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23
Nov

#NonFicNov Black Lives, White Law

 

  • Author: Russell Marks
  • Title: Black Lives, White Law (368 pg)  2022
  • Genre: Non-fiction

 

Conclusion:

  1. The book can be divided into 3 parts:
  2. Powerful introduction...Mr Marks does NOT hold back!
  3. Case studies  and the people who want to advocate change of the criminal system.
  4. Conclusion: Australia must change.
  5. For 230 years the Australian criminal law has been
  6. …a tool of colonisation.
  1. Mr Marks makes a very strong arugument (ch 2)  that
  2. despite all the bourhaha, uproar and  hubbub about
  3. that Captian Cook was authorised to take possession of Australian
  4. eastern coast with consent of the King of Britain this is
  5. …an illuison, a product of the imagination!
  6. Captian cook bunny-hopped up the coast sticking
  7. a flag pole here and there then left for good!
  8. It was all a blatant “land-grab.”

 

Last thoughts:

  1. The legal case studies at times were difficult to read
  2. …so much injustice
  3. …and nothing changes.
  4. I must admit I had to skim some chapters
  5. because it was a firehose of information.
  6. I could not process it all.
  7. Good news:  Mr Marks has drawn on his
  8. legal expertise to bring together in one
  9. book a impressive  view of what the British brought to Australia:
  10. …their guns, chains, shackles and lashes.
  11. And they brought their own law
  12. …that to this day is ruining  First Nation people’s lives.
  13. Just last month the Indigenous voice to parliament
  14. …referendum suffered an resounding defeat.
  15. Will  Black Lives, White Law win  Australian Political Book 2023?
  16. I don’t think so.
  17. This book is definitely geared to readers with an interest
  18. in this dilemma that Australia sees itself in.
  19. It is  definitely a wake-up call for Australia.
21
Nov

#NovNov23 Patrick Modiano

  • Author: Patrick Modiano (1945)
  • Title: (176 pg)  1986
  • Genre: novella
  • Hosted by   746 Books  and Bookish Beck
  • #NovNov23

 

Good news: So mysterious!
I could not put the book down.
Jean, a man who stumbles upon an old acquaintance in Nice.
Plot: three persons: Jean, Sylvia and Villecourt caught in a love triangle
…the theft of a very valuable diamond…

…and the beginning of the flight of the two lovers.
Who? What? When? Why?…all questions that swirl around in my head.

 

Good news: The French is so easy to read….do not hesitate to
put this novella (176 pg) on your “I want to read something in French” book list!
The vocabulary is NOT complicated and is a first person narrative. Piece of cake!

 

Good news: If you love a detective genre filled with memories, flashbacks
and complications that you slowly discover…this is the book for you.

The book starts where it ended…and ends where it started!
It felt like I was putting pieces of a puzzle together…and finally at the end
I saw the complete picture.

 

Personal: Patrick Modiano won the Nobel Prize 2014.
Highly recommend reading his books   (perfect for #ParisInJuly challenge)
…they  are translated into Engish and are nice short novellas!
#CoupDeCoeur

20
Nov

#Finalist Prix Renaudot Sorj Chalandon

  • Author: Sorj Chalandon (1952)
  • Title: L’Énragé  (416 pg)  2023
  • Genre: Historical fiction
  • Finalist: Prix Renaudot 2023

 

Bad news:

  1. The “hook” is terrible
  2. … having read the book in French, second language.
  3. I had no idea what was going on!
  4. The author is not the problem
  5. …it’s my lack of  “reform school” vocabulary.
  6. The first 2 chapters are so difficult to get through.
  7. Setting: boys penal institution on the French island Belle-Ile-en-Mer
  8. ..beatings, fights, and a street gang members.
  9. I had too look up so many unsavory words.
  10. I hope this book improves….soon!

 

Bad news:

  1. I’m still reading pages and pages of fights, brawls, cursing at the guards
  2. and days in solitary confinement.
  3. There’s not much of a story here yet.
  4. After 50% …I finally land onto chapters 11-12, more plot is unfolding
  5. …French politics and the work of journalists
  6. …in 1930s who want to  expose the abuse taking
  7. …place in the boy’s penatentry. (historical fact)
  8. At his point I think of all the books I’ve read
  9. ..by Sorj Chalandon (5) this is the
  10. the least likable.
  11. Subject matter is brutal…depressing.

 

Good news:

  1. Sorj Chandalon is a journalist  and his books are always interesting.
  2. He places his work within historical backrounds.
  3. He writes about The 1982 Lebanon War (The quatrième mur),
  4. The Toubles in  No. Ireland (Retour à Killybegs)
  5. a mining disaster in Liévin France 1974 (Le jour d’avant)
  6. The post WW II trauma about his
  7. father who fought for the Germans (Enfant du salaud) and
  8. … how his father wanted his son Émile (Sorj Chalandon) help him
  9. …carry out a plot to kill De Gaulle (Profession du père)

 

Last thoughts:

  1. I struggled to get through this book.
  2. There were so many words I had to look up
  3. about fishing, boats, sardines 1930s French politics
  4. …and of course the brutal
  5. …life in a young boys reform school/penetentary.
  6. 56 boys escape during a prison uprising in 1934 and escape.
  7. All were recaptured except one: Jules Bonneau.
  8. Chalandon grabs on to this fact…and runs away with it
  9. …creating a believable character who evolves from street troublemaker
  10. …to a young man with an ambition for good.
  11. I can understand why this book did NOT win the Prix Renaudot
  12. …it is an acquired taste.
18
Nov

#Challenge My own personal goal!

 

  1. All right…it is time to get serious about my bookshelf!
  2. This week I read a wonderful novella (short nonfiction) by Oscar Wilde (see review).
  3.  The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde for decades.
  4. The books is so old the price was 23 Guilders
  5. …now we use Euros for decades!

 

 

These are the books I have found:

  1. Thurber Writings and Drawings  (70 essays)
  2. Essays of E.B. White (26 essays)
  3. Seven Plays  Sam Shepard (5 plays)
  4. Baldwin Collected Essays  (47 essays)
  5. Collected Poems W.B. Yeats
  6. John Updike The Early Stories 1953-1975  (100 short stories)
  7. The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde –  (9 plays)
  8. The Collected Plays of Edward Albee (7 plays)
  9. Collected Auden
  10. Then the War and Selected Poems by Carl Philips
  11. Collected Poems by Donald Justice
  12. Collected Poems by Anthony Hecht
  13. Selection of Short Poems – Robinson Jeffers

 

 

UPDATES:  2024

#20BooksOfSummer

  1. W.H.  Auden
  2. READ: “The Letter” (1927)   (04.06.2024)
  1.  Theme: cycle of life a represented through a failed love….very little emotion.
  2. Scientific words: circuit (closed path capable of being followed by an electrical current) – shunting (low resistance connection (electricity) – arc (electric) strong current can “jump a gap” between two electordes. 
  3. Pastoral words: bird – storm – swallow – spring’s green – Autumn – seasons.  
  4. Choosing some words (…just paraphrasing):
  5. Your letter comes…I was deceived.
  6. I move with a different love. 
  7. I do not question a nod, stony smile of this ‘country god’…that never was more reticient.
  8. (ex-lover?) “…always afraid to say more than it meant.”

 

#20BooksOfSummer

  1. John Updike The Early Stories 1953-1975  (100 short stories)
  2. READ: “ The Persistence of Desire” (04.06.2024)

  1. My first impression: lackluster, unexciting
  2. …there’s no a hook!
  3. First sentence is too long and the
  4. first paragraph is filled with bleak vocabulary:
  5. “briming void”, “disconsolate youth”.
  6. Old lovers meet again in a Pennsylvania hometown doctor’s waiting room.
  7. She has clearly moved on
  8. ….but he is still a lustful juvenile only
  9. …now with a wife and children in Massachusetts.
  10. There is no epiphany, no big payoff
  11. ..just an embarassing middle age man
  12. …still groping women.
  13. #Awful…waste of my reading time.

 

#20BooksOfSummer

  1. Four plays by William Inge
  2. READ:   Picnic (1953) by William Inge (03.06.2024)  – REVIEW

18
Nov

#Short Stories Mirandi Riwoe

  • Author: Miranda Riwoe
  • Title: The Burnished Sun (232 pg)  2022 (title refers of lines in the play Merchant of Venice)
  • Genre: short stories (10) + 2 novellas, but I’m saving them for later.
  • Australian TBR List
  • #AusReadingMonth23 @ This Reading Life (Brona)
  • Intro:  The Burnished Sun was shortlisted Short Story Collection QLD literary Awards 2022

 

Conclusion: = Wonderful collection 

 

Short Stories:

  1. Invitation – 10 pg 
  2. Theme: sense of belonging
  3. Strong point: such attention for detail…just amazing: mothers with children
  4. the narrator (mother)  trying  to blend in with other mothers but lacks confidence b/c of  the language barrier.
  5. Title: refers to an invitation to a children’s birthday party

 

  1. Hardflip – 14 pg.  
  2. Theme: sense of belonging, less conspicuous, more a part of things.
  3. Strong point:  Writing is strong…(2x smell) (1x sense of taste) 8 x similes
  4. Skateboarder wants to make a risky jump with his board….”He’ll be a star on YouTube.’
  5. Title: refers to a popular skateboarding trick.

 

  1. Hazel – 06 pg.
  2. Theme: sense of belonging although separated  from family b/c of Covid restrictions
  3. Strong point: brings back memories of the torment felt by elderly during pandemic
  4. Writing is less impressive, story is very short….but still a good read.
  5. Title: refers to main character in nursing home.

 

  1. Dignity – 13 pg.
  2. Theme: sense of NOT belonging, a servant in household and  woman who has been evicted.
  3. Strong point: Story describes a typical Sunday as a servant in a household. Riwoe uses
  4. the sense of “smell” often: smell of clove smoke, layers sweat and sandalwood,
  5. …the smell of bacon as it fries and curls.
  6. Writing is excellent with a cyclical ending …simply ending things as they started and
  7. ….b/c the servant is working in Australia separated from her husband and 2 yr old boy
  8. …the ending pulls on readers’ heartstrings
  9. Title: refers to the decision to work in Australia while  
  10. …she feels she should go home to preserve her dignity.

 

  1. Growth – 07 pg.
  1. Theme: sense of NOT belonging, not feeling like a mother, postpartum depression 
  2. Strong point: Ms Riwoe packs a punch even in a very short story…emotions compacted in a few phrases.
  3. Writing is strong…at times giving a reader unexpected jolt!
  4. Title: refers to the “fetus in fetu”…also  sense of NOT belonging

 

  1. Cinta Ku – 10 pg
  1. Theme: sense of NOT belonging  Grandmother returns with grandson Riley to Indonesia 
  2. …and Maya is reminded that  “she so no longer from here, that her body
  3. …betrays her time away from this place.”
  4. Strong point: Love the way Riwoe weaves Maya’s emotions with her cooking….just so creative!
  5. Writing is so touching…old woman remembering her long lost love, Jakub.
  6. Title: refers to “my love”  in Indonesian

 

  1. She is Ruby Wong – 16 pg
  1. Theme: sense of friendship. Ruby and Fran were friends years ago
  2. …creating mischief wherever they went.
  3. Fran’s mischief in her teens had dire consequences.
  4. Ruby’s mischief  now on stage could potentially be embarrassing as well.
  5. Strong point: Building up  a feeling of tension….
  6. Will the old friends recognise each other?  
  7. Ruby on the stage…Fran in the audience.
  8. Writing  is still very good…cannot spot a weakness anywhere, bravo!
  9. Title: refers to the actress in London…who grew up in Australia.

 

  1. Mind Full – 09 pg
  2. Theme: sense of grief – Jennifer’s son died in Bali on a school trip.
  3. She wants to follow his  Ben’s itinerary during his last days. Jennifer books a flight to Bali.
  4. Strong point: Expressing grief as a ritual of closure.
  5. Writing demonstrates Jennifer’s transition in dealing with grief…in just 9 pages.
  6. Title: refers to advies from Jen’s thearapist…she must practice mindfulness
  7. ..the practice of being aware of your body, mind, and feelings in the present moment,
  8. …thought to create a feeling of calm.

 

  1. What Would Kim Do? – 08 pg
  2. Theme: sense of the erotic… Milly, Liv and Georgia go to a  night club
  3. Strong point: Milly takes us deep into her fantasies while cruising the night club.
  4. Writing...couldn’t get more vivid if you tried!
  5. Title: refers to Kim Kardashian

 

  1. So Many Ways – 11  pg
  2. Theme: sense of being at a turning point – Ella listen to her mother as she leafs trhough
  3. a family photo album.  Ella is scheduled to have an abortion….but starts to doubt about it. 
  4. Strong point: Life is tough…work…family…children  and sometimes people are too young
  5. to manage all these “turning points”
  6. Writing is excellent.
  7. Title: refers to….so many ways to lose a child. Her mother lost a child and drives…what will Ella do?
15
Nov

#NonFicNov Kylie Tennant (1912-1988)

  • Author: Kylie Tennant
  • Title: The Man on the Headland  (151 pg)  1971
  • Genre: memoir

 

Introduction:

  1. Kylie paints the impression of a bushman
  2. discovers the headland near Diamond Head.
  3. He is single, solitary but friendly.  
  4. Ernie is the quintessentail bushman of Australia’s past.
  5. The Man on the Headland is also the story of Kylie,
  6. …her schoolmaster husband, Roddy,
  7. …and her two children, both born during her time in Laurieton.

 

Conclusion:

  1. What a great little book this is…who would have thought?
  2. Kylie Tennant has been on my TBR for four years!
  3. A heart-warming story about Ernie Metcalf, a bushman solitary but not lonely
  4. …his family and his neighbours The Roddys.
  5. Ms Tennant has made her book so engaging because the Roddys 
  6. are none other than Kylie Tennant and her husband (writer and schoolteacher).
  7. The theme is the importance of reaching out the hand of friendship
  8. and weaving throughout the story a lovely dosis of humour!
  9. Strong point: Ms. Tennant uses many literary techniques such as 
  10. similes and personification  to build imagery and give words more power.
  11. I think the greatest compliment I can give Kylie Tennant is that I want
  12. to read  more of her books especially  The Battlers..

 

Characters: 

  1. Ernie Metcalfe – ” …reputation as the mad hermit of Dimandead.”
  2. Lost romance – Bertha Bullen
  3. Elder sister – Clara
  4. Brother-in-law – Bert Mullen (Clara’s husband)
  5. Nephew – Bert (Clara’s son)
  6. Nephew – Harry (George’s son)
  7. Brother – Jack
  8. Brother – Albert
  9. Elder brother – George-with-one-arm
  10. Grandfather-  Welsh poacher
  11. Father – John (bullock driver)
  12. “The Mother” – as one speaks of a deity (6 sons, 4 daughters)  died 1933
  13. Kylie Tennant Rodd
  14. Lewis  “Roddy” Rodd 
  15. Benison Rodd (daughter)
  16. Bim Rodd (son)
14
Nov

#Cookbook “The Secret of Cooking”

 

Starting my Thanksgiving Turkey day countdown today!
Why?
Because I have almost 4 months (…aftter dieting) of cooking to catch-up on.
Will gain 15 lbs back this winter?…soi!

I don’t think so.
I’ll just get on the bike again in the Spring.

Making my “training roast chicken” for T-day today.

There are no turkeys in The Netherlands.
If I make mistakes I can fix them next week
…or even use another chef’s recipe.

Here is my photo of the first great cooking bonanza since I
got my new kitchen.

LOOK!! I treated myself to a new cookbook for my birthday.
Bee Wilson: The Secret of Cooking. Have a look at it on Amazon.

LOOK!! The postman just arrived with my B-day cheese.
I haven’t eaten cheese in 4 months!
I’ll have some on my sandwich today.

So it is back to the kitchen.
…and discovering what SECRETS  Bee Wilson can
teach me!

PS:  Why, why are there no frozen pie crusts in this country.
I’m still thinking of trying yet again to make a crust.
What have I got to lose?

 

13
Nov

#NonFicNov Primo Levi

  • Author: Primo Levi
  • Title: The Drowned and the Saved   (170 pg)  1986
  • Genre: non-fiction (memoir)
  • #NonFicNov

 

Notes:

  1. Impressive quote from Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner
  2. “Since then, at an uncertain hour,
  3. That agony returns,
  4. And till my ghastly tale is told
  5. This heart within me burns.”
  6. I have no idea what Primo Levi will reveal but I need to
  7. hear it…especially now.
  8. I’m prepared for an emotionally powerful book.
  9. It is going to be difficult to get through but…
  10. ..my coffee is ready and so am I.

 

Conclusion:

  1. Once I started on page one Sunday morining I read the  entire day.
  2. The book is a gem that should be read by everybody.
  3. No, there are no descriptions of
  4. …stomach churning atrosities but something worse.
  5. Primo Levi describes what happened after the Germans voted for  Hitler.
  6. 12 years of tyrany…and do you know what?
  7. It can happen again.

 

  1. Chapter 3 deals the shame of survival.
  2.  Title: The Drowned (dead) and The Saved (survivors).
  3. Levi explains in piercing words:
  4. “The worst survived, that is the  fittest,
  5. …the best all died.”

 

  1. The last chapter is THE BEST  “Letters From Germany”.
  2. Levi receives letters from people who finally read the translation
  3. of his book “Survival in Auschwitz”.
  4. Levi reacts that there is no denying it
  5. …Hitler made clear what his ideas were and never concealed it.
  6. Those who voted for him certainly vote for his ideas. (pg 178)

 

Last thoughts:

  1. I felt I was reading a book (1986)  that was predicting  the future.
  2. I cannot deny that when reading about Hitler and his  “deranged”
  3. ideas I had to think of Trump and
  4. his last speeches in Florida and New Hamphire last week.
  5. Listen to what he is saying…deportation? ….camps?
  6. Trump Compares Political Foes To ‘Vermin’ On
  7. ...Veterans Day—Echoing Nazi Propaganda
  8. Remember this train of thought…
  9. it only awaits  a new buffoon (Trump)
  10. …who will organize it, legalize it and delcare it necesary and
  11. …so contaminate the world.
  12. Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel said the
  13. committee would support former President Trump as the 2024
  14. GOP presidential nominee if voters were to choose him,
  15. even if he were convicted of a crime
  16. People, this is insane.
  17. This was the last book Primo Levi wrote…he died in 1987.
  18. I felt he was “sreaming” at the world to NEVER forget what
  19. happend in Germany…it can happen again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

11
Nov

#MARM The Handmaid’s Tale

 

Conclusion:

  1. Well, first of all I love the cover!
  2. A successful book cover needs to make
  3. a reader ‘feel’ the manuscript rather than ‘tell’ about it.
  4. I’m not going to do an indepth review about this book
  5. …that is rich with religious allusions, literary devices etc.
  6. So many people have read this book or seen the Netflix series

 

  1. I am probably one of the last ones to read this book.
  2. Goodreads: almost 2 million ratings and .
  3. I joined the #MARM2023  challenge to
  4. …push me to finally read this classic.
  5. The book just scares me.
  6. Margaret Atwood’s book imagines a violent
  7. …return to a world dominated by men.
  8. Women are reduced to their sole reproductive role.
  9. The Trump years helped accelerate
  10. …this long-unimaginable step backwards.

 

  1. You can read it in the news.
  2. Last summer the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade
  3. …that upheld for decades the court’s five-decade-old decision
  4. ..that guaranteed a woman’s right to obtain an abortion.
  5. Just last Tuesday was the latest victory for abortion rights supporters
  6. since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in Ohio.

 

  1. Because Ms Atwood took the speeches of the conservatives
  2. in the 1970s and 1980s very seriously
  3. …we have this timeless classic: The Handmaid’s Tale.
  4. Listen to what Trump intends to do if he is elected
  5. …to use the Justice Department to attack his enemies.
  6. Take him seriously
  7. ….before you pull that lever in the election booth!

 

Last thoughts:

  1. The Netflix series has been
  2. …completely overrun with awards.
  3. In 2024 we will see the  the
  4. …sixth and final season  of The Handmaid’s Tale.
  5. Time to finally binge watch seasons 1-5 this year.
9
Nov

#SciFiMonth 2023 week 2: Ann McCaffery

 

  • Author: Ann McCaffery
  • Title: Dragonflight –  320 pg (1968)
  • Genre: Science fiction
  • Structure  – Anthology of four novellas:
    1. Weyr Search (97 pg)
    2. Dragonflight (66 pg)
    3. Dust Fall (80 pg)
    4. The Cold Between (78 pg)

 

The #SciFiMonth challenge is hosted by

 

Conclusion:

  1. I try, and try to embrace Science Fiction/Fantasy but fail to
  2. become a fan of this genre.
  3. My brain is not wired for science fiction books.
  4. The book is well written and has a strong plot.
  5. Ms McCaffery has injected the novel with moments of
  6. warmth and tenderness between Lessa, her lover F’lar and of
  7. course with her beloved dragon, Remoth.
  8. If you want to read an interesting SciFi book…try this one.
  9. I’ve made some notes that may help you to grasp the book
  10. when you start reading.
  11. Will I read more books by Anne McCaffery?
  12. No, I don’t think so…this was enough SciFi for me this year.

 

Quickscan:

  1. This is the best I could find via Amazon.c0m
  2. …that helps me start the book.
  3. On a beautiful world called Pern, an ancient way of life is about to come under attack.
  4. Lessa is an outcast survivor—her parents murdered, her birthright stolen.
  5. She is a strong young woman who has never stopped dreaming of revenge.
  6. But when an ancient threat to Pern reemerges.
  7. Lessa will rise—upon the back of a great dragon.
  8. She shares a telepathic bond  with the drageon more intimate than any human connection.
  9. Together, dragon and rider will fly . . . and Pern will be changed forever.

 

  1. WIKI  PERN Fandom website
  2. I COULD NOT have read this book
  3. without the “famdom website for Pern”.
  4. I had to look up so many things mentioned in the book!

 

  1. Part 1 Weyr Search
  2. It is actually a novella by Anne McCaffery.
  3. She was the first woman to win a Hugo Award for
  4. fiction Best Novella, Weyr Search, 1968.
  5. Story was perfect: hook, rising action, major turning point and an
  6. enemy so evil that it deserve sdestruction.

 

  1. Part 2 Dragonflight (66 pg)
  2. This section describes 3 stand-offs:
  3. the holders (town leaders) vs Weyrman, F’lar
  4. commander R’gul vs F’lar, the new seat op power
  5. Lessa, Weyrwoman vs F’lar
  6. ….to prove to him she is a force to be reckoned with!

 

  1. Dust Fall (80 pg)
  2. Lessa and F’lar calculat when the threads will start falling.
  3. They must make plans to battle this menace!
  4. “Like rider, like dragon. BEST QUOTE

 

  • The Cold Between (78 pg)
  • ‘By the Egg, it’s die slow, doing nothing, or die quick, trying.
  • We’re dragonmen, aren’t we, bred to fight the Threads?
  • Let’s go hunting …
  • As they prepare to fight the threads
  • F’lar makes a promise to one day pursue Thread to the Red Star itself.

 

  1. Lessa  is chosen as rider for the  queen dragon
  2. Ramoth – QUEEN BABY DRAGON!
  3. A permanent telepathic bond  (impression) would form
  4. between  the dragon Ramoth
  5. ….and her  new rider Lessa.

 

Notes:

Social classes:

  1. Weyrfolk (including Dragonriders) who live in Weyrs,
  2. Holders who rule Holds (cities, towns and farms),
  3. Crafters – guildsmen
  4. the Holdless who have no permanent home (including traders, displaced Holders, and brigands).
  5. The Pernese live in a pre-industrial society, with lords, holds, harpers and dragons 

5 types of dragons:

  1. Gold, which were the large Queen dragons, were the only females allowed to breed & lay eggs.
  2. Bronze, which were the largest males & were the only 1s who mated with the queens.
  3. Brown & blue, the 2nd & 3rd-largest males. And finally, the
  4. Greens, the smallest females.

Map of the planet Pern

 

  1. Anne Inez McCaffrey (1 April 1926 – 21 November 2011)
  2. was an Irish writer known for the Dragonriders of Pern science fiction series.
  3. Anne McCaffrey was among the most successful writers in the entire field of science fiction.
  4. In a career that spanned over forty years,
  5. she wrote more than thirty novels and many shorter works of fiction.
  6. Ann McCaffery became the first woman to win a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award
  7. She earned the SFWA’s accolade of “Grand Master of SF.”
  8. SFWA = Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

 

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