The Year That Was...

Where did it go?

I know we say that every year, but really, how can it be 2016? I'm still writing 2014 on occasion by mistake!

Fortunately goodreads kept track of some of my reading from 2015. However, goodreads is only as good as the person on the other end of the smart phone remembering to add all the books they actually read!

Instead I've had to spend ages trawling back through blogger to document my reading for 2015 - there must be a better way blogger!

My stats for 2015 are:

Books read and reviewed on Brona's Books: 112
Books reviewed on Four Seasons: 4

Of those 116 books, 39 were books written by Australian women for my Australian Women Writers challenge (link to the 2016 sign up here).
I consider this a BIG success! Almost half of that number were picture books, children and YA reads. 14 books were fiction (classic, verse, crime and contemporary) and 6 were non-fiction (mostly memoir).

I read 57 books in total from Australian authors, 20 of which were picture books.

82 of the 116 titles were books written by women.

45 of the 116 were 2015 publications, 18 were classics and 22 were non-fiction titles.

How to pick the highlights from amongst all of that!

Here goes...

My Best Australian Women's Writer for 2015:

Henry Handel Richardson's epic classic The Fortunes of Richard Mahony.

(with a special mention to The Anchoress and The Monkey's Mask for staying with me all year)

My Best Australian Male Writer for 2015:

Aaron Blabey

Incredibly prolific, funny and on point all year.

My Best Australian Non-Fiction for 2015:

This one is almost too close to call, but I'm going to pick The Reef for re-igniting my passion to save this beautiful planet of ours before it's too late.

(special mention to You're Still Hot to Me for all those peri-menopausal women out there and their families who need a good laugh!)

My Best International Non-fiction for 2015:

Testament of Youth - if you haven't read this yet, make it your mission for 2016. You wont regret it, although it is infused with sadness and loss, you'll never forget it.

(A special shout-out to Tiny Beautiful Things for breaking my heart and putting it back together again and to The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying for helping to clean out my wardrobe).

My Best International Fiction (Female) for 2015:

It's a tie this year!

Ru for introducing me to Vietnamese writing and My Brilliant Friend for being so brilliant.

My Best International Fiction (Male) for 2015:

The Buried Giant

My Best Classic Read for 2015:

Lay down misere to Germinal. I am now officially a Zoladdict!

(special mentions go to North and South for getting me hooked on Gaskell and to Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man.)

My Best Reread for 2015:

Gone With the Wind

My Best Picture Book for 2015:

This was not an easy pick, however Rivertime and Sad, the Dog stand out from the rest.

And they were both written by Australian women :-)

My Best Children's Book for 2015:

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

My Best Teen/YA (Australian) for 2015:

The winner is Lady Helen and the Dark Days Club for surprising me.

My Best Teen/YA (International) for 2015:

Marcus Sedgwick continues to impress me with The Ghosts of Heaven

Mr Books Best of 2015:

Mr Books continues to surprise and delight me with his diverse reading tastes.
These were the two books that sprang straight into his mind when I asked him for his favourite reads of the year. Undermajordomo Minor for its humour, lightness and unusual style which Mr Books found very appealing. The Signature of All Things for the writing and the memorable story.

One of the big successes and pluses for me in 2015 was the readalong.

I participated in at least five (off the top of my head).

I loved the dialogue that occurred - whether it was on our blogs, twitter or via google docs. It made my reading experience a much richer, more in depth one.

I'm trying to come up with a way of making it easier for those who want to or have recently read the same book to come together to share our thoughts.

The Classics Club and the Australian Women Writers both have searchable databases for me to find other reviews for the same books read by me, but there are a whole stack of books not covered by these two groups.

Goodreads has reviews for all listed books but their format doesn't necessarily encourage a conversation.

My resolution for 2016 is to find a way to link or connect the books I have read to those of you who have read the same book, with the aim of creating a discussion.

Maybe it's a simple as adding a linky to all my reviews so that others can leave their reviews (old and new) for me to check out?

I wonder?

Though for now,
Happy New Year and Happy Reading

Ru by Kim Thuy

I love it when I discover a new author that simply bowls me over with the beautiful simplicity of her story. Reading Thuy's (pronounced twee) autobiographical novel, Ru has been a magical, moving experience.

"I came into the world during the Tet Offensive, in the early days of the Year of the Monkey, when the long chain of firecrackers draped in front of houses exploded polyphonically along with the sound of machine guns."

Like Thuy, and her protagonist, An Tinh, I was born in the Year of the Monkey, 1968, but our two stories could not be further apart. Yet last night we shared a chat and a laugh and compared comfort foods (Thuy - congee; me - vegemite on toast).

Thuy spent the first ten years of her life in Saigon; most of that time was taken up with post war reconstruction and re-education programs. Her family then fled Vietnam via boat and eventually ended up in a Malaysian refugee camp. Some time later they emigrated to Quebec, Canada.

There is nothing ordinary or usual about this story and there is nothing usual or ordinary about Thuy's writing - it's a mixture of the poetic, the graphic and the sublime.
Thuy reminds us all to see and feel the love in all the different and subtle ways that people show it to us.

I had the pleasure of meeting Thuy twice during the week at the Writer's Festival in Sydney. She confirmed that her books are such a mix of fact and fiction that it's almost impossible to separate the two out.

Her books begin as "fat documents that get simmered down" into word precise vignettes. I loved the image she painted of walking "around the words to see them from every angle" before selecting them or deleting them from each draft. For me, the only flaw with this style of writing is that the vignettes only just hung together and they didn't quite come to a satisfactory end. But Ru was all about the journey, not the destination. It's the writing, the emotions and the memories that stay with you for days afterwards.

I can't wait to get into Thuy's latest novel, Man, also written in French and translated by Sheila Fischman.

Ru has been won several awards since its 2009 publication -

WINNER 2015 - Canada Reads
WINNER 2011 – Grand prix littéraire Archambault
WINNER 2011 – Mondello Prize for Multiculturalism
WINNER 2010 – Prix du Grand Public Salon du livre––Essai/Livre pratique
WINNER 2010 – Governor General’s Award for Fiction (French-language)
WINNER 2010 – Grand Prix RTL-Lire at the Salon du livre de Paris
Longlisted 2013 – Man Asian Literary Prize
Longlisted 2014 – International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
Shortlist 2012 - Scotiabank Giller Prize
Shortlist 2012 – Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation

If you loved Like Water For Chocolate and Perfume, I think you will also love Ru.

2014 - The Year That Was

My summer holiday is over - another working year looms.

The days are hot and sticky, but luckily we live near the harbour, so every evening our house cools down with a lovely sea breeze.

Perfect reading weather.

I take my book to the pool where I do laps. As I dry off in the dappled light of the Mortan Bay fig, I read a chapter or two.

At home, when it's too hot and sticky to do anything outside, I park myself in front of a fan...and read another chapter or two.

In the evening, after some quality time with our holiday jigsaw puzzle, I lie in bed, enjoying the sea breeze & another chapter or two.

Today I also took the time to tally my 2014 reading habits.

In 2014 I wrote 216 posts, celebrated 5 years of blogging & reached the 500 post milestone.

125 of my 216 posts were book reviews. The rest were meme entries, readalongs, entries about blogging or other book related events. 7 posts were poems (yay me!)

105 of the book reviews were fiction; 20 were non-fiction.

76 were book reviews by female authors; 49 by men.

63 books were International authors; 62 were Australian.

A few of the stand-out book moments for me this year were 'discovering' Australian author Sonya Hartnett, reading The Railwayman's Wife by Ashley Hay & reading my first David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks.

Other book related highlights include meeting our former Prime Minister, Julia Gillard at a Random House function earlier in the year and meeting US blogger Melissa from Avid Reader's Musings when she visited Sydney.

I thoroughly enjoyed meeting everyone from Paris in July & I had a ball with my first ever Dewey's 24 hr Readathon in October. Angela Carter reading week with Delia & Caroline was also an amazing reading experience. And a special thank you to Ali at Heavenali for introducing me to Willa Cather.

2014 reinforced my love of reading events & the joy I get from being part of the blogging community.
Year long challenges don't always work so well (I lose momentum), but a serendipitous selection of readalongs throughout the year are perfect. They suit my free-range reading habits exactly.

I've already declared my 2015 intentions for my TBR pile with Adam, Karen's Back to the Classics & Behold the Stars' Reading England Challenge.

I can now also officially sign up for the the Australian Women Writers Reading Challenge (AWW). Judging from last years stats, I feel confident in aiming for the Franklin level - 10 books & 6 reviews by Australian women writers.

And just quietly, between you and me...this is my 600th blog post :-D

2013 - Remember when...?

Everywhere I go, every blogger I read seems to be doing a 2013 retrospective. 

I've never really seen the point, as I love all the books I read - in different ways and for different reasons, otherwise I wouldn't have read them (especially now that I employ the "stop reading if I'm not enjoying it" policy.) 

But Nancy at Ipsofactodotme has a different take on the whole "remember when" post.

Take the first line from the first post of each month of 2013 to see what it reveals about your reading & blogging habits.

January - "I've struggled with this book." (A Moveable Feast)

February - "I came across this Huffington Post article called 16 Fiction Book Characters Myers-Briggs Personality Types." 

March - "I'm stuck. I've been trying to track down an old picture book that I loved to read during my preschool teaching days."

April - "This was my book for the Classic Club Spin. And what a lovely choice it turned out to be." (The Magnificent Ambersons)

May - "Wondrous Words Wednesday is a lovely meme hosted by Bermuda Onion each week to highlight new (to us) words that we come across in our daily reading."

June - "I went to many events at the recent Sydney Writers Festival, but my favourite was the Pride and Prejudice lovefest on Sunday morning."

July - "My rereading of Tess for the Classic Club Spin (after about 20 years) was a curious thing." (Tess of the D'Urbervilles)

August - "Another month another readalong. I seem to be a little obssessed with readalongs and the classics right now! That's a good thing right?"

September - "I'm a little excited. This month over at The Classics Club they have selected my question for the September meme."

October - "My Cousin Rachel was my lucky number #4 for the latest Classics Club Spin." 

November - "I've been building up a healthy pile of Aussie books for AusReading Month (see yesterday's master post below) which I already know is Mount Impossible, but I'd rather have too many books on hand than not enough!" 

December - "I've had a great time putting together AusReading Month and I've been thrilled by the number of participants for this inaugural event."

Two things really - I obviously LOVE the Classics Club in a slightly embarrassing way and two - I participate in more readalongs and book events than I thought I did!

I wonder what 2014 will reveal?

P.S. This is my 400th post - wahoo!

A Year in Books

This meme - A Year in Books - is simple...using your blog posts from the past 12 months or so, find a book title to answer the questions below.

Please comment, follow, like the posts of others.

Then leave a link with your post URL in the comments section so we can comment, follow, like you too.





I Come From: The Daughters of Mars

I Am: Just A Girl

I Feel: Prized

I Currently Live: The Future of Us

I Work: with The Rights of the Reader

If I Could Go Anywhere, I Would Go: To Hope and Back

My Favourite Form of Transport: Hero on a Bicycle

My Favourite Time: Now

My Bestfriend is: a Rudie Nudie

Me and My Friends Are: Among the Mad

The Weather Here is Like: Cinnamon Rain

I Fear: Bitter Greens

I Wish: to be The Paris Wife

A Piece of Good Advice: Search for Wondla

I Would Like to Die: Wonderstruck

My Soul's Present Condition: Rules of Civility

My Thought for the Day: Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

P.S. This is not an original idea. I saw similiar posts to this ages ago, but have not been able to find them again! If you know who this meme originated with, please let me know so that I can acknowledge them appropriately. Until then, please accept my imitation as the highest form of flattery.