Skip to content

Recent Articles

8
Jan

#ReadIreland 2020 Samantha Power

  • Author:  Samantha Power
  • Title:  The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir
  • Published: 2019
  • Genre:  non-fiction
  • Challenge 2020
  • Monthly plan
  • #ReadingIrelandMonth20
  • #Begorrathon20

 

Finished: 08.01.2020
Genre: non-fiction
Rating: C
#ReadNonFictionYear


Conclusion:

Part I
Ch 1- 6
Pretty basic childhood memories
SP (9 yr) was taken by her mother to America
after the breakdown of a marriage.

Ch 7- 12
I’m beginning to feel more engaged with the book than was initially the case. SP has digested the horrors of the Balkan conflict (war correspondent). She decided to enter law school to prepare her for a career in which she could influence the policymakers who might look away again from the atrocities of genocide.

Ch 13 – 18
SP does feel a profound disconnect between her personal good fortune and the rest of the world. She threads elements of her family story throughout the book.

 

Part 2:
Ch 19-40
The memoir finally begins to move ahead in a faster and more effective way.
I am very interested learning more about the insider’s account of foreign-policy-making.

 

Who is Samantha Power?
She is an Irish-American scholar  who won a  Pulitzer Prize for her book A Problem From HelI.
Ms Power has devoted much of her career to promoting the use of American power (Obama administration) to halt mass atrocities.
She served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations 2013-2017.

How did SP get interested in ‘genocide’?

Ms Power was witness to genocide during the Balkan Crisis.
She a war correspondent for Foreign Policy magazine. When she enrolled at Harvard Law School she took courses about Holocaust related subjects. SP wanted to learn when was military force justified? Note: I’m reading this book as Trump decides ‘to take out” General Soleimani of Iran! Justified?

 

Last thoughts:

  1. Samantha Power (activist-turned-diplomat)
  2. …leads the life as a diplomat involved in juggling the
  3. demands of her job and those of her two young children.
  4. Ms Power left me with the feeling that she told us
  5. just enough about herself to make this book a ‘memoir’.
  6. What  I missed was Ms Power’s thoughts about her road to
  7. confirmation for U.S. Ambassador to the UN that was
  8. strewn with landmines.
  9. She never mentions it!
  10. Her main goal was to inform the reader as objectively as possible
  11. about the good work the Obama administration
  12. …did during her tenure as
  13. political aide and later as US ambassador to the UN.
  14. Samantha Power hopes that we do more
  15. …about our engagement in the world
  16. …and strengthening our democracy.
  17. As memoir….?  It did not touch
  18. my heartstrings…
  19. …very ‘chilly’ look back on her life.
  20. #WorthwhileButNotExceptional

 

6
Jan

#NonFiction Ray Bradbury

 

 

Finished: 06.01.2020
Genre: non-fiction
Rating: C
#ReadNonFictionYear


Conclusion:
Nolan warns the reader that many articles
on a single writer will contain a certain amount of
repetition. I enjoyed reading this book but gave it a
solid 3 score because I found the repetition irritating.

Nolan includes 8 stories by Bradbury in this book.
After taking the time to give us Nolan’s personal top 10
stories (see list) he does not include any of them in this book!

All in all….my interest is sparked.…I will read Bradbury
especially “The Martian Chronicles”
It is a series of stories about the people on Mars,
the coming of the earthmen and the loneliness and terror of space.

So I can say to Nolan “Mission Accomplished”.

Notes:

The best way to read a book that has been on your TBR for so long?
Read a reference book about the author first!

What is Bradbury’s mission?
Bradbury wants to show man his basic goodness, to dramatize his struggle up and away from this planet.

What does Bradbury write?
parables of the future
…imaginative literature of the very high order!

Why is science fiction so popular?
SF affords the writer the widest possible range
to write social commentary!! (GOOD THOUGHT)

What did I discover that I did not expect?
Bradbury wrote Children’s books: (classic)
(40 pg) Switch on the Dark (Just look at this wonderful cover!)
Bradbury wanted to teach his child
not to be afraid of the dark. I’m buying this one!

 

Trivia:
Bradbury ( great writer of SF…)
refused to drive a car or board a jet plane!

Trivia: Bradbury Top 10 stories:

Mars In Heaven
Dark Carnival
One Timeless Spring
Heavy-set
Homecoming
The Lake
I See You Never
The Veldt
The Pedestrian
There Will Come Soft Rains

1
Jan

JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters 

“History would be an excellent thing if only it was true” (Leo Tolstoy)

  • Author:  J. Douglass, Pete Larkin
  • Title:  JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters  (518 pg)
  • Published: 2008
  • Genre:  non-fiction
  • Challenge 2020
  • Monthly plan

 

Introduction:

  1. This book still haunts me.
  2. I feel in the 1960s that I have been taken for a fool.
  3. Warren Report about the Kennedy assassination?
  4. You can just shred it and use it in the kitty litter box.
  5. Worthless.

 

Conclusion:

  1. The assassination of JFK left an indelible mark on me.
  2. I came home from school and heard on th TV as Walter Cronkite
  3. announced, with tears in his eyes, that  JFK was dead.
  4. The nation mourned, the world mourned.
  5. Who killed JFK?
  6. It is no secret now
  7. …it was the CIA
  8. …it was a coup d’etat.
  9. Lee Harvey Oswald was only a product of a fake defector program run by CIA
  10. …and groomed as a despensible scapegoat for the killing of a presdent.
  11. The tapestry of President Kennedy’s killing is enormous.

 

  1. This is an encyclopedic work that covers a vast amount of research.
  2. While elements of organized crime and Cuban exiles were very likely
  3. recruited to the ‘Big Event’ the plotters came from
  4. the military – big business – CIA – FBI – Secret Service – LBJ
  5. That is why the cover-up persists today.
  6. The book also mentions several people who ‘died mysteriously’
  7. shortly before and after the assassination.
  8. This brought me to a book published in 2013
  9. ….that has not gotten much
  10. attention on non-fiction reading lists:

 

  1. Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation into the
  2. …Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination.
  3. Also Crossfire by Jim Marrs (1989)  and
  4. Mary’s Mosaic: The CIA Conspiracy to Murder John F. Kennedy,
  5. Mary Pinchot Meyer, and Their Vision for World Peace (2013).
  6. #MustReads if you want to know more about 22 November 1963.

 

Last thoughts:

  1. After fifty-six years, the official spin
  2. remains of a  the lone nut assassin.
  3. When will this lie finally be eradicated?
  4. So devastating to read how so many people’s lives were ended
  5. because they knew or saw too much.
  6. The prostitute ‘Sharlee’ thrown out of bar the Silver Slipper.
  7. She ends up in hospital 2 days before the assassination and
  8. announces that Kennedy will be killed in Dallas!
  9. She was killed in 1964.
  10. A man’s life is ruined because  he gave Lee Harvey Oswald a lift while
  11. …he was carrying a package of curtain rods
  12. …a few days before 22 November 1963.
  13. He told his story and ended up in a prison and mental institutions  for 11 years
  14. …he was clearly not stable according the ‘powers that be.’

 

  1. The US government consistently and intentionally
  2. misrepresented and lied about what really took place
  3. in Dallas on 22 November 1963.
  4. You cannot deny it….US government is corrupt.
  5. Like Rome before it ….America is indeed burning.
  6. Now when I watch the US news
  7. ….I think “what is REALLY going
  8. ….on behind closed doors in The White House?“
  9. President Donald Trump blocked the
  10. …release of an unknown number of documents,
  11. saying he had “no choice” but
  12. to bow to national security concerns of the FBI and CIA.
  13. The deadline for releases was on 26 April 2018.
  14. Who knows what we will learn when the last 1% is released.
  15. I hope I live to hear  the truth!
  16. Essential reading for anyone with even a passing interest
  17. in the assassination, and, of course, for every history major.
  18. #MustRead

 

 

 

29
Dec

#Challenge 2020: non-fiction

  1. Here is my  2020 non-fiction  reading list.
  2. I may add more books as I go along.
  3. Status:
  4. Read: 16/116
  5. In progress:  0

The Economist:  read cover-to over

  1. 14 December 2019  cover – Victory (Boris Johnson elected Prime Minister UK)
  2. 11 January 2020   cover – Masterstroke Or Madness (Trump kills Gen. Soleimani)

 

Literature:

  1. Essayism – Brian Dillon – 2017
  2. Nolan on Bradbury –    W.F. Nolan – 2013  READ
  3. The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 – J. Shapiro  2015  READ
  4. This Thing Called Literature – A. Bennett and N. Royle – 2015
  5. Critics, Monsters, Fanatics, and Other Literary Essays – C Oziek – 2016
  6. The Ocean, the Bird and the Scholar – H. Vendler – 2015
  7. Orwell: The Authorized Biography – M. Shelden – 1991
  8. Joy Ride: Lives of th Theatricals – J. Lahr – 2015
  9. The Figure of the Detective: A Literary History and Analysis – C. Brownson
  10. A Reader’s Guide to William Faulkner: The Short Stories – E. Volpe – 2004
  11. You Could Look It Up: – J. Lynch

#ReadIreland

Ireland:

  1. Patrick Kavanagh – A. Quinn – (biography) – 2003
  2. The Theatre of Tom Murphy – N. Grene
  3. The Spaces of Irish Drama – H. Lojek   READ
  4. Elsewhere: One Woman, One Rucksack, One Lifetime of Travel – R. Boland
  5. Constellations – Sinéad Gleeson
  6. Republic of Shame:  – C. Hogan – 2019
  7. The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir – Samantha Power – 2019 READ
  8. Say Nothing – Patrick Radden Keefe
  9. The Irish Writer and the World – Declan Kiberd  (2001)   READ
  10. Essays on John McGahern – editors D. Hand, E. Maher

 

Memoir:

  1. Imperfect: How Our Bodies Shape the People We Become –  Lee Koffman
  2. Her Mother’s Daughter by Nadia Wheatley – July 2018
  3. Sightlines – K. Jamie – READ
  4. Notes for the Everlost: A Field Guide to Grief – Kate Inglis – 2018
  5. Louisbourg or Bust: Surfer’s Wild Ride Down Nova Scotia’s Coast – R. Shaw
  6. Following the River:  Traces of Red River Women (indigenous
  7. Tiny Lights for Travellers – Naomi K. Lewis – 2019
  8. To the River: Losing My Brother – Don Gillmor – 2018
  9. Homes: A Refugee Story – Abu Baker Al Rabeeah – 2018
  10. The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone – Olivia Laing – 2016
  11. Island Home – Tim Winton – 2015 (landscape memoir)
  12. Surrender – Joanna Pocock (2019)- READ

 

Essays:

  1. Rebellious Daughter – editors Maria Katsonis, Lee Koffman – 2016  #AWW
  2. The World Was Whole by Fiona Wright  – 2018 – #AWW
  3. Accidental feminists – Jane Caro – 2019  #AWW
  4. Stop Being Reasonable – Eleanor Gordon-Smith – 2019  #AWW
  5. Remembered Presences – Alison Croggon – 2019  #AWW
  6. The Rest is Noise – A. Ross – 2007

 

Biography:

  1. Napoleon: A Life – Adam Zamoyski
  2. Bearing Witness: The remarkable life of Charles Bean,  – P. Rees
  3. Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics  (science) – Ruth Lewin Sime – 1996
  4. Honeysuckle Creek: The Story of Tom Reid – Andrew Tink – 2018
  5. Lynn Margulis: The Life and Legacy of a Scientific Rebel – D. Sagan – 2012
  6. Our Man Elsewhere: In Search of Alan Moorehead – Thornton McCamish – 2
  7. The Strangest Family George III’s Extraordinary Experiment – J Hadlow
  8. Threads in the Acadian Fabric: – S. Poirier-Bures
  9. The Long Way Home: A Personal History of Nova Scotia – J. Demont
  10. The Dead Still Cry – H. Lewis – 2018
  11. Saul Steinberg: A Biography – Deidre Bair – 2012
  12. Richard the Third – P. M. Kendall – 2002
  13. Thomas Aquinas: A Portrait – Denys Turner – 2013
  14. Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times – A. Walker
  15. The Churchill Factor – Boris Johnson  – READ
  16. Robert Kennedy and His Times – A. Schlesinger 
  17. Master of the Senate – R. Caro – READ

 

History / Social History / Political History

  1. Leadership: In Turbulent Times – D. K. Goodwin – 2018
  2. Appeasing Hitler – Tim Bouverie – 2019
  3. How to Hide an Empire – Daniel Immerwahr – June 2019
  4. Rendezvous With Destiny:  M. Fullilove – 2013 
  5. Passchendaele: Requiem for Doomed Youth – Paul Ham  2018
  6. Serving our Country by J. Beaumont & A. Cadzow – April 2018
  7. The Impeachers: Trial of Andrew Johnson – B. Wineapple
  8. The Pope Who Would Be King: The Exile of Pius IX – D. Kertzer
  9. Realpolitik – J. Bew – 2016
  10. Medieval Lives -T. Jones – 2005
  11. Desert War: The North African Campaign 1940-43 – A. Moorehead – 1944
  12. Threads in the Acadian Fabric: – S. Poirier-Bures
  13. Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45 – B Tuchman – 2001
  14. Nixon at the Movies: A Book about Belief – M. Feeney – 2004  READ
  15. On the Natural History of Destruction – W.G. Sebald – 2004
  16. From Russia with Blood – Heidi Blake (2019)  READ
  17. An American Summer: Love and Death in Chicago –  Alex Kotlowitz
  18. Winners Take All:  –  Anand Giridharadas
  19. No Visible Bruises –  Rachel Louise Snyder
  20. Assad or We Burn the Country –  Sam Dagher
  21. The Light that Failed –  Stephen Holmes and Ivan Krastev (PH)
  22. Remembering Emmett Till –  Dave Tell
  23. Amritsar 1919: An Empire of Fear – Kim Wagner
  24. Red Star Over China:  (1937) E. Snow
  25. Maoism: A Global History – Julia Lovell
  26. How to be a Dictator – Frank Dikötter
  27. An Impeccable Spy: Richard Sorge, Stalin’s Master Agent – Owen Matthews
  28. Family Papers: ephardic Journey Through the 20th C – Sarah Abrevaya Stein
  29. Schism –  Paul Blustein
  30. First Raise a Flag: How South Sudan Won the Longest War – P Martell
  31. Into the Hands of the Soldiers: Freedom and Chaos in Egypt and MEast
  32. Rise and Kill First: Secret History Israel’s Assassinations – R. Bergman
  33. Hit List:  Mysterious Deaths Witnesses JFK Assassination  (2013) READ
  34. JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died – J.W. Douglass –  READ
  35. Mary’s Mosaic: CIA Conspiracy to Murder JFK, Mary Meyer– P. Janney READ
  36. Grote Verwachtingen In Europa – 1999-2019 – G. Mak (popular Dutch writer)
  37. Scorpions: Battles -Triumphs FDR’s Great Supreme Court Justices – N. Feldman
  38. The Secret Team: CIA and Allies  – L. Fletcher Prouty (1972) – READ
  39. The Terrible Mistake – H.P. Albarelli jr  (2008)
  40. The Betrayal – W Corson (1968)

 

Geopolitical – Economics/Politics:

  1. The Way of the Strangers: Encounters With the Islamic State – G.Wood
  2. Silent Invasion by Clive Hamilton – 2018
  3. The China Model – Daniel Bell – 2016
  4. Talking to My Daughter: A Brief History of Capitalism – Y. Varoufakis
  5. The Age of American Unreason in a Culture of Lies  – Susan Jacoby
  6. The Meritocracy Trap – Daniel Markovits (2019)
  7. Unbound: How Inequaity Contricts Our Economy – Heather Boushey (2019
  8. Comrade Ambassador: Whitlam’s Beijing Envoy  – S. FitzGerald – Sept 2015 
  9. Everything Trump Touches Dies:  – R. Wilson
  10. Siege: Trump Under Fire – M. Wolff
  11. The Threat: How FBI Protects America  – A. G. McCabe – 2019
  12. The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America – G. Packer – 2013
  13. Catch and Kill: – Ronan Farrow – 2019
  14. A Warning – Anonymous 2019
  15. Thomas Merton on Peace -T. Merton – 1971

 

Science/Climate Change/Technology

  1. The Best Australian Science Writing 2017  – M. Sleazak, E. Johnston
  2. Cosmic Chronicles: A user’s guide to the universe – Fred Watson
  3. Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore  – Elizabeth Rush
  4. The New Rules of War: Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder – Sean McFate
  5. The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future – David Wallace-Wells
  6. Good Reasons for Bad Feelings –  Randolph Nesse
  7. Wild sea: a history of the southern ocean – J. McCann   READ

 

24
Dec

Merry Christmas 2019

 

  1. The shopping is done….
  2. The cooking is done….
  3. Now all I have to do is
  4. …wait for Santa Claus]
  5. …and give him some Xmas cookies!
  6. Happy Christmas to all!
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)

7
Dec

#AWW 2019 Nine Lives: Women Writers

  • Author:  Susan Sheridan
  • Title: Nine Lives: Postwar Women Writers Making Their Mark
  • Published: 2011
  • Genre: non-fiction
  • Rating: A
  • Trivia:  This book has been sitting on my TBR for two years!
  • List of Challenges 2019
  • Monthly plan
  • #AWW2019   @AusWomenWriters

 

NOTE:

  1. Trying to get back to books with
  2. …’one’ very good eye after cataract surgery
  3. …the the other eye ready for correction in 2 weeks.
  4. #NeedCoffee

 

Introduction:

  1. Why did I wait so long to read this wonderful book?
  2. I think the  bland bookcover did not catch my eye.
  3. Ms Sheridan should have used thumbnail photos of te
  4. …talented Australian writers she was about  to introduce to this reader!

 

  1. This books contains
  2. nine condensed, compact biographies of Australian Women writers
  3. Sheridan highlights a generation of women writers
  4. overlooked in the Australian contemporary literary scene.
  5. These women writers who were born between 1915-1930:
  6. Judith Wright
    Thea Astley
    Dorothy Hewett
    Rosemary Dobson
    Dorothy Aucherlonie Green
    Gwen Harwood
    Jessica Anderson
    Amy Witting
    Elizabeth Jolley

 

  1. All had children...
  2. J. Wright and D. Green were the sole support of their families.
  3. The nine women were versatile writers
  4. poet, playwright, novelist, short stories,
  5. non-fiction (autobiography), literary critic and editor.
  6. T. Astely won Miles Franklin Award 4x, Jessica Anderson 2x and E. Jolley 1x.
  7. All shared a sense of urgency…
  8. their vocation, their ‘need’ to be a writer
  9. that would not let them rest.

 

 

  1. Judith Wright – was an important name in the emerging postwar literature.
  2. She was one of the few Australian poets to achieve international recognition.
  3. Ms Wright is the author of of several collections of poetry,
  4. including The Moving Image, Woman to
  5. Man, The Gateway, The Two Fires, Birds,
  6. The Other Half, Magpies, Shadow, Hunting Snake, among others.
  7. Her work is noted for a keen focus on the Australian environment.

 

 

  1. Thea Astley –  I am a huge fan of this writer.
  2. I did learn more tidbits of info about this woman.
  3. Critics were not always kind to Thea Astely.
  4. The ending of  The Slow Natives
  5. …was  “…too sentimental and melodramatic.
  6. I didn’t think so!
  7. Even Patrick White was harsh.
  8. Criticism should be like rain
  9. …gentle enough to nourish growth without
  10. …destroying the roots.
  11. White’s  fault finding ended their friendship.
  12. Thea Astley won Miles Franklin Award four times!

 

  1. Dorothy Hewett – After reading Ms Hewett’s short biography in this book the
  2. only thing that suited this woman is the song: Born to be Wild  !!
  3. Once I read about the tumultuous life of Dorothy Hewett I knew
  4. I had to read her books.
  5. I ordered Baker’s Dozen ( 13 short stories)…
  6. …cannot wait to read it!

 

 

  1. Rosemary Dobson – She was fully established as a poet by the age of 35.
  2. She published 14 collections of poems.
  3. The Judges of the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards in 1996
  4. described her significance as follows:
  5. “The level of originality and strength of
  6. Rosemary’s poetry cannot be underestimated…”

 

  1. Dorothy Auchterlonie Green –  She saw herself primarily as a scholar.
  2. Ms Green felt overworked and
  3. under-recognized, trapped by circumstances of her life and unsure of her capacity as a poet.
  4. She won widespread admiration for her poetry, literary scholarship
  5. her reviews and social criticism and inspirational teaching.

 

  1. Gwen Harwood – She was sick of the way poetry
  2. editors (Meanjin) treated her…no accepting her work.
  3. Ms Harwoon created several nom de plume: Geyer , Lehmann and Stone.
  4. Geyer and Lehmann were regularly invited to meet editors for lunch next time they were in Sydney
  5. or Melbourne. Geyer was evern invited to read at the Adelaide Festival.
  6. ….he respectively declined.
  7.  Awards

 

  1. Jessica Anderson – She was in a male-dominated and
  2. Anglocentric publishing world.
  3. How did she survive?
  4. She cultivated the qualities of character and
  5. strategies of survival necessary to
  6. sustain enough belief in herself to go on writing.
  7. She won the Miles Franklin Award twice…1978 and 1980.

  1. Amy Witting – For many years Amy Witting was invisible in the literary world.
  2. She won the Patrick White Award 1993
  3. for writers who have not received adequate recognition.
  4. I am waiting for her book of short stories to arrive…Marriages
  5. …I’m sure Amy Witting will have much to tell about this institution!

 

  1. Elizabeth Jolley – In a single year she received 39 rejection slips
  2. …yet she persisted.
  3. She won Miles Franklin Award 1986.

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »