AusReadingMonth Wrap Up

Another AusReadingMonth has come and gone.

Another month of reading lots of fabulous Australian literature and sharing them all around the world.

Thank you one and all for your participation, for sharing your thoughts and for all your enthusiasm. The main reason I keep coming back to host AusReadingMonth year after year is you.

I love our chats and I love seeing Australian authors being celebrated all around the world.

What was your favourite Aussie read this year?

Did you finish your AusReadingMonth Bingo card?

My favourite Aussie read this year (so far) has been The Yield by Tara June Winch.

My favourite read during AusReadingMonth was Ceridwen Dovey's In the Garden of Fugitives.

I almost completed my Bingo card.
It was only in the dying days of the challenge I realised I had forgotten the ACT. I may still try to squeeze one in over the next few days! The link for reviews will stay open for a few more days to capture any of your late reviews as well.

My Bingo Card looks a little like this:

Caring For Country | Billy Griffiths (NT) (Essay)
The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted | Robert Hillman (VIC) (Novel)
Griffith Review 63: Writing the Country (NSW, QLD, VIC, TAS, WA plus Lord Howe Island, Heron Island & PNG) (Essays, Poems & Short Stories)
In the Garden of Fugitives | Ceridwen Dovey (FREE) (Novel)
Trace Fossils | Alice Gorman (SA) (Essay)
Till Apples Grow on an Orange Tree | Cassandra Pybus (TAS) (Memoir)
The Water of Life | Mary-Rose MacColl (QLD) (Novella)
99 Interpretations of the Drove'rs Wives | Ryan O'Neill (NSW) (Oulipian)
The Wonder Child | Ethel Turner (NSW) (Novel)

Sadly, while we reading all about Australia during November, large areas of the country were ablaze with bushfires. NSW, Queensland, parts of Victoria and South Australia have been covered in smoke haze day and night, preparing for the worst, hoping for the best, as fires rage out of control. And it's not even summer yet!

Six lives, hundreds of thousands of hectares of farm land and forest and dozens of homes have been lost to the fires. But it is the wildlife that have really suffered this time. The koala habitats along the eastern seaboard have been devastated and many are now saying that the koala population of Australia is functionally extinct, which apparently, is not entirely true. The images have been confronting and upsetting, but this National Geographic article gives the less sensational and more accurate lowdown on what is happening to our koalas. Their situation is desperate, but not yet at a point of no return.

In the weeks to come, I will post a list of my (current) Australian reading list to inspire you for next year's AusReadingMonth.

However, November is not the only month of the year that you can get excited about reading Australian authors.

The next Aussie reading event to get excited about is Bill @The Australian Legend's Gen III reading week in the middle of Jan 2020. This is the month to read books written by Eleanor Dark, Christina Stead, Eve Langley, Jessica Anderson, Thea Astley, Elizabeth Harrower, Katharine Susannah Prichard, Dymphna Cusak, Mena Calthorpe, Kylie Tennant, Ruth Park, Nettie Palmer, Joan Lindsay, Ernestine Hill and Charmaine Clift just to name a few. For a full list visit Bill's blog.

In Feb 2020 the Stella Prize longlist will be announced. Many bloggers & tweeters aim to read the entire list before the winner is announced in April.

For an extensive list of Australian women writers and their books reviewed by bloggers, visit the Australian Women Writer's Challenge.

Early in July 2020, also watch out for Lisa @ANZ Lit Lover's Indigenous Literature Reading Week.

I will continue to read and review Australian books throughout the year, but until November 2020, that's all for AusReadingMonth 2019.