and repetitions.
  6. She gives us an objective description of her world,
  7. clear straightforward words
  8. …ending with a simple statements of feeling.

 

Strong point:  dialogue

  1. Dialogue:  without quotation marks
  2. I noticed  how “clean” the text  looks without quotes
  3. and is somehow more immediate.
  4. Cormac McCarthy once said:
  5. “…the intent of dialogue without quotations
  6. ….is to make the reading easier, not harder.
  7. If you write properly you shouldn’t have to punctuate.”

 

Strong point:  this book introduced me to new music!

  1. I listened to
  2. Japanese Jazz Fusion
  3. Pianist Hiromi Uehara (1979)  LISTEN
  4. Her joy is infectious! She certainly got rhythm!
  5. You won’t believe your ears!
  6. Blues with a Latin beat
  7. Pianist Horace Silver (1928-2014) American jazz pianist LISTEN
  8. Silver’s break came in 1950, when his trio backed saxophonist Stan Getz.

 

Strong point:  urban vocabulary

  1. Some expressions  absolutely stumped me!
  2. “Sitting like Ls, our backs against the bed…”  = sitting like losers? lost souls??
  3. Have you ever watched a
  4. …video of digitized acid trip on internet?
  5. I have…after reading this book! Eye-opener!
  6. Unplug: forgetting one’s problems in a Gen Z  digitized world
  7. ” I pack my computer, my xanax.”

 

Strong point:  captures a precise moment of thought.

  1. Lau writes some profound closing sentences:
  2. Ch  “Aunty Linda”:
  3. She says: “Would you look away if somebody was
  4. forcing you to look at their emotions?
  5. He says: I’m here now aren’t I?”
  6. Ch “Home Run Ballad”:
  7. “I try praying for Sadie….
  8. I ask Aunt Linda how you know it’s working.
  9. She tells me that nobody knows…
  10. ..and that’s the best part.”

 

Conclusion:

  1. Do you want to meet tomorrow’s literary star today?
  2. Read  this bold and adventurous work
  3. …by Jamie Marina Lau!
  4. This book falls under the Gen Z label.
  5. Monk’s character is a
  6. reflection of a crazy access to visual information.
  7. Monk’s age perspective is 15 yr.
  8. She  is not defining herself by what she knows.
  9. She’s just observing.
  10. Gen Z’ers reading and writing
  11. …talents  are being transformed
  12. …due to their familiarity with
  13. …digital devices, platforms and texts.
  14. Pink Mountain on Locust Island reflects
  15. ..this transformation by it’s experimental form!
  16. If you put the ‘out-there’, wierd, brash, disjointed aside
  17. and read the book to find a few gems of real thought
  18. then you have done justice to this new rising literary
  19. star of the Gen Z generation.
  20. It is not conventional….it may not appeal to everyone
  21. ….but Jamie Marina Lau impressed this Baby Boomer!

 

Last thoughts:

  1. Perhaps people of Gen Z
  2. will find the book more appealing than others.
  3. Gen Z’ers  are being taught to consume information
  4. …in the way Jamie Marina Lau describes it in her book.
  5. I had no idea how to approach the book.
  6. Before reading ….I researched  all 106 chapter titles!
  7. Some of the titles made sense after reading the book
  8. …most did not!
  9. There are many allusions to food, music and the bible!
  10. Can it win the Stella Prize?
  11.  Is it too experimental?
  12. I wonder what #Stella will decide!

2
Apr

#Stella Prize 2019 shortlist Melissa Lucashenko

Shortlisted books: 2/6  

 

 

Quickscan:

  1. Kerry Salter returns to her hometown of Durrongo
  2. …to bid farewell to her dying grandfather.
  3. She becomes embroiled in
  4. …the dramas of her dysfunctional family.

 

Conclusion:

  1. This book was  difficult to enter…
  2. ..narrative and  the characters.
  3.  The family relations were hard to sort out because there are so
  4. …many people to keep track of!
  5. Great-grandparents (‘Chinky’ Joe, Gran Ava)
  6. Grandparents (Pop Joe, Granny Ruth)
  7. Mother-father (Pretty Mary and Charlie)
  8. Brothers-sisters   “Koala” Ken, Donna, “Black Superman”, Kerry
  9. Aunts, uncles, nephews and cousins…

 

Weak point: Book is not filled with richly crafted sentences.

 

Strong point:

  1. An emotional mood/tone  cannot be measured
  2. …but it can be spoken!
  3. The writer uses a specific choice of words
  4. slang (“truesgod!”)
  5. local phrases, (Norco butter, plate of hammer and onion)
  6. misspellings ( wanna,  granny is ‘ere ta help’)
  7. profane expressions
  8. …that you can imagine are in all the chapters!
  9. These word choices express the lifestyle, viewpoint and
  10. dysfunctionality of the Satler Aboriginal family.

 

Last Thoughts:

  1. Amid all the bizarre images, voices and actions
  2. in this book with some very complex characters
  3. we see passion, love and forgiveness in the Satler family.
  4. Language is the culture. (Aboriginal)
  5. If you lose your language you’ve lost your culture.
  6. Lucashenko manages to find a balance
  7. between emotions and language
  8. …that really impressed me!

 

1
Apr

#Stella Prize 2019 shortlist Enza Gandolfo

 

  • Well, here is my next shortlist: Stella Prize 2019
  • I won’t have much time to read them all because
  • the prize will be announced on 09 April 2019.
  • But I will give it ‘the old college try’
  • …is it only to make an informed decision
  • …as to which book I THINK should win!

 

Shortlisted books: 1/6   

 

Quickscan:

  1. Backdrop: On October 15, 1970, while it was under construction
  2. …the West Gate Bridge collapsed, killing 35 workers.
  3. It was Victoria’s worst ever workplace accident.
  4. Main plot is driven by Jo Nielson (19 yr)
  5. She is racked with guilt after the car she drove
  6. crashed against the basr of the bridge.
  7. Her BFF Ashleigh was killed.
  8. Subplot: Nello (bridge rigger) Ash’s grandfather
  9. …is suffering PTSS
  10. He survived the bridge collpase and his friends died.
  11. Now he is haunted…the bridge takes another victim.
  12. Nello’s  world and Jo’s world
  13. …come crashing down on them.

 

Timeline:

  1. 1970 – Ch 1-3  Dramatic description of bridge collapse.
  2. 39 yrs later…
  3. 2009  – Ch 4-23  Friendship Jo and Ashleigh, car accident, funeral, Jo’s depression
  4. 2010  – Ch 24-30  Jo’s day in court.

Conclusion:

 

Weak point:  too many  narratives to follow

  1. This weakens the drive of the story.
  2. I felt the novel never came alive
  3. …it just dragged on and on.
  4. The large cast of characters
  5. ..gives the book that TV soap opera feel.
  6. I don’t mean that as a criticism.
  7. But there is just too much in a book of 384 pages!
  8. It is a maze of…
  9. teenagers – parents, teachers,
  10. grandparents, great-grandparents,
  11. lawyer – lawyer’s best friend Ada
  12. …in-laws , ex-husbands
  13. old friends who worked on the bridge,
  14. …their wives, children or miscarriages!
  15. A series of connected stories
  16. …that revolve around the collapsed bridge.
  17. The death of Ashleigh (major character) feels like
  18. ..another one of the stories going on, rather than the main plot.

 

Weak point: too much backstory:

  1. We all want to know about a character’s past.
  2. Gandolfo should decide whose story she’s telling.
  3. You can’t tell everything.
  4. I’m overwhelmed byall the flashbacks
  5. dream sequences and the
  6. …memories that keep surging and spilling
  7. every time Jo (main character) touches the fabric of a dress,
  8. …hears a song
  9. or opens a pink ballerina journal.

 

Weak point:  book needs editing!

  1. The author is often the one least able to see what need to be removed!
  2. Ask a reader!  Ask an editor!
  3. Gandolfo needs someone to tell her
  4. …which scenes are unnecessary or should be shortened.
  5. Here are a few things that I noticed:
  6. Bridge collapse:
  7. I did not need…
  8. technical specifics about the bridge.
  9. Ch 1-3
  10. felt like Wikipedia with some dialogue,
  11. moaning of iron girders, crashing slabs of concrete
  12. ..bolts snapping and explosions.
  13. This information could have been concise
  14. …and compact in one short exposition chapter.
  15. Sarah the lawyer:
  16. I did not need…
  17. to know her weight problems and
  18. the haunting death of her BFF Ada (jumped from the bridge).
  19. I think the lawyer’s backstory was ‘filling’ to evoke emotions.
  20. Ch 17 Funeral
  21. I did not need…
  22. to know every detail of funeral service
  23. …..who attended, style of  the mourning clothes on family members,
  24. the color of coffin and flowers and
  25. rosary beads wound around gandmother’s fingers.
  26. I think this could have been written in a few sentences
  27. Establish somber mood with a description of the weather. (rain?)
  28. Remember the service while riding home from church.
  29. Cherish the tearful hug given by parents or friends. Done!

 

Weak point:  dialogue.

  1. Feels static, heavy and does not  shines off the page.

 

Weak point:  Gandolfo is killing her novel with details!

  1. Pages of details that slow the pace and aren’t interesting or relevant.
  2. Example ch 15 – Ash’s journal is found and Jo places in Grandpa’s safe.
  3. Wonderful!
  4. But don’t go on to tell me the history of the safe
  5. …that is was a bargain and
  6. …grandma’s precious pearls that are kept there.
  7. I don’t care!
  8. Often what you don’t say is just as important as what you do.
  9. Few things will turn readers off
  10. ..quicker than pages of trivia!

 

Last thoughts:

  1. Unfortunately I could not find any strong points
  2. …about this book.  Believe me, I tried.
  3. It is  impossible to grasp fully that this book
  4. would be considered for the Stella Prize.
  5. Where is the jury’s report?
  6. I’d like to read it!
  7. Did you read this book?
  8. #HonestOpinion

 

 

15
Jan

#AWW2019 Louise Mack

 

Quickscan:

  1. In 1914 when war broke out Louise Mack was in Belgium
  2. where she continued to work as the first woman
  3. war correspondent for the
  4. Evening News and the London Daily Mail.
  5. This book is her eye-witness
  6. …account of the German invasion of Antwerp.
  7. 28 September – 10 October 1914 (1 week and 5 days)

 

Conclusion:

  1. While I read to this book I had to think of
  2. …the difference between Marie Colvin (1956-2012)
  3. foreign affairs correspondent for the British newspaper
  4. The Sunday Times and Louise Mack (1870-1935).
  5. While the Zeppelin returns to attack Antwerp
  6. I read Louise Mack saying:
  7. “…I saw my powder puff. I saw my bag.”
  8. “…no slippers came under my fingers,
  9. and I wanted  slippers
  10. in case of going out into the streets.“
  11. I must just accept that this book
  12. …was written more than 100 years ago.

Last thoughts:

  1. Weak point: choppy writing style.
  2. Strong point: The chapters 46-47 were of special
  3. interest for me (I live in Netherlands)
  4. They describe Louise Mack’s impression
  5. of the Dutch welcoming
  6. …Belgium refugees after the fall of Antwerp.
  7. Good eye-witness reporting.
  8. …but very outmoded.
7
Jan

#AWW2019 Patricia Cornelius playwright

 

Introduction:

  1. Patricia Cornelius is one of Australia’s best playwrights.
  2. Unfortunately her artistic “hands are tied”.
  3. There’s not much wiggle room if you adapt a novel
  4. for the stage.

 

Quickscan:
  1. Jamal and Bibi have a dream.
  2. To lead Australia to soccer glory in the next World Cup.
  3. But first they must face landmines, pirates, storms and assassins.
  4. Can Jamal and his family survive
  5. …their incredible journey and get to Australia?

 

Main Characters:

  1. Jamal – (12) Afghan boy: protective of sister, Bibi. Jamal has a very big passion for soccer.
  2. Bibi – (9) Afghan girl: very courageous personality and also has a passion soccer.
  3. Omar –  Afghan boy: Jamal’s good friend, very poor and has no real family.
  4. Rashida – meets Jamal and Bibi (no parents), becomes like their mother.
  5. Andrew –  is an Australian that they meet during the campsite.

 

Structure:  30 scenes (no acts)

 

Motif:

  1. Candlestick – heirloom, represents ‘guiding light”; sold to smugglers for escape
  2. Soccer ball  –  represents future happiness

 

Conclusion:

  1. Adapted for the stage by Patricia Cornelius from
  2. Morris Gleitzman’s best-selling novel (2002)
  3. Boy Overboard reveals  a deeply
  4. …human side of the asylum seekers issue.
  5. Ms Cornelius is one of Australia’s best playwrights.
  6. Her play Don’t Go Gentle is extraordinary.
  7. My expectations were high….but this play is
  8. written for a young adult audience
  9. …and the dialogue reflects that.
  10. Patrica Cornelius  adapts a novel for the stage
  11. ….which limits what she can write.
  12. This is a play geared for junior high-school production.
  13. #PlayForNicheAudience
23
Dec

#AWW2018: Chloe Hooper “The Tall Man”

 

 

Introduction:

  1. This is the story of Palm Island, the tropical paradise
  2. …where one morning Cameron Doomadgee swore at a policeman
  3. ….and forty-five minutes later lay dead in a police cell.
  4. This is also the story of that policeman Christopher Hurley
  5. …and of the struggle to bring him to trial.

 

Conclusion:

  1. Chloe Hooper is asked to document
  2. ….the murder inquest that is about to begin.
  3. This book is a documentary with words.
  4. The author admits her ignorance about Palm Island  that
  5. could fill a book…and it did.
  6. Ms Hooper was curious if readers would feel the outrage
  7. about this terrible death.
  8. It takes place against a complicated backdrop
  9. ….that many people tended to look away from.
  10. Strong point: Ms Hooper uses factual language
  11. …to create emotion!
  12. Strong point: Clear and direct way of telling the human side of
  13. …the Doomadgee  case and its broader implications.
  14. Strong point: the book focuses on justice rather than crime.
  15. The narrative draws its power NOT from the human suffering
  16. …but from exposing the effects of decisions made around that suffering.
  17. #PageTurner

 

  • Trivia: …..look at this list of awards!
  1. Winner-  2009 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards – Douglas Stewart Prize
  2. Winner – 2009 Australian Book Industry Award – General Non-fiction
  3. Winner – 2009 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards – Non-fiction
  4. Winner – 2009 The Indie Book of the Year Award – Non-fiction
  5. Winner – 2009 Queensland Premier’s Literary Prize
  6. Winner – 2009 Davitt Award – Best True Crime
  7. Winner – 2009 John Button Prize
  8. Winner – Victorian Premier’s Literary Award 2009
  9. Winner – 2009 Ned Kelly Award – Non-fiction
  10. Winner – 2008 Western Australia Premier’s Literary Awards – Book of the Year & Non-Fiction
20
Dec

#AWW 2018: Anita Heiss

 

Finished: 20.12.2018
Genre: non-fiction
Rating: B+
#TBRNovember

 

Conclusion:

  1. All these stories are important.
  2. People are being  so open and
  3. …honest telling us
  4. what makes them be who they are.
  5. I took something from all these selections
  6. …but most of all I loved Marlee Silva.
  7. Her father used a great analogy
  8. …to explain to his young daughter
  9. what it means to be a product of two cultures.
  10. Her father poured two cups of black coffee
  11. …adds creamer to one of them.
  12. “..no matter how much milk you add: they’ll never not be coffee.”
  13. Marlee uses this image as a shield to this day.
  14. This book was an eye-opening education
  15. …for me about
  16. growing up Aboriginal in Australia.
  17. #MustRead
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