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Posts from the ‘NSW Premier’s Literary Award 2019’ Category

22
Apr

#NSW Premier’s Award 2019 shortlist Chris Hammer

 

  • Author: Chris Hammer
  • Title: Scrublands
  • Published: 2018
  • Publisher: Allen & Unwin
  • Genre: Aussie Noir
  • Trivia: 2019 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards shortlist
  • Trivia: 2019 ABIA Awards shortlist General Fiction Book of the Year
  • Trivia: 2019 Indie Book Awards shortlist
  • List of Challenges 2019
  • Monthly plan
  • @NSW_PLA
  • @AllenandUnwin

 

Quickscan:

  1. In Riversend, an isolated rural community
  2. ….afflicted by an endless drought,
  3. a young priest does the unthinkable, killing five parishioners
  4. before being taken down himself.
  5. Journalist Martin Scarsden arrives in  in town.
  6. He is assigned to write a feature story
  7. “a-year-after-the-crime” how people are coping with this tragedy.
  8. Some townsfolk don’t believe the priest was a child abuser.
  9. Some people were in love with him.
  10. Martin is here to get “the story behind the story”!
  11. Was Byron Swift a mass murder…who cared?

 

Strong point: The heat….is a character in this book!

  1. Great descriptions of the furnace wind
  2. …the blowtorch streetscape!
  3. Martin, journo visiting town, drapes a once-damp
  4. …towel around the steering wheel.
  5. …difficult it is to drive with burning fingers!

 

Strong point:  narrator audio book  Rupert Degas

  1. Rupert Degas is spot on!
  2. The voices of the characters that  he creates
  3. drive this complex story.
  4. The voices he creates are distinct.
  5.  — the local derro (Aus slang for vagrant)
  6. grizzled beard, streaked with grey, rheumy eyes
  7. — receptionist at local Black Dog Motel
  8. His female voices are the best I have heard a male produce!
  9. …be prepared for the Aussie accent…wonderful!
  10. I have never heard anything like him.

 

Conclusion:

  1. What can I say?
  2. No spoilers…not a single one
  3. because you have to experience
  4. the twists and turns as I did.
  5. Strong point: Like us, characters grow, change,
  6. ..make mistakes and learn (or don’t).
  7. Strong point: there was NO obvious foreshadowing
  8. ….I was stunned by every revelation because the
  9. characters can be very unreliable!
  10. Nothing felt predictable.
  11. Strong point: the setting is an active part in the plot twists!
  12. Hammer uses the setting to build suspense
  13. …2 huge fires and the fight to survive
  14. ….what is hidden in a locked room at the hotel?
  15. …what happened in the church on the day of the shooting?
  16. There is just so much to like in this book.
  17. It is a ripping read
  18. ….and the audio book brings (13 hr 17 min)
  19. the story alive!
  20. …voices of  Harley Slouch, Codger Harris.
  21. I’ve read 4/6 nominees for New Writing Prize.
  22. Reading Flames this week but
  23. …this book is MY CHOICE
  24. to win UTS Glenda Adams Prize for New Writing
  25. in the NSW Premier’s  Literary Awards 2019.
  26. The winner will be announced 29 April 2019.
  27. #BestCrimeFiction
  28. This is in the top 10 of all the mystery books I have read!

 

21
Apr

#NSW Premier’s Award shortlist Gerald Murnane

  • Author: Gerald Murnane
  • Title: Border Districts
  • Published: 2017 (GiramondoBooks)
  • Published 2019: (And Other Stories)
  • Trivia: 2019 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards shortlist
  • Trivia: 2018 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards winner
  • Trivia: 2018 ALS Gold Medal shortlist
  • Trivia: 2018 Miles Franklin Award shortlist
  • Trivia: 2018 Voss Literary Prize longlist
  • List of Challenges 2019
  • Monthly plan
  • @NSW_PLA
  • @GiramondoBooks
  • @andothertweets

 

Conclusion:

  1. This is one of the most difficult books to review.
  2. Initially I was tempted to close the book
  3. …after the first 20-30 pages.
  4. Murnane’s thoughts rambled on and on and
  5. …I just did not see the point.
  6. Then something happened.
  7. Words, phrases kept being repeated.
  8. I thought if I found the words that are most prominent in the
  9. narrative…this could guide me into finding a theme.
  10. coloured 80x – glass 109x – window(s) 78x – house 134x.
  11. I tried to find the meaning of:
  12. Window spaces (empty) = sightless people blind to the truth
  13. Window spaces (stained glass, leadlight glass) =
  14. people who have gathered in their life pieces of glass with
  15. …distortions and colors (like Murnane).
  16. They see reality  that has been modified.
  17. Murnane calls it  looking at things with
  18. …”a subtly different tint”  this “wavering richness”.
  19. Murnane reveals:
  20. “I consider myself a student of colours, and shades and hues and tints.”
  21. It seems Murnane is telling us how
  22. his coloured panes of glass (stained glass)
  23. shaded the veranda in his  mind.

 

Last thoughts:

  1. This is not an easy read.
  2. But great books are not meant to be easy!
  3. You must be prepared to go with the
  4. narrative flow even if you think
  5. …it is just going around in circles
  6. It is….but Murnane does have a purpose.
  7. Murnane wants us to be aware of the colors
  8. and distortions we are looking through!
  9. How we look at things makes all the difference
  10. Look at the glass from the sides of your eyes
  11. “…this has taught me more than gazing or staring.”
  12. Introspective books with self-examing characteristics
  13.  do not always win a prestigious prize in the literary world.
  14. But this book does deserve awards for its
  15. ..innovative contemporary writing.
20
Apr

#NSW Premier’s Award shortlist Trent Dalton

  • Author: Trent Dalton
  • Title: Boy Swallows Universe
  • Published: 2018
  • Trivia: Winner of Book of the Year 2019 Indie Book Awards
  • Trivia:  Shortlist  NSW Premier’s Awards (2 prizes)
  • Trivia:  Shortlist ABIA Awards (2 prizes)
  • List of Challenges 2019
  • Monthly plan
  • @NSW_PLA
  • @HarperCollinsAU

 

Finished: 20.04.2019
Genre: novel
Rating: A+++

Conclusion:

  1. In this book that is 60% fact and 40% fantasy
  2. we get to know the story of Eli Bell.
  3. And whether you realize it or not, you also
  4. get to know the story of Trent Dalton..the author.
  5. The novel gradually narrows its focus from
  6. bizarre childhood, teen years with stepfather and
  7. ex-con babysitter….
  8. to Eli’s life long ambition journalism.
  9. The ending becomes a bottleneck from which
  10. character and reader feel they can’t escape
  11. …..being dragged
  12. into a macabre universe!
  13. The book was a delight to read
  14. ..a real roller coaster ride!
  15. I have read 3/6 of the nominees that appealed to me.
  16. I’m NOT reading The Shepherd’s Hut
  17. …Aussie vernacular is too foulmouthed for my taste.
  18. Boy Swallows Universe is MY CHOICE 
  19. as winner of Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
  20. (NSW Literary Awards 2019)

 

 

19
Apr

#NSW Premier’s Award shortlist Billy Griffiths (NF)

 

 

 

Awards:

 

Quickscan:

  1. Deep Time Dreaming is  a history of Australia
  2. …told in stones and bones.
  3. Griffiths highlights in several anecdotal chapters
  4. ….about many illustrative archeologists (male and female)
  5. the basic conflict in this discipline:
  6. How to view the past?
  7. critical deep time perspective vs  the past as a living heritage.
  8. This is a complex question of ownership and belonging.
  9. Strong point: The book reveals in a conversational tone
  10. …easy to read for a novice like me…
  11. the slow slow shift  to deep time dreaming.

 

Title:

  1. What is Deep Time Dreaming?
  2. The term was coined by B. Spencer and F. Gillen (Introduction)
  3. It is NOT to dig in search of treasure.
  4. It is to seek, understand a place from fragments
  5. …that have survived for thousands of years.
  6. It is an act of wonder.

 

Conclusion:

  1. I decided to read this book and listen to the audio. (11 hr 27 min)
  2. Listen to a sample of the book!
  3. Strong point: narrator Tom Griffiths is a delight to listen to!
  4. At times I was swept away by deep and profound
  5. sacredness of the Aboriginal people’s cultural life.
  6. Archeologist R.A. Gould published information/images that he promised
  7. ….would not be shared in his book Yiwara (1969)
  8. The author was on a  Aboriginal ‘hit-list’ for his betrayal.

 

  1. At another time I  read about the Franklin River dispute in Tasmania
  2. The Franklin  was ‘not just a river‘
  3. …it has the epitome of a lost forest.
  4. The photo by Peter Dombrovskis
  5. …  was the poster image during the
  6. explosive ecological and political debacle. (read chapter 9)
  7. The photo is impressive.
  8. …and takes me halfway across the world in
  9. my thoughts.

Morning Mist Rock Island Bend

 

Last thoughts:

  1. This book taught me more about Australia
  2. …and the rise of Aboriginal awareness by the nation,
  3. …it’s dedicated team of archeologists starting in 1950s
  4. with John Mulvaney than any other non-fiction I’ve read.
  5. I would highly recommend reading and listening to this book.
  6. With the help of Wikipedia (biographical info about archeologists)
  7. …and Google images this book is a magic carpet to
  8. …ancient Australia!
  9. I’ve read ALL the non-fictions shortlisted books
  10. …with the exception of The Erratics (not available in Netherlands).
  11. Deep Time Dreaming is MY CHOICE 
  12. as winner of  the non-fiction
  13. Douglas Stewart Prize ( NSW Literary Awards 2019)

 

 

 

15
Apr

#NSW Premier’s Award 2019 shortlist – read-a-thon!

  • My next shortlist: NSW Premier’s Award 2019
  • I won’t have much time to read them all because
  • the prize will be announced on 29 April 2019.
  • How many can I read before the deadline?
  • Today starts my  NSW Premier’s  Award  read-a-thon!
  • @NSW_PLA
  • #NSWPLA

 

Christina Stead Prize for Fiction

4/6
Man Out of Time  –  Stephanie Bishop
Boy Swallows Universe  –  Trent Dalton – READ  (Stunning!)
The Life to Come  –  Michelle de Kretser  – WINNER
The Everlasting Sunday  –  Robert Lukins – READ
Border Districts  –  Gerald Murnane – READ 
The Shepherd’s Hut  –  Tim Winton – READ  (Bah!)

 

Douglas Stewart prize for Non-Fiction

5/6 
Saga Land  –  Richard Fidler & Kári Gíslason –  READ
Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia   B. Griffiths – READ – WINNER
The Trauma Cleaner  –  Sarah Krasnostein – READ – WINNER
The Erratics  –  Vicki Laveau-Harvie 
Axiomatic  – Maria Tumarkin – READ
Tracker  –  Alexis Wright – READ

 

BOOK OF THE YEAR:

Deep Time Dreaming: Uncovering Ancient Australia   B. Griffiths – READ  – WINNER

 

SPECIAL AWARD

  1. No Friend But the Mountains:
  2. The True Story of an Illegaaly Imprisoned Refugee  – B. Boochani

 

UTS Glenda Adams Prize for New Writing

4/6
Flames  –  Robbie Arnott  – READ
Boy Swallows Universe  –  Trent Dalton – READ  – WINNER + People’s Choice Award
Scrublands  –  Chris Hammer – READ 
The Everlasting Sunday  –  Robert Lukins – READ 
Pink Mountain on Locust Island  –  Jamie Marina Lau –  READ
The Lucky Galah  –  Tracy Sorensen

 

Multicultural NSW Award

1/6
The Lebs  –  Michael Mohammed Ahmad – WINNER  – READ
Rainforest  –  Eileen Chong – NOT reading yet ….no e-book
Home is Nearby  –  Magdalena McGuire  – NOT reading yet …no e-book 
Always Another Country: A Memoir-   S. Msimang  NOT reading yet …no e-book 
Too Much Lip  –  Melissa Lucashenko  – READ
Miss Ex-Yugoslavia  –  Sofija Stefanovic NOT reading yet …no e-book 

Taboo  –  Kim Scott – Winner 2018
The Drover’s Wife  –  Leah Purcell – READ (review) – Winner 2017