#AusReadingMonth2022 Wrap-Up

Carins, Australia – #AusReadingMonth2022 Wrap-Up

Results 2022:

1. Well, I did my best
2. …but could not complete the bingo card.
3. #AUSReadingMonth2022
4. @bronasbooks “This Reading Life”  blogpost
5. Better luck next year!
6. I feels like all the Australian writers live in NSW, QLD or VIC!
7. Perhaps in 2023 I’ll  look for books that are in locations in
8. ACT, (Canberra)  – NT, (Northern Territory,  WA (Western Australia)
9. Thank you for hosting Brona!

1. Best book:  Tony Birch’s short story collection Dark as Last Night…it s a gem!
2. Book snooze fest: Indelible City…just was not my “cup of tea.”
3. Book eye-openers: The Red Zone and The Lucky Laundry
4. Book Australian hero: Lowitja...she was a remarkable woman! 
5. Book Climate/Earth: The Carbon Club and Soil…must keep reading about science in 2023!
6. Book Indigenous rights: Telling Tennant’s Story …spek on the globe, Tennant Creek
7. ….but so important to learn about.

My Reading list:

1. Dark as Last Night (Tony Birch) (VIC)  – REVIEW
2. The Red Zone – Peter Hartcher – New South Wales (NSW) – REVIEW
3. Lowitja  – (change of plans…) – selecting author from (VIC) –  REVIEW
4. The Carbon Club – Marian Wilkinson – Queensland (QLD)  – REVIEW
5. The Lucky Laundry – Nathan Lynch – Western Australia (WA) – REVIEW
6. Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong  Louisa Lim – FREE SPACE –REVIEW
7. Soil – M. Evans – (TAS) A love letter to Mother Earth. – REVIEW
8. Telling Tennant’s Story: – D. Ashenden  (NT) – REVIEW
9. Friends & Rivals – Brenda Niall – REVIEW  (VIC)
10. (SA)  – (ACT)- Home to the nation’s capital, Canberra.

1. I read two of the finalists for Walkley Award 2022.
2. …and I have added the others to my TBR 2023.
3. These are some of the best non-fiction books from Australia 2022
4. …need reading suggestions?
5. Winner of award:  Currowan by Bronwyn Adcock

1. I read three of the finalists for Walkley Award 2021.
2. I will add these extra books to my TBR 2023 with one exception:
3. Toxic …about the Tasmanian Salmon Industry. 
4. I hear from others this was a difficult book to read
5. …do not like cruelty of animals.
6. Winner of award:  The Winter Road by K. Holden

1. I read the WINNER Australian Political Book of the Year 2022
2. Telling Tennant’s Story by D. Ashenden.
3. Here is the longlist…some good books for 2023 non-fiction!

1. I selected SOIL by M. Evans because I needed a book by a Tasmanian writer!
2. Soil = A love letter to Mother Earth.

#AusReadingMonth2022 Louisa Lim

by Louisa Lim

Genre: non-fiction
Rating: C
Review: Indelible City (ISBN: 9781922458513)

Bad news: This is NOT essential reading on the subject of Hong Kong and the protests of 2019. I was looking for more hard-nosed reporting not affected by feelings and Ms Lim had decided to include too much of herself and not enough of the Hong Kong news about the 2019 seismic shift in the city.

Personal: I’ve been fooled again. I assumed that a book about Hong Kong would center around account of protests in Hong Kong during 2019 along with very thorough analysis on actions and reactions between people. 70% of the book is around Ms Lim’s reminiscences of memories and a quick scan of history as view through an atlas with very old maps. The theme connecting all of this is Ms Lim’s writing about a quirky “King of Kowloon” (old man writing calligraphy graffiti around the city). Only 30% (last section) refers to the uprising that set the city on fire.
No, this is not my kind of book…too “touchy-feely” about Hong Kong. But if that is what you are looking for…be my guest!

• PS: If you want to read an EXCELLENT book about Hong Kong and the protests
• I would recommend Antony Dapiran’s  (Australian lawyer, writer based in  Hong Kong)
• City on Fire (2020) – REVIEW

#AusReadingMonth2022 The Carbon Club

by Marian Wilkinson (no photo)

Genre: non-fiction
Rating: B
Review: The Carbon Club (ISBN: 9781760875996)

Bad news: I missed any signs of “hard-hitting investigative reporting,” The book felt like I was reading a series of articles from the newspaper…cut and dry facts. 85% Australian party politics…15% analysis climate change.

Bad news: Very detailed account of many climate sceptics in government. Perhaps this is more interesting for readers in Australia who know all these AUS politicians ….but not for me. This tactic to quash any “cap and trade” for CO2 emissions by Carbon Club members happened in many countries….especially in USA.

Good News: You have to read 18 chapters to finally get to the good news! Ms Wilkinson exposes the collusion of business and politics.
Australian politicians have been fighting climate wars fuelled by the Carbon Club (Coal, LNG production, Rio Tinto mines, brown coal-fuelled thermal power stations like Hazelwood)). But…the Carbon Club is breaking up as the climate crisis becomes more urgent!

Good news: Ms Wilkinson takes us back to the Kyoto Climate Agreement (1997-2000).
NOW, I know why GW Bush was “chosen” as president by Supreme Court beating the climate conscious Al Gore: Exxon and other fossil fuel giants wanted NO green deals of environment restrictions. NOW we are paying the price of that foolish decision!

Good news: I learned that AUS and USA work in similar ways.
Conservatives are funded by Koch Brothers in US and in AUS they are funded by the Cormack Foundation.
Tony Abbott = Australia’s Trump

Personal: While reading this book it is again abundantly clear politicians (Australia) think they can brush climate science aside to satisfy Carbon Club members…but that doesn’t make it go away!

No matter what the subject of a book is ….I ALWAYS learn something! This time I learned that the Minerals Council of Australia is one of the top 10 foreign trade organizaitons who claim that adding CO2 to the atmosphere would be good for the planet. WT*?
8 groups are in the USA (…and they ALL want Trump re-elected!!), one in Canada and one in Japan.

Personal: I am amazed as to what lengths climate sceptics (Carbon Club) will go to to convince the world they are right! Tony Abbot gave a “sacrificing goats” speech in London 2017. “…we are sacrificing our industries and our way of living to the climate gods. It’s the spirit of the inquisition.” (Pg 258). This is utter nonsense! I thought Australians were sensible …..but after reading this book about Australia’s foot dragging in addressing climate change…I am not so sure anymore. Are corporate profits (coal) worth months of intense bushfires, heat waves, floods, major bleaching of the coral reefs and drought? Fortunately the world..the younger generation is waking up and will decide climate policy in the future ….not the implacable business and mining CEO’s (Clive Palmer) and media moguls (Rupert Murdoch)

#AusReadingMonth2022 Soil

by Matthew Evans (no photo)

Genre: non-fiction
Rating: C
Review: Soil (ISBN: 9781911668190)

Good news: So many fun facts that I’ve never read anywhere else. “There can be 10 billion living things in 1 teaspoon of healthy soil.”! Now I’m learning that soil is a living organism. (…not just dirt under your shoes)…and soil’s important role.

Personal: There is much to learn in this book about nutrition. The emphasizes the importance of microbes in the soil..how they work with plants. Not every reader will be charmed by this book…ther is a lot of ‘farming details‘ that are hard to take in. M. Evans knows a lot about soil….and I think this book is best suited to a reader who is very interested in organic farming! I did skim some ‘arcane farming jargon” but am convinced that when possible I should by ORGANIC fruit and veggies. Don’t underestimate the impact of pesticides on your health! Most people don’t see soil as vital….well, Matthew Evans explains we must treat it with high-esteem b/c it feeds and nourishes us.

#AusReadingMonth2022 Telling Tennant’s Story

Bill Stanner,  Australian  Anthropologist (1930s)…Looks like somebody out of central casting! 

by Dean Ashenden (no photo)

Genre: non-fiction  (354 pg)
Rating: B++
Review: Telling Tennant’s Story (ISBN: 9781760641757)

Good news: This impressive  phrase is the core message of the book: “...a silence that reigned largely unchallenged from the late 19th C to the 1960s.” (pg 57). There was no room for Aborigines in the physical world (NT, Tennant Creek)..that had been theirs. This book attempts to reveal through the eyes of the narrator (D. Ashenden) the muffled silence he experienced in his childhood home of Tennant Creek. He delves into the need for a new perspective. Australia needed an anthropologist’s sensitivity...and that man was Bill Stanner (1905-1981) who dared confront Australian bureaucracy.

Good news: While reading this book I looked up a photo of Bill Stanner (1930s)…my goodness, he was so handsome! Looked like somebody out of central casting! But all kidding aside…Mr Stanner had been a tireless critic of the treatment of Aboriginal people since the 1930s, and of the policy of assimilation that dominated in Australian in the 1940s. He advocated for the proper recognition of Aboriginal identity, culture, and land rights.

Personal: There is a lot to unpack in this book….especially for someone who does NOT live in Australia! If you are interested in the Great Australian Silence (Australian govenment vs the rights for Indigenous people) …this is a good place to start. Don’t be discouraged if your eyes glaze over (…as mine did) while reading the chapters about the courts in landmark cases for Aboriginal land rights…just absorb what you can and push on to the last part of the book. Mr. Ashenden gives a summary about what still has gone wrong in Tennant Creek.

#NovNov22 Penric’s Demon

I just LOVED this book cover

by Lois McMaster Bujold

Finish date:  November 2022
Genre: novella (129 pg)
Rating: D
Review: Penric’s Demon (ISBN: 978-1596067691)

Quick scan:  I am REALLY scraping the proverbial barrel when I dip into fantasy books (Terry Pratchett is the exception). World of the Five Gods is a fantasy series by American writer Lois McMaster Bujold. It was awarded the Hugo Award for Best Series in 2018. Again…books/series dripping with book awards and I still don’t get excited about fantasy. So, to end the #NovNov22 challenge I offer you this “dishwater” gray novella. See you next year with hopefully some better choices!

Good news: Simple story so far…easy to
absorb. Ms Bujold is starting the “world-building” stage. I want to read this series as a personal challenge. I’m not a fan of fantasy but Ms Bujold should be the writer to convince me her books are worth reading…I hope. Update: She has not convinced me. This will the first and last book I read by Ms Bujold.

Bad news: Penric’s Demon was nominated for Hugo Award in 2016. I’ve read 55% of the book and don’t really feel the “prize quality” writing. Ms Bujold my surprise me in the next half of the book! No surprises…sorry to say.

Personal: This is a fitting start of the series World of the Five Gods .
The story of a demon taking up residence in the mind of a young lord about to be married. Penric and Desdemona (demon) have the weirdest, best friendship relationship. There was a small conflict scene at the end of the book but if you want fast paced excitement, then this novella probably isn’t for you. It is more of the start of a long political intrigue that will develop in the series  of four novels and ten novellas. Is her writing pure gold? No. 

#Poetry by Larkin… Waste of my reading time

UPDATE: 25.11.2022

1. Here are 50+  POETRY READING SUGGESTIONS
2. …I hope you can find something better than Larkin!
3. I placed a LINK in right sidebar “#Poetry 50 Reading Suggestions”.
4. I hope you can find something there to read.
5. There are poets from USA, IRELAND, AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND
6. Advice: don’t try to over analyse poetry.
7. I never read poetry b/c I had no idea how to review the poems.
8. I just read each poem as a “mini story”. When a poem plucks a heartstring
9. …or delivers a gut punch last few lines…I make note of it in my review.
10. I always tally the total number poems with the number I like
11. …and give the collection percentage score.

NOVEMBER

by Philip Larkin

Finish date: November 2022
Genre: poems (242)
Rating: F-
Review: Philip Larkin Collected Poems (ISBN: 0374522758)

Bad news: Just because P. Larkin had a miserable childhood, distant parents, unhappy marriage and an obsession with death…does not mean he has to drag me down into his dismal world!
This book has been on my bookshelf for years…and I decided it was time to confront this poet.

Good news: After reading these poems I am so excited that there are so many OTHER POETS to enjoy and I will throw Mr. Larkin’s book in the dust bin immediately!

Personal: This review will be super short because I have NOTHING good to say about Larkin’s poetry. He is a famous poet but I have no idea why. His vocabulary is filled with words like grief, scars, shame, suffering, slums, deplorable…and this just goes on and on…page after page. But to be fair…there was one nice poem (pg 11) that had the world happiness in it “Wedding-Wind”.

Please, if you don’t read much poetry…avoid Larkin at all costs. Look to some wonderful uplifting poets like Rita Dove, Billy Collins, Shane McCrae, Jericho Brown and James Levine just to name a few.
242 dark, dreary poems…read between World Cup 2022 Qatar matches…at least the soccer was exciting! If you asked me if I would ever read more poems by Philip Larkin…then I would say: ” I’d rather walk headfirst into a woodchipper.”

#NovNov22 Binti

by Nnedi Okorafor

Finish date: November 2022
Genre: novella (96 pg)
Rating: D
Review: Binti (ISBN: 9780765385253)

Good news: Important to understand …..what these things are when reading the book:
Otjize: the sacred (healing) clay ….The Himba in the novel cover their skin and hair in otjize (see book cover)
Edan: an electronic device that suddenly allows Binti to communicate with the Meduse (strange outer space folk). Once I had found this info…pieces of the story fell into place.

Good news: This is a highly-acclaimed novella winner of the Best Novella 2016 Hugo Award and Nebula Award 2015. That was the only reason I attempted this book.

Bad news: It is a quick read (2 hrs)…and unfortunately not “my cup of tea.” Too many jelly fish like Meduse with slimy tentacles. 95% of the book was the spaceship journey the university. No explanation of speed, gravity, layout…anything that would make you feel you were there! I’ll not be reading the following 2 books about Binti.

Personal: Not really a SF/fantasy fan but I really tried to stay open to this genre and read the novella. It is about Binti, member of Himba tribe on Earth who is accepted into a prestigious intergalactic university. In the end she succeeds in to stopping an interstellar war. No matter how I tried…this novella did nothing for me. Yes, there were themes of identity…the feeling of being an outsider which speak to many young readers…but that was not enough to impress me. Do not recommend for quality of writing or character depth…non-existant!

#NonFicNov week 4 “Jaw-Dropping” non-fiction

Week 4: (November 21-25) – Worldview Changers: One of the greatest things about reading nonfiction is learning all kinds of things about our world which you never would have known without it. There’s the intriguing, the beautiful, the appalling, and the profound. What nonfiction book or books has impacted the way you see the world in a powerful way? Do you think there is one book that everyone needs to read for a better understanding of the world we live in? (Rebekah) 

UPDATE: 24.11.2022

The Guardian: 24.11.2022   READ 

• Police beat protesting iPhone workers as Covid cases hit record high in China

1. I don’ know how much news about China is a ABC news, MSNBC or CNN
2. …but this is a potential flashpoint for China now!
3. One of the most underreported
4. stories right now is China’s failing Zero-Covid policy.
5. Cases have surged to record-high levels (30 000 daily cases) &
6. 420 mln people are back in lockdown. Lockdown…that is a powder keg with a short fuse!
7. This violent protest is from the Foxconn iPhone factory in Zhengzhou
8. …APPLE is very worried their phones will not make be found under USA Christmas trees!
9. Xi Jinping can look very impressive at G20 ….but he has a lot of problems at home!

UPDATE: 21.11.2022 – Tweet from the author:

Thank you so much for your very close reading and detailed notes! A great primer / gateway into my book! Another book in the works, but may take a break from HK this time and try something new…

1. Books about China politics have impacted the way I see the world.
2. These books have opened my eyes to the geopolitical  importance of decisions
3. made by China and …countries who must deal with China.
4. This all makes my “JAW-DROP” because if you don’t feel it yourself
5. NEVER forget China…is a nation on a ‘long-term’ mission!!
6. The world must prepare for its influence on us all!
7. I wonder if anyone asks for Dapiran’s book in the bookstore or library?
8. There is NO BETTER to prepare than to read and educate yourself.
9. I  would recommend Anthony Dapiran’s book as the best place to start.
10. He is a journalist and he creates an impressive narrative to explain the
11. …flashpoint we know as Hong Kong.
12. REVIEW   City on Fire (2020)

1. The Red Zone – Peter Hartcher (2022) – is the second choice…
2. Read why Australia is in Xi Jinping’s cross-hairs!
3. REVIEW
   

#AusReadingMonth2022 The Lucky Laundry

by Nathan Lynch (no photo)

Genre: nonfiction (333 pg)
Rating: A
Review: The Lucky Laundry (ISBN: 9781460759912)

Good news: #AusReadingMonth2022 in November @bronasbooks coincides with my love of interesting non-fiction. Thanks to Nathan Lynch a dogged and intrepid financial investigator…we learn that not only are there brushfires in the Australian outback…but also at the most profitable bank in the country: CBA (CommBank). Corporate heads roll….and in 2018 CommBank agree to $700m to settle civil proceedings relating to breaches of anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws. Who can you trust…if you can’t trust your bank!

Good news: Learned 3 easiest ways to launder money!
1. a legitimate business and declare the dirty money as revenue.
2. buy real estate using obfuscatory legal mechanisms.
3. But the easiest is through gambling.
Laundering money in a casino is surprisingly simple. Walk in with a bag of “dirty” cash. Convert it into chips. Play for a while – win a bit, lose a bit – then cash out. So… now you know!

Bad news: In the beginning the book does not “read like a novel” but don’t stop reading! Chapter 12 is when the human side is exposed…and sparks start to fly! Two first generation migrant men face-off at a Sydney boardroom table. One is the head of AUSTRAC responsible for preventing, detecting and responding to criminal abuse of the financial system and the other head of Australian’s most powerful bank. We learn how their migrant backrounds intertwine!

Good news: Lynch explains the nuts and bolts of the criminal network and who the winners and losers are in these schemes. Australia is known as one of the BEST multi-billion -dollar washhouses. A lucrative business “professional money launderer”…..but your life could be snuffed out very easily if you cross the line with the “big guys” in the business!
This book is very interesting because it tears the curtain away and we see what happens when the “criminal money wizards” are at work!

Personal: The ‘hook” is the first few chapters about Asian money laundering in Australia from China or Viet Nam. Fascinating info! But the book gets even better when a powerful bank is brought too its knees! 778,370 CommBank customer accounts were not properly monitored for three years and that some accounts were not even monitored after they were suspected of being used for money laundering. OUCH!
Strong point: Nathan Lynch has highlighted financial crime without making the narrative textbook dull. We learn about the high rollers who gamble rashly for high stakes (criminals)…or gamble for high profits for shareholders (bankers). #SuperInteresting