Sunday 30 November 2014

AusReading Month Wrap-Up

I've thoroughly enjoyed my month of Aussie books, especially since I combined AusReading Month with Non-Fiction November.
It was a great incentive to finish some of those Australian history books lying by my bed!

I've tried to not let hosting AusReading Month take over my life, as I want to read Australian books during November, not blog all the time!

My blog is meant to help me focus my reading and keep a track of what I like & don't like and why.

But I found that I did end up blogging for large parts of every day (at the expense of reading time).

I love blogging & I love reading, but I feel that I need to balance the two a little better. I know I can get a little obsessive when I find something I love doing and feel passionate about it. The trick I have to learn is moderation!

In the meantime, it's time to wrap up AusReading Month.

What did I read?

I completed 12 books - 3 non-fiction, 4 fiction, 3 picture books & 2 children's books.

I got to Number 35 in Adam Spencer's Big Book of Numbers (only 65 to go!) and I'm a 1/4 of the way through The Watch Tower by Elizabeth Harrower (very, very disturbing!)

What was my favourite Aussie read this month?

Fiction - Golden Boys by Sonya Hartnett
Non-Fiction - Sydney by Delia Falconer
Children's - The Ghost's Child by Sonya Hartnett

Happy Surprise?

My first Rowland Sinclair mystery - a real gem - can't wait to read the rest.

Disappointment?

That I didn't even pick up The Biggest Estate on Earth. I really want to read this, but I don't seem to make any time for it.

What's next?

To work on my Aussie author alphabet list, so I have few completed drafts before going on holidays in the New Year!
To join in Heavenali's Willa Cather reading week 7th-14th Dec.
To survive the Christmas madness at work.
Put up the Christmas tree.

Plans for next year's AusReading Month?

To have a few weekly questions/ surveys for participants to join in (with the aim of still keeping it about reading time not blogging time).
Organise a State by State reading challenge.

That's it!
That's all folks.
It's a wrap for another year.

Thank you one and all for visiting, reading, reviewing, commenting & tweeting.
Your enthusiasm & interest keeps me going.

Mr Linky will stay live for another few days if you have any more review posts to add.

Saturday 29 November 2014

Withering-by-Sea by Judith Rossell

Withering-by-Sea is styled as a new mystery series for good 10+ readers who love a good Victorian melodrama.

Young Stella Montgomery is an orphan being raised by her three strait-laced, much older & very unsympathetic aunts. They roam the countryside seeking health cures & tonics whilst Stella quietly does her lessons and tries to stay out of mischief.

At Withering-by-Sea though, Stella witnesses a crime - a very mysterious & disturbing crime that sees her learning about her own mysterious past as she does everything she can to honour a promise to a dying man.

Rossell has illustrated her book with gorgeous black & white line drawings. Whole pages as well as  little inset details, patterns & borders decorate this book.

Everything about Stella's story discretely cries success.

Signor CapellĂ­s Educated Cats
A spunky heroine, an exciting light fantasy/fey storyline - all presented in a beautifully packaged book...with the promise of more books to come!

I hope Judith Rossell writes and draws quickly because I suspect her fans will be clamouring for more.

Friday 28 November 2014

A Gentle Crime Wave Hits Sydney & AusReading Month

I picked up The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender by Marele Day because it recently appeared on the new HSC discovery-themed prescribed texts list.


It was first published in 1988, with three follow up books in 1990,1992 & 1994.They all featured private eye, Claudia Valentine, affectionately described as "Sam Spade in a frock"!
Day also pays homage to Raymond Chandler throughout the book.

Sydney and the Inner West suburbs feature strongly.

Part of the fun for me was picking which suburb & seeing well-known haunts through a lens now 20 years gone. It was lovely to be reminded of the old Glebe Island Bridge (now replaced by the ANZAC Bridge), seeing Darling Harbour all gritty & grimy prior to its makeover & laughing as Claudia cursed the new Monorail (recently pulled down again)!

We wound through Pyrmont, then suddenly; the city. The tall blocks of buildings, the centre pole of Sydney Tower that dazzled the city with fool's gold at sunset but was somewhat sallow at this time of day. Not quite the metropolis of New York but still it took your breath away, so much of it, so suddenly. Now we were on the Expressway over Darling Harbour where buildings with their eyes gouged out had been demolished to make way for 'development', for the men of power to build monliths to themselves. Some days the city looked like a huge building site. The present annhilating the past and sweet-talking the future. We ducked under the Monorail, that stealthy snake-like creature that had lately insinuated itself into the city, passed docks and piers and luxury launches...and the old warehouse that remind that Sydney was, after all, a port.

I have to confess to getting a little bored with the story by the end. There were times when Day's gentle crime story got overshadowed by her love letter to Sydney.
In fact, Sydney, as a character, was fleshed out and developed more thoroughly than any of the flesh & blood characters!

On the other hand, Sulari Gentill's 1930's mystery romp around Sydney was delightfully charming from start to finish.


A Few Right Thinking Men (2010) is the first book in Gentill's Rowland Sinclair series.

Rowland Sinclair & his artistic friends are well-rounded, believable characters. The crime they find themselves mixed up in is fairly easy to work out. But it's the predicaments and situations they get themselves into (& out of again) that provide the action and the interest. Witty dialogue & fascinating historical notes make this book un-put-downable.

Sydney once again plays a big role in this story as the characters and some of the drama centres around the opening of the brand new Sydney Harbour Bridge (which my grandparents also witnessed on their honeymoon).

Yass also plays a role when Rowland and his friends visit family in country NSW.

Gentill highlights a fascinating time in NSW history - with the rise of the New Guard, Jack Lang's turbulent Premiership & the effects of the Depression.

I will definitiely seek out the rest of the books in her series (A Decline in Prophets, Miles Off Course, Paving the New Road, Gentlemen Formerly Dressed & just this month, A Murder Unmentioned).

Both books were read for AusReading Month.

Thursday 27 November 2014

B is for James Bradley

Aussie Author Challenge #2

This week we visit a contemporary Australian writer, poet & critic.

James Bradley


Born 15th May 1967 in Adelaide, SA.

Bradley stuudied at the University of Adelaide where he studied law & philosophy.

He now lives in Sydney with his partner, the novelist Mardi McConnochie, and daughters, Annabelle and Lila.

Novels
  • Wrack (1997)  - Shortlisted for Miles Franklin Award & the Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Best First Book.
  • The Deep Field (1999)
  • The Resurrectionist (2006)
Poetry
  • Paper Nautilus (1994) 
Editor
  • Blur: Stories by Young Australian Writers (1996)
  • The Penguin Book of the Ocean (2010)
James Bradley by Bronwyn Rennex

I thoroughly enjoyed Wrack & to a lesser degree The Deep Field.

Both books deal with time, loss & self-discovery.

Wrack delved into the historical myths & truths surrounding the 'discovery' of Australia. Set on the beautiful south coast of NSW & moving between several time periods, I found this book absorbing & moving. Over a decade later I can still bring to mind the beach shack & the wild coastal storms that featured strongly in the story.

Wrack has now been included as one of the possible texts for the new HSC Discovery module.

  "In the end, nothing is true, save that which we feel. Nothing we remember, nothing we believe, all are just stories and echoes. The past is a shifting sea where nothing is certain, and where the things we seek cannot be found, a place where we seek lands that rise from the mist into the glare of the sun and then vanish again, as quickly as they arrived. A shifting sea with nothing at its centre, except illusions, and loss." (Wrack)

The Deep Field was set in the future - a future only a decade on from the publication date (I will have to reread this to see how the futuristic stuff holds up).
Sadly the only thing I remember about this book is the ammonites.

Historical stories will always grab my attention more that science fiction, I guess.

Blur was a curious mix of stories from new young writers. I wanted to enjoy it more than I actually did.

I have also been eyeing off The Penguin Book of Ocean for years.

"James Bradley presents a dazzling selection of writing exploring this grandest of obsessions, combining fact and fiction, classical and contemporary, to create a collection like no other.
From Rachel Carson's luminous account of our planet's birth to the story of the wreck that inspired Moby-Dick, from Ernest Shackleton's harrowing account of his escape from Antarctica by open boat to Tim Winton's award-winning dissection of the dark side of surfing, The Penguin Book of the Ocean is a hymn to the mystery, beauty and majesty of the ocean, and to the poets and explorers it has inspired."

If you'd like to read about Bradley & his novel Resurrectionist - check out the PanMacmillan page here.

His personal blog is called City of Tongues where he talks about, amongst other things, his latest novel, Clade, to be published in January 2015.

Bradley on winning the Pacall Prize for Australia's best critic 2012.

"As for principles, someone once said that the only bad writing is dishonest writing, and I tend to agree. The best thing you can do is write from the heart and talk about how you felt and what you think. Part of that is about being honest about what you thought, but it's also about acknowledging your own prejudices and being prepared to acknowledge critical judgements are always provisional."

Have you read anything by Bradley? One of his novels, or maybe one one of his newpaper articles?
Do you have a favourite author that writes about the beach?

This post is also part of Jenny's Alphabe-Thursday meme.

Wednesday 26 November 2014

State by State

State by State is a rather ambitious attempt by me to list books that highlight or feature certain states of Australia.

I imagine that most of these books will be by Australian writers, but I'm happy to add books by international authors where appropriate.

In keeping with my blog, I will also attempt to list picture books, teen books & non-fiction titles as well as adult books.

I would be delighted to hear about your favourite books that have been set in one particular state or region of Australia.

Please leave a note or review link in the comments below saying which state, city or region your book is set in and any information you might like to share about the author.

State by State may eventually become a reading challenge, but after losing a couple of draft posts lately, I am reluctant to let this sit any longer without publishing.

Blogger is testing the maxim 'publish or perish'!

So let's start at the very beginning...a list of Australian books & authors already reviewed by me with their state &/or region in brackets.


Australia

Golden Boys by Sonya Hartnett (fiction)

NSW

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty (fiction/Sydney)
Bob Graham (writer/illustrator/children) 
Dancing on Coral by Glenda Adams (fiction/Sydney) 
The Golden Day by Ursula Dubosarsky (fiction/teen/YA/Sydney)
The Ladies of Missalonghi by Colleen McCullough (fiction/Blue Mountains) 
The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville (fiction/Sydney)
Looking For Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta (teen/YA/Sydney)
Nanberry by Jackie French (teen/fiction/Sydney)
Pastures of the Blue Crane by H.F. Brinsmead (teen/YA/Tweed)
Playing Beatie Bow by Ruth Park (classic/teen/Sydney)
The Railwayman's Wife by Ashley Hay (fiction/Thirroul) 
Red by Libby Gleeson (teen/Sydney)
Sarah Thornhill by Kate Grenville (fiction/Hawkesbury)
Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner (classic/teen/Sydney)
The Sky So Heavy by Clare Zorn (teen/YA/Blue Mountains/Sydney)
Sydney by Delia Falconer (memoir)
The Tunnels of Tarcoola by JenniferWalsh (teen/fcition/Sydney)
When We Were Two by Robert Newton (teen/YA/country)
The Women in Black by Madeleine St John (classic/Sydney)

Victoria

 Ash Road by Ivan Southall (classic/teen)
The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka by Clare Wright (non-fiction/goldfields)
The Getting of Wisdom by Henry Handel Richardson (classic/teen/YA/fiction/goldfields/Melbourne
This House of Grief by Helen Garner (non-fiction)
Alison Lester (writer/illustrator/children)
Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay (classic/fiction) 
A Waltz For Matilda by Jackie French (teen/fiction)
Whisky, Charlie, Foxtrot by Annabel Smith (YA/Melbourne)

Queensland

Thea Astley (author)
Boy, Lost by Kristina Olsson (memoir/FNQ/Brisbane)
Coal Creek by Alex Miller (fiction)
Flood by Jackie French & Bruce Whatley (picture book)
The Flying Orchestra by Clare McFadden (picture book/Brisbane)

South Australia

Adelaide by Kerryn Goldsworthy (memoir)

Tasmania

Into That Forest by Louis Nowra (fiction/teen/YA)

ACT

The Beginner's Guide to Revenge by Marianne Musgrove (teen/fiction)

Western Australia

Dirt Music by Tim Winton (fiction)
Eyrie by Tim Winton (fiction/Perth)
Jandamarra by Mark Greenwood & Terry Denton (non-fiction/children/Fitzroy Crossing)
Lost and Found by Brooke Davis (fiction/Perth)
Midnite The Story of a Wild Colonial Boy by Randolph Stow (classic/children)
Jan Ormerod (writer/illustrator/children)
Shark Net by Robert Drewe (memoir/Perth)
Shaun Tan (writer/illustrator/children/teen/YA)

Northern Territory

Welcome to My Country by Laklak Burarrwanga & Family (non-fiction/children/Arnham Land)




AusReading Month 2014 - Sign Up Post
AusReading Month 2013 - The End
AusReading Month 2013 - Masterpost
AusReading Month 2013 - Inaugural Sign Up Post


Project started: Nov 2013

Tuesday 25 November 2014

Blogging 101 or How Not to Panic When Everything Goes Wrong.

I have been having some issues with blogger.

Last month I lost a draft post that I had been working on for a year (yes, I nearly cried!)

Ever since last year's AusReading Month I had been wanting to do something that catalogued Australian books by the State or region they were set in (much like what Melissa had done with her US Reading the States).

I couldn't work out the design or format that suited me, so I kept adding notes on each state, until inspiration struck.
Instead of inspiration - disaster!
The entire state of Victoria - gone!

Blogger help forum sadly informed me that lost draft posts are irretrievable - forever.
The only solution - write all future draft posts in a word document. Then copy & paste only when ready to publish.

Fine!
If that's what I have to do; I'll do it!

But then...on Monday morning...

I wanted to update some info on my 'Nobel' page when suddenly - pooof!
Everything gone & replaced by an exact replica copy of the post I had just published.
Autosave kicked in straight away (which has been a godsend the couple of times my computer crashed mid-post!) but this time....well, Nancy heard my scream in the Netherlands!

Blogger help forum indicated that there is a way to find a lost published post or page...but so far no-one has responded to my plea for help.

However, while I was there, I decided to check out some of the other forums.

Maybe everything really does happen for a reason, because I discovered the answer to the page problem that has been annoying me ever since I started blogging.

Blogger pages are static, one page entities that can only be changed by update editing (like what I tried to do with my Nobel page).....or so I thought!

One comment, a bit more research and suddenly I had the knowledge to make my pages dynamic 'blogs within a blog'!

The Nobel page is now it's own little blog (I'll wait while you check it out.)

The change has meant losing all the comments on the old Nobel page - sorry Nancy, most of them were yours :-(

Whether I change all the pages above is another matter.

For instance the CBCA page is such a big list with multiple links it would require a lot of tweeking to change to dynamic. And the genre pages are designed to just be lists.

But State by State will definitely be one of the new & improved dynamic blogs within a blog. It was the design formatting idea I was waiting to have!
(Although Victoria will have to wait to make an appearance, since I still have to rewrite it from scratch!)

The other thing I learnt on the forum, was how to add your google+ comments onto my blog posts, so now all my comments appear in one place!

Yes, I am a blogging genius!

Monday 24 November 2014

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

The Watch Tower by Elizabeth Harrower

"Breaking their poses like trees snapping branches, the women urgently regarded each other, cleared away all signs of work in an instant, examined their souls for defects, in a sense crossed themselves, and waited.

After Laura and Clare are abandoned by their mother, Felix is there to help, even to marry Laura if she will have him. Little by little the two sisters grow complicit with his obsessions, his cruelty, his need to control.

Set in the leafy northern suburbs of Sydney during the 1940s, The Watch Tower is a novel of relentless and acute psychological power
."

Withering-by-Sea by Judith Rossell

"A Victorian fantasy-adventure, perfect for fans of WILDWOOD and TENSY FARLOW AND THE HOME FOR MISLAID CHILDREN Ages: 9-12.
 High on a cliff above the gloomy coastal town of Withering-by-Sea stands the Hotel Majestic. Inside the walls of the damp, dull hotel, eleven-year-old orphan Stella Montgomery leads a miserable life with her three dreadful Aunts. 
But one night, Stella sees something she shouldn't have ... Something that will set in motion an adventure more terrifying and more wonderful than she could ever have hoped for ... 
 From hugely talented Australian writer-illustrator Judith Rossell comes a thrilling and gripping Victorian fantasy-adventure, the first in an extraordinarily exciting new series."

I am down to the last 6 days of AusReading Month & Non-Fiction November

I finished three of the four books on last Monday's to-do list (wahoo!), but am still working my way through the non-fiction picks from the previous two weeks. I'm thoroughly enjoying them; it's just that I read non-fiction much more slowly than fiction.

For the first time in months & months, Mr Books & I had a night at the movies to see Interstellar (wow! what an epic journey! Some ghastly dialogue & intrusive music but utterly compelling when it gets stuck into the time & loss stuff).
We also took the boys (+ girlfriend) to see Mockingjay earlier in the day (Katniss is endlessly watchable but I'm very annoyed they split the book in two - just seems like a money-grubbing ploy to me.)

I finally started my Aussie Author Challenge on Thursday with the (only) four times winner of the Miles Franklin Thea Astley
I have my list of 26 contenders. The B for James Bradley post is under way - so far so good.
The real challenge, of course, will be the actual writing of an author post every week for the next 25 weeks!

The way I feel right now, just getting through this week in one piece without blowing my top, crying or curling up in a little ball in the corner to wait the week out will be a major achievement!

What are you reading this week?
Join in Sheila's Monday meme to have your say & see what everyone else is reading. 
It's a great way to make your TBR pile explode!


Saturday 22 November 2014

The Ghost's Child by Sonya Hartnett

Most of you are already aware that I am now an evangelical Sonya Hartnett fanatic.
The Ghost's Child does nothing to change that!

I do wonder, though, if I would have enjoyed her books as a teen.

 "She'd weathered the bafflement of her childhood, and her bleak school years."

I tended to prefer girlish series and romances back then. Occasionally a librarian or teacher would challenge me with something like Animal Farm or To Kill a Mockingbird or A Merchant of Venice & I would get a taste of the big, wide wonderful world of adult literature ahead of me. It's just that I wasn't in any rush to get there.

I'm not sure if Hartnett's beautiful fable about love & loss, beauty, happiness & honesty would have caught my eye.

"It would be a shame to give up. Every journey must be finished."

Which is a shame, because The Ghost's Child has so much to say about life & death & the journey of growing up that happens in between.

"...but the truth is that memory is hardly ever good enough to console a heart."

Hartnett uses the usual magical elements associated with fairy tales to describe the unusual childhood & life of Matilda. Her use of language is simply glorious; lusher than Steven Herrick's (see review below) but equally as complex & nuanced.

This is a slim book with a lot to say about feminine power, freedom & truth.

I'll leave you with a few quotes...if I can decide, that is, which few to pull out!

"She had missed the hills when she was away, their bushfire smell and crackliness, the still air between the trees. She'd missed seeing lizards vanish under stones, missed hearing bellbird calls link the eucalypts like silver neck chains."

"The nargun had no sense of humour, so it never laughed at her; she told it what she dreamt and feared, and it took what she said very seriously. It folded her secrets against its solid black heart and carried their weight for her."

(NB: The Den of Nargun is found on Woolshed Creek in the Mitchell River National Park, Gippsland region, Victoria. Legend has it that the nargun was a fierce half-human, half-stone creature. It had the ability to deflect back to the thrower any weapon used against it. This story was used as a cautionary tale by local tribes to stop children from wandering too far away from the camp. 
The Den of Nargun was actually a sacred site for women's initiation and learning ceremonies. Hence Hartnett's use of the nargun legend in this story.)

Thursday 20 November 2014

A is for Thea Astley

Suzie @ Suz's Space recently put out the challenge for Australian book bloggers to follow her example with Authors by Alphabet.
Her focus is science fiction writers.
Susan @ Reading Upside Down has chosen Australian children's authors.

And I decided to do Australian (adult) authors.

However two weeks have now gone by & I have failed to get started.
Mostly because I got bogged down by what I wanted to do. But also in how I was going to fit another challenge into my AusReading Month schedule AND my State by State project (see tab above).

It took a visit to Jenny's Alphabe-Thursday meme (that I join in occasionally) to finally get me motivated.
I saw that she was, for the ninth time, coming to the end of the alphabet. And she has, despite ill health, decided to continue with Alpabe-Thursday for the tenth time.

I hope that Jenny and friends wont mind me hijacking their favourite meme with my own Aussie Author Challenge.

I plan to alternate between male & female authors & I will endeavour to choose authors that I have read so that I can add a personal touch to the bio's.

So let's begin at the very beginning...

Thea Astley

Born August 25th 1925 in Brisbane
Died 17th August 2002 Byron Bay

She studied arts at University of Queensland & also completed her teaching training.
In 1948 she married Jack Gregson & moved to Sydney.
She taught in various highschool & tutored at Macquarie Uni until 1980.
Astley then retired to Kuranda, North Queensland with her husband, to focus on writing full time.
She also lived near Nowra for a time & Byron Bay.

Novels

  • Girl with a Monkey (1958)
  • A Descant for Gossips (1960)
  • The Well Dressed Explorer (1962)                     Miles Franklin winner
  • The Slow Natives (1965)                                    Miles Franklin winner
  • A Boat Load of Home Folk (1968)
  • The Acolyte (1972)                                             Miles Franklin winner
  • A Kindness Cup (1974)
  • An Item from the Late News (1982)
  • Beachmasters (1985)
  • It's Raining in Mango (1987)
  • Reaching Tin River (1990) 
  • Vanishing Points (1992)
  • Coda (1994)
  • The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow (1996)        Miles Franklin long/shortlist
  • Drylands (1999)                                                   Miles Franklin winner

Short stories

  • Hunting the Wild Pineapple (1979)
  • Collected Stories (1997)

Susan Wyndham writes that
"in person and in print, the chain-smoking Astley was unsentimental, wickedly funny and yet had a deep kindness and a loathing of injustice towards Aborigines, underdogs and misfits."

Kerryn Goldsworthy:
"I love its densely woven grammar, its ingrained humour, its uncompromising politics, and its undimmed outrage at human folly, stupidity and greed.... Her body of work [over four decades] adds up to a protracted study in the way that full-scale violence and tragedy can flower extravagantly from the withered seeds of malice and resentment ... The perps in Drylands are all her usual suspects: racists, developers, hypocritical gung-ho civic go-gooders, and assorted unreconstructed male-supremacist swine."

Thea Astley by Michael Clayton-Jones
Helen Garner wrote
"Great story, great characters ... Stylistically, however, this book is like a very handsome, strong and fit woman with too much makeup on ... This kind of writing drives me berserk."

Delys Bird:
"Astley's novels and stories typically present a sceptical view of social relationships among ordinary people, one often coloured by her former Catholicism, and directed through the struggles of her self-conscious protagonists to find an expressive space within their uncongenial surroundings."

I've only read the one Astley novel, A Descant for Gossips. It was recommended to me by a friend who was an English Highschool teacher.

It was quite a while ago.

I remember loving the descriptions of Queensland & the sense of forboding that hung over the characters and the town. I was a teacher in a small country town myself & the difficulties and problems felt real enough & possible. I remember feeling rage at the manipulation & lies of the main character.

I also remember struggling with the flow of the language. It was not an easy read or a happy read.
I guess, the fact that I've never hunted out any more Astley novels, would suggest that I didn't love it enough to dig deeper.
But, neither, am I adverse to reading another one of her books.

Which is just as well, since one of my aims is to read my way through the Miles Franklin winners...eventually!

Have you read any of Astley's work? What did you think?

Wednesday 19 November 2014

The Simple Gift by Steven Herrick

I read my first Herrick last year when I fell in love with Pookie Aleera. I knew I would have to read more.

The Simple Gift is an older teen read, written in verse. (Please, please, please do not be put off by the fact that this is a verse novel. Herrick writes so simply and cleanly that you quickly forget that you're reading a verse novel.)

Billy is growing up tough. An alcoholic, abusive father and neighbours who don't give a shit. He decides to run away.

The Simple Gift is his story on the road...or to be more accurate, on the tracks.

He hitches a ride on a freight train, meets with kindness from strangers, works things out for himself & repays the kindness to others.

With very few words, Herrick packs an emotional punch. We enter into Billy's world completely for an enriching, nuanced story about belonging, self-discovery, kindness, generosity & love.

The story does contain some sex scenes & sexual references (appropriate for 14+ readers).

My only beef with Billy's story is the heart-warming, happy ending.
Anyone working with runaway youths would know that most of the real-life stories don't end out as well as Billy's did.

The Simple Gift was shortlised for the 2001 CBCA & NSW Premier's Literary Award.

Tuesday 18 November 2014

Noni the Pony Goes to the Beach by Alison Lester

Noni the Pony Goes to the Beach is a follow up book for Alison Lester after the success of Noni the Pony (2011).

Lester has been writing and illustrating children's books for over 30 years.

She was born in country Victoria, growing up on a farm overlooking the sea.

Horses have always been a passion for her, which is especially evident in her two Noni books.

Combined with fun, rhyming text, happy, friendly animals and a story that focuses on friendship and enjoying our natural environment, Lester has successfully transmitted her passion to the page and into our hearts.

Lester's illustrations flow gently across each page to the next. There is a graceful exuberance in these simple drawings that makes your heart feel good.

Noni & her friends exemplify simplicity & joie de vivre!


Noni the Pony was nominated for the 2011 CBCA shortlist. 

Noni the pony is friendly and funny.

Her shimmering tail is the colour of honey.

She lives on a farm at Waratah Bay,

and likes eating apples and carrots and hay.

In 2012, Lester was chosen, along with Boori Monti Pryor, to be Australia's first Childrens Laureate.

 "Her picture books mix imaginary worlds with everyday life, encouraging children to believe in themselves and celebrate the differences that make them special. Alison is involved in many community art projects and spends part of every year travelling to remote Indigenous communities, using her books to help children and adults write and draw about their own lives."

They spent two years travelling around Australia 

"inspiring young people to tell their own stories and be part of an active literary culture for enjoyment, 
well-being and success in life."

Other Alison Lester books that I have reviewed: 

Monday 17 November 2014

It's Monday! Again!

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? has rolled around once again.

This week I have a few books left from last week plus a few newbies.

I'm still working my way through Adam Spencer's fabulous Big Book of Numbers. But I haven't started the Malouf or Best Australian Science Writing 2014 (tch, tch!)

Instead I read a wonderfully engaging free-range read about Sydney (see review below).

Sunday evening usually sees me playing around with book choices for the week. I try a few bits and pieces & see which one sticks.

This week we have these contenders....

The Simple Gift by Steven Herrick (Australian/teen/YA/verse novel)
(2000)
Shortlisted CBCA Book of the Year Award 2001 & The NSW Premiers Literary Award 2001.


Weary of his life with his alcoholic, abusive father, sixteen-year-old Billy packs a few belongings and hits the road, hoping for something better than what he left behind. He finds a home in an abandoned freight train outside a small town, where he falls in love with rich, restless Caitlin and befriends a fellow train resident, "Old Bill," who slowly reveals a tragic past. When Billy is given a gift that changes everything, he learns not only to how forge his own path in life, but the real meaning of family.

The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender by Marele Day (Australian, crime)
(1988)
 
Mark Bannister, writing 'the bestseller of the century' is dead at his computer, a murder so perfect that Claudia Valentine smells a rat and wants it caught. The chase leads deep into the murky underworld of Sydney. Bright, tough Claudia must play a deadly high-tech game of cat and rat with a corrupt menacing crime lord.

A Few Right Thinking Men (Rowland Sinclair #1) by Sulari Gentill  (Australian, crime series)
(2010)
Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book.

Rowland Sinclair is an artist and a gentleman. In Australia's 1930s the Sinclair name is respectable and influential, yet Rowland has a talent for scandal.

Even with thousands of unemployed lining the streets, Rowland's sheltered world is one of exorbitant wealth, culture and impeccable tailoring. He relies on the Sinclair fortune to indulge his artistic passions and friends ... a poet, a painter and a brazen sculptress.

Mounting tensions fuelled by the Great Depression take Australia to the brink of revolution.


The Ghost's Child by Sonya Hartnett (Australian/Teen/YA)
(2007)
Winner CBCA Book of the Year Older Readers Award (2008)
  
The sky was pitch, and gashed by lightning; loutish waves rose and slumped heavily as mudslides. At a moment when she was filled with desperation, Maddy opened her mouth and yelled for Feather. And half-expected him to appear, because she wanted him so much.

Maddy yearns for life to be mystifying, to be as magical as a fairy story. And then one day, on the beach, she meets the strangest young man she has ever seen.

The Ghost's Child is an enchanting fable about the worth of life, and the power of love.

  
The Classics Club spin was spun last Monday...and this time around it's lucky number #13.
Which means that I will be reading Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh before Jan 2015. 

Until then, happy reading! 

Sunday 16 November 2014

Sydney by Delia Falconer

Sydney was not on my TBR list for this week, or for my AusReading Month.
But my free-range reading habits kicked in on Wednesday...& Sydney by Delia Falconer was the result.

I was heading into The Museum of Sydney for the Harry Seidler Painting Towards Architecture exhibition, when I realised I didn't have a book for the ferry trip (or the coffee shop I planned to stop at en route!)

I wanted something small that I could cradle in my hand.
I wanted something that would fit into AusReading Month.
I wanted something non-fiction for Non-Fiction November.
I wanted something historical, something Sydney.
And I wanted something lush & gorgeous to help lift me out of an irritable mood (don't get me started on the topic of back pain and sinus headaches!!)

I have several of the City series of books from NewSouth Publishing on my TBR pile, but have only read Adelaide so far.

I did start Sydney over two years ago.

It stayed in my backpack for the days I took an excursion into the city to check out an exhibition or stroll the Botanic Gardens. I had made my way throughthe first few chapters when a household clean-up at some point, removed the book from my backpack onto a bookshelf....where it languished forgotten, until Wednesday.

It was the perfect accompanionment.

I thought I would just glance at the previously read chapters to remember where I was up to. But instead, I found myself poring over every single page, devouring Delia's stories with relish (& a good coffee from The Governor's Table).

My trip to the Harry Seidler exhibition will appear on my other blog (eventually). For now let me rave a little more about Sydney.

Falconer is of a similar age to myself - her Sydney - her generation is also mine.

I did not grow up in Sydney, but we lived on the Central Coast for most of the 70's.
I also have a sister who required ongoing medical & dental treatment from 6mnths of age. This meant we had regular trips into Sydney to visit doctors and dentists. We usually travelled by train.
I never tired of that amazing moment when Sydney Harbour finally came into view - the bridge, the Opera House & Luna Park out the other window.
Some visits were quick in & out trips - harried, hurried trips with prams and babies, negotiating the forbidable smells in Wynard Station, dusty Martin Place crowds & the intimidating Georgian arcitecture of Macquarie St specialists.

But other times we explored. We took ferry & hydrafoil trips across to Manly, we walked through the safe end of Hyde Park to enjoy the cool shade under the avenue of trees, we strolled through David Jones admiring things we could never afford & occasionally, on those very special trips, we found an old milkbar with speckled mirrors & long booths & pictures of the old country to enjoy a creamy milkshake.

Over the years we dodged flashers in the park, drunks in Martin Place and homeless men in the echoey, smelly caverns that were our underground train stations. We spotted politicians & news readers.

Our visits often coincided with special events (I wonder now if mum planned them that way?)
As teenagers we witnessed the grand re-opening of the Queen Victoria Building. We watched the Queen offcially open Darling Harbour. We went up CentrePoint Tower within months of it opening. We rode the monorail to nowhere.

My knowledge of Sydney is not as intimate as Falconer's, but we share a love of jacaranda's, Sydney sunsets, the Rocks & the (once) grimy, dangerous Inner West suburbs.

Early on, she reflects,

"Ask anyone who lives in a large city to describe 'their' town and it will probably be the city of their early twenties, when their generation seemed to own it."

Twenty-somethings all around the world, in big cities and small villages probably feel the same thing. The place where you come of age is significant. It becomes a part of your personal story. It means something.

That's the beauty of what Falconer has produced here. A personal, meaningful memoir that doubles as a homage to this city of "such staggering beauty and richness."
A homage that embraces the grimy, the dodgy & unsavory elements 

"for every golden dusk, or street of flowering gums, there will be a factory or endless run of discount liquor barns, fast food joints and car yards."

Falconer also helps us to see Sydney through the eyes & words of her artists, poets and authors. 
Watkin Tench, William Dawes, Kenneth Slessor, Ruth Park, Patrick White, Harry Seidler, Brett Whiteley, Peter Solness & Peter Carey are all referenced and placed in situ.

Sydney was a rich, rewarding excursion into my childhood & Falconer's.
It is also a wonderful history & cultural exercise written by someone who loves this city, warts and all.

"The thing about this city is that you always feel the dark pull of the earth, along with the urge for sea & sun."

Saturday 15 November 2014

The Ugly Ducking performed by Justine Clarke

This is The Ugly Duckling song made famous by Danny Kaye in the 1952 movie Hans Christian Andersen (okay...I'll wait for you to finish singing it...)!

The lyrics were originally written by Frank Loesser, but now we have a lovely Australian picture book with Playschool host, Justine Clarke, singing this very familiar song.

The illustrations by Nathaniel Eckstrom are soft, earthy water colours with the animals dominating each page. The entire book has a lovely warm, nostalgic feel.

I found it impossible to read through this book without breaking into song myself!

Included is a CD which allows you to sing along with Justine or you can simply play the instrumental version and do it all yourself.

A lovely tale about image, belonging & self-discovery.