Cherry Beach | Laura McPhee-Browne #AWW

I've been dragging my feet about writing (or finishing) off several reviews for books read a month ago. Part of the problem has been a recent return to work which has left me wondering how on earth I used to fit everything in before Covid-19 came along and slowed things down for a while. But the other part is having little desire to say anything right now.

I enjoyed Cherry Beach. It was angsty and full of the drama of young adult friendships and relationships. From my vantage point (many years away from this often torturous period of life) I could appreciate the difficulty one has in moving on from childhood friendships that fail to crossover into an adult relationships. It's not easy to let go people you no longer share anything in common with, except some childhood memories. Despite the love, the shared experiences and all the best intentions, some friendships do not go forward. And that's okay. But it's not always easy to know this when you're young, or to know how to do so gracefully. The graceful part is especially hard to negotiate.

The common ground can disappear, different experiences move you away from each other and a friendship that once enriched and supported you, becomes a drag on your energies and brings you down. How do you move on? How do you protect yourself from any fallout? How do you honour what you once had?

Hetty and Ness are two such friends, trying to navigate their way through the twenty-something phase. They leave behind Melbourne (and their shared childhood) to have a year living overseas in Canada. Their lives veer off into vastly different directions. 

What happens next is exquisitely bittersweet, yet captures the intense emotions of young adulthood perfectly. The insecurity, the anxiety, and the hugeness of what life might become. Which road to take, who to be with, who to trust and love and who not to. Sadly, some young people set off down a road of self-destruction and those on the sidelines can do very little to stop it. Adult responsibilities and choices can be a burden or you can embrace them. This is that story.

This a debut novel by Laura McPhee-Browne. She is a social worker in Melbourne and her writing has appeared in a variety of journals and magazines.

The gorgeous cover art is by Emma Currie.

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

My work has been a bit crazy this year. And during August and September it was hectic and full of changes. So a lot of the hype surrounding the sequel to The Handmaid's Tale passed me by. I saw some excited chattering on blogs, twitter and goodreads. I heard some of the discussion around it's long-listing for the Booker Prize before publication date. And I caught a fleeting glimpse of the embargo breach by Amazon.

But until the day before the Booker announcement, I hadn't really given The Testaments much thought. Obviously I wanted to read it. I usually love Atwood's stuff and I LOVED The Handmaid's Tale. But it would have to be twenty years since I last read it.

When I first read it in my twenties it made me furious (in that good bookish way when a book excites your passions). A reread, a few years later in my early thirties, confirmed that it could still enrage me (in that good bookish way when a book can get under your skin).

Sadly, I missed the recent Elizabeth Moss tv adaptation of the book.

My plan had been to reread The Handmaid's Tale prior to starting The Testaments. I was in no hurry; knew I would get around to it one of these days, so I just let it sit in the back of my mind for later on.

Until Monday afternoon last week, when my new boss asked me who I thought would win the Booker. I had been so busy, I hadn't even clocked that it was that time of year again. Not having read any of the shortlist, all I could go on was my gut feel that Atwood would win. Her book had the hype, her writing was guaranteed to be good and it seemed like the safe option.

Tuesday morning.

I was up early, getting ready for work, thinking a million other thoughts about all the things I needed to prioritise at work that day. As I sat down to eat breakfast, I glanced at twitter and suddenly realised that the Booker Prize was about to be announced. I quickly found the facebook feed so that little old me, all the way across the other side of the world on a completely different day, could watch the Monday night announcement in London, live! Don't you just love technology.

And joint winners!

Didn't see that coming at all.

Without even thinking about it, I raced up to my bedroom, grab The Testaments from beside my bed and read the first chapter before work.

Any thought of rereading The Handmaid's Tale first went straight out the window - my justification being to see if one could read The Testaments without having any, or much knowledge of the first. I was going to offer myself up as a reading guinea pig!

So what did I remember about The Handmaid's Tale after all this time?

None of the names for starters, except that the Handmaids were named after the man - 'Offred' 'Ofthomas' etc. The handmaids were basically baby making machines. For some reason the wives were not able to produce healthy babies of their own. Religious ritual was evolved to make the baby making thing palatable. I remember that, in the end she (the main character, the titular Handmaid) must have escaped, or at least her story had got out, as she was being studied in a future history class or symposium. I remember that it was religious fanaticism that created Gilead, that this regime was still fairly new as people could remember a time before. I remember thinking that the parallels with our times were frighteningly familiar - which is the trademark of all truly good sci-fiction writing - to make it just enough like our world to make it seem possible. I recall that our Handmaid, either rediscovered her old boyfriend or established a new connection with a driver or guard or someone who helped her plan her escape. I believe the ending was deliberately unclear about the success of this mission. I loved it. It was feminist and very critical of the role religion plays in keeping women in their place.

What were my initial reactions as I started The Testaments?

Firstly I was confused by the names. I couldn't remember if any of these people had been in the first book. Aunt Lydia? Commander Kyle? Not sure.

But I was soon delighted to discover that this didn't matter very much, as what I was getting here was the back story that filled in all the gaps. Via various narrators we saw how Gilead was created, how the rest of the world responded to this change as well as various hints and rumours about the story surrounding our earlier Handmaid and what happened to her and her baby.

I've read that some people have been disappointed or underwhelmed by Atwood's latest offering, but I thoroughly enjoyed being back her capable hands.

It didn't move me as strongly as I recall being moved by The Handmaid's Tale. This book felt less political, less feminist, less concerned with religion, less personal and dare I say, less urgent. Perhaps the chorus of voices diluted the power that I experienced with the first Handmaid's story. Maybe I've mellowed with age. Perhaps Atwood has. Or it could be a simple as the purpose of the story. The Handmaid's Tale asked questions and left lots unanswered. The gaps allowed for supposition, insecurity, fear and doubt. The Testaments tidied all of that up. And without giving away the ending, the homage to the first book at the end of the second, was satisfying and offered a number of pleasing resolutions.

Naomi @Consumed by Ink and Marcie @Buried in Print are hosting Margaret Atwood Reading Month in November that will include a readalong of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments. I'm the rebel who will be reading the books in reverse order as I'm hoping to squeeze in a reread of The Handmaid's Tale along with ALL the other blogging commitments I have on my plate for November!

To finish up, I want to bring to light a little known Aussie connection to Atwood. Well, I didn't know this - perhaps you did?

In the Sydney Morning Herald on the 16th Feb 2019, Nick Bryant wrote,

Her connection with the Sunshine State comes from her second husband, the novelist Graeme Gibson, whose father emigrated there from Canada in search of a friendlier climate and cleaner air. "Every time we got invited to Australia we would go up to Brisbane to visit the rellies," she says, laughing. "His mother and his grandmother were from there." 

Longlisted for The Giller Prize 2019

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan

Reading Washington Black by Esi Edugyan was like eating a big bag of sweets. Some were good, some not so good. And after gorging myself on the first half, I found the second half a bit too much take.

The first half of Washington Black was unputdownable. I loved the engaging voice of the child narrator. His early life on the plantation was brutal yet fascinating. Edugyan included some strong, descriptive passages in these early chapters and I found the secondary characters just as intriguing.

Washington's fear and mistrust of everyone was more than understandable, but the constant tension built up by this fear with every change or arrival of a new character eventually lost it's impact by overuse. The tension was continually being built up but never quite realised....although perhaps, this is what it's like to live in a state of slavery in Washington's world.

For me the tale started to lose it's way when Wash and Titch took off to the Arctic in search of Titch's father. It reminded me of what happened when I read Elizabeth Gilbert's The Signature of All Things where 'something went a little off kilter'. I began to doubt my narrator, I became sceptical and even a little cynical. I became aware of the writer and felt manipulated at times. I was being asked to go on a journey that had lost its believability and maybe even lost its way.

Billed as a coming of age story or a life after slavery story, neither felt predominant to me. With such a strong start on the plantation, I expected to be taken on the struggle as Wash's came to terms with his newfound freedom. But I never got a strong sense of what life was really like for a freed slave in western 'civilisation' - the injustice, unfairness, the everyday prejudices, burdens and guilt. The existential angst wasn't fully realised.

And Wash's personal growth felt too much too soon - it was too big a jump from uneducated child slave to scientific, emotionally intelligent young man. The soaring heights of the first half floundered and crash landed.

Titch's emotional arc didn't make sense to me either. He had me right up to the point of  his disbelief/fear/hope/joy at being reunited with his father after thinking that he was dead. I was incredibly moved by this exchange. Titch obviously had his own struggle with personal freedom, yet his sudden disappearance was the first moment when I felt caught in the author's web.

There were a few tiny touches of surrealism or mysticism which were left unexplained and unresolved. They added a fable-like element to the story, and maybe that's were the problem lies. In the end I wasn't sure if this was an allegory or an historical fiction, adventure story. I felt like I was getting mixed messages by the end.

I will certainly read more books by Edugyan - when her writing soared, it dazzled and some of her minor characters were so well-drawn and vivid, that I was disappointed when the story moved on without them. Potential and possibility abounds.

Giller Prize winner
Man Booker shortlist
Longlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.

Motherhood by Sheila Heti

When I was in my twenties and thirties, my friends and I spent a lot of time discussing and dissecting each others dreams (#lifebeforesocialmedia)! We read books, kept dream journals and wondered about the significance of what happened in our heads in the middle of the night. We were searching for meaning and trying to make sense of our emerging lives. We were confused and bemused by adulting (not a term back then) and looking for answers anywhere and everywhere. Mostly we simply found more questions and more angst. It's a weird time that feels like forever; thankfully it's not.

As the years have gone by, those levels of turmoil, doubt and self-reflection have eased up (#hallelujah)! At some point most of us discover a place of relative calm and peace. Our search for meaning and purpose finds something to latch onto and we've worked out what's important and what's not. Everyone gets there at different times, in different ways, but I do believe that we all have the ability to get there eventually. 

Reading Shelia Heti's Motherhood brought all those days and nights of angst and yearning rushing back. I finished it last night and for the first time in a very long time, I had a dream that felt significant and that I still remembered upon waking. 

It was a tsunami dream. A double tsunami. It felt like I'd had this dream before and was replaying an old tape. 

I was standing on an isthmus with a lots of others. We could see the waves coming, getting more intense and more overwhelming with each surge. Everyone knew what was happening, yet so many people chose to stay low on the beach as I raced up to the pinnacle of the isthmus. Others were playing a russian roulette, trying to see, get the best photos, before racing up just in time. People were being swept away in front of my eyes because they had stayed on the beach too long. I looked behind me which is when I realised I was on an isthmus, with more water behind me, but no tsunami.

The dream suddenly reset, I relived the race up the beach to the top of the hill and looked behind me to see a second wave of tsunamis coming up the beach behind me as well. Water began to swirl around my feet. Flotsam and jetsam floated by; it felt dangerous and scary, but I was on high ground and could go no further and trusted it would have to be enough. 

Suddenly (as often happens in dreams) we were rebuilding part of the house that had been destroyed by the tsunamis. The owners, a young couple, proudly showed me the work done on the new en suite - I admired the new toilet, shower and hand basin and congratulated them on getting it back to normal so quickly. In the living room, a miniature cow was being held by one of the couple, they passed it to me. It had been washed up by the tsunami. It was soft and shivery from fear. I cuddled it gently to my chest, cradling its udder in my left hand, and felt myself calm down and re-centre as it nuzzled me.

As my friends used to say, my dreams were about as subtle as a sledgehammer! Water represents emotions and tsunami's are obviously an overwhelming amount of emotions. Houses are our minds and the rooms represent the various sections of our minds. Bathrooms represent cleansing and expressing emotions. Cows are a feminine symbol of fertility, motherhood (see the link here), creativity, beauty and wisdom. The left side is also feminine representing creativity and nurturing.

Given that I've been feeling overwhelmed by emotions this year, have just come to the end of my 'official school step-mothering duties' with B18 finishing his final exams last week and feeling frustrated for quite some time at the disappearing of my creative space, this dream is a pretty clear message.

If I'd read Motherhood in my twenties and thirties, I'm sure this book would have felt so personal and so pertinent, it would have been painful. As it was, I remembered some of those feelings and thoughts, but they felt like a dream. A little unreal and far away and intangible. There was also a huge sense of relief to see how far I had moved on from that time of angst. I'm not surprised I had a powerful dream experience at the end of it.

Motherhood is billed as a novel but reads like a private journal. Heti's protagonist is probably as petulant, self indulgent and tormented as I was at times at that age. She dabbles in coins, tarot, dreams and psychics to find meaning and symbolism in her life. 

As someone who chose, deliberately and consciously, at a young age not to bring children of my own into this world, many of her to-ing's and fro-ing's were familiar, although, I'm fairly sure that I didn't torture myself over it quite as much as Heti's protagonist did. I always said that if my 50 or 60 year old self regretted the decision that my 20, 30 and 40 year old self made, then that 50 or 60 year old self would just have to put up with it. So far, no regrets.

Perhaps 18 years of early childhood teaching and a decade of step-mothering was enough of a foray into the world of nurturing?

There were lots of provocations within Heti's story worth discussing, including various feminist assumptions and ideals, societal and cultural expectations, creativity, choice, non-choice and freedom. But one of the comments that really landed for me was around the protagonists experience with depression and the change she felt when the drugs finally kicked in. 

Yet I fear I don't have the right to speak anymore, given the drugs. I can't pretend I have come to any answer, or any great wisdom. I think the drugs are the reason I am feeling less bad, not something I realised....Am I disappointed? A little bit, yes. I wanted my own magic to get rid of the pain....What kind of story is it when a person goes down, down, down and down - but instead of breaking through and seeing the truth and ascending, they go down, then take the drugs, and then they go up?

As someone who didn't go down the road of drugs for the very reasons that Heti hinted at, I sometimes wonder if I extended my pain unnecessarily for longer than I needed to. Yet at the same time, I feel a weird sense of achievement and a fierce independence and strength from having worked out how to go up and stay up all by myself.

There is no right or wrong way to get through this life; there is only your way.

This has ended up being a very personal post; Motherhood is that kind of book. It will elicit strong feelings and personal responses. We all make choices and non-choices; we all make decisions and non-decisions and occasionally we have our ability to choose taken away from us. Yet there are choices and decisions to be made even within that space.

Motherhood would be a courageous book club choice leading to a robust, revealing and emotional discussion.

Canadian Giller Prize shortlist 2018

The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery

The first time I read The Blue Castle, I read it soooooooo fast that I recall very little of the detail. I had just found out about the controversy surrounding this book and my long-time favourite Colleen McCullough book, The Ladies of Missalonghi. Therefore I read The Blue Castle constantly comparing and looking for similarities and differences; I didn't read it for itself.
(Please click on the two book links above to get the backstory for this controversy.)

This reread, however, was all about enjoying The Blue Castle purely and simply for itself. Thanks to a hectic life schedule atm, I was looking for a quick, easy, comforting read to sink into.

The chance to also reread it with two others (Naomi @Consumed By Ink and Sarah Emsley) who clearly love this story as much as I do, was an added bonus.

My first observation is that The Blue Castle was a much richer, emotionally satisfying story than I remembered. Yes, it's predictable and sentimental, but it's done so well and hits just the right note when one is in the mood for this kind of book.

It was also a love letter to the woods 'up back' of Canada.

Once or twice night overtook them, too far from their Blue Castle to get back. But Barney mad a fragrant bed of bracken and fir boughs and they slept on it dreamlessly, under a ceiling of old spruces with moss hanging from them, while beyond them moonlight and the murmur of pines blended together so that one could hardly tell which was light and which was sound.

Whitt Island, Lake Muskoka, Ontario

There is something so satisfying in owning a whole island. And isn't an uninhabited island a charmng idea? I'd wanted one ever since I read Robinson Crusoe. It seemed to good to be true. And beauty! Most of the scenery belongs to the government, but they don't tax you for looking at it, and the moon belongs to everyone.

Valancy looked - and looked -  and looked again. There was a diaphanous, lilac mist on the lake, shrouding the island. Through it the two enormous pine-trees that clasped hands over Barney's shack loomed out like dark turrets. Behind them was a sky still rose-hued in the afterlight, and a pale young moon.

A question though - how do you pronounce Valancy? Is is Vuh-lan- cy, Val-arn-cy or Val-ancy? I'm leaning towards the latter as it roles of the tongue quite nicely. Is Valancy a traditional Canadian name or is it a significant name in L.M. Montgomery's own backstory?

(I just found this post with very helpful, interesting comments all about the name Valancy. God, I love the world wide web!)

The lesson we learn from Valancy about conquering your fears and being true to yourself, remains a powerful one that transcends time and place. Sure there's an ugly duckling/wish fulfilment element here as well, but dreams do come true, just not easy, as Valancy also found out.

She was no longer unimportant, little old maid Valancy Stirling. She was a woman, full of love and therefore rich & significant - justified to herself. Life was no longer empty & futile, and death could cheat her if nothing. Love had cast out her last fear.

Which kind of makes Valancy a Canadian Jane Eyre.

I loved this quote in particular:

Valancy was in the midst of realities after a lifetime of unrealities.

Valancy had spent her life dreaming about and fantasising about another life; a better life that took place in her Blue Castle. Her life was stifled, suppressed and repressed by her family and by societal standards of the time. Without knowing it, her life was on hold, in limbo. So many of us feel this at some point in our lives; at least I did for most of my childhood years.

And that is where it's success and beauty lies. For anyone who has felt like the ugly duckling or unnoticed or fearful about life, The Blue Castle gives hope and inspiration. We all have the power to do-over, make-over and reinvent ourselves. We can all rise above the mores of the world around us and be true to ourselves. That is the path to happiness.

The Blue Castle is a book that deserves to be in a leisurely manner. I'm glad I waited for the right weekend and the right to mood to fall into this little treasure once again. Along with The Ladies of Missalonghi (to be reread for #AusReadingMonth) I now have two delicious stories to turn to when in the mood for a charming, nostalgic romance.

Visiting Canada or Prince Edward Island is not an easy proposition when you live in Australia, but one of my sisters visited PEI in 2008 for the 200th anniversary of Anne of Green Gables. She knew exactly which big sister would love these coasters the most!

#ReadingValancy

Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien

For four days I've been trying to write a review that would do this rich, engrossing, mosaic of a book due justice.

It wasn't so much writer's block as writer's muddle.

There was soooo much to say! I couldn't even decide which lens or which perspective to choose?

Because I was enjoying Do Not Say We Have Nothing so much, I began researching stuff before I had finished reading.

I looked up the classical pieces of music conducted by Glenn Gould* that Thien mentioned throughout the book (Bach's Goldberg Variations and Sonata for Piano & Violin no 4) and listened to them as I read the book.

I researched the politicians and artists who were real people. He Luting (1903 - 1999) was a real composer and he really did say 'shame on you for lying' when hauled before a televised interrogation during the Cultural Revolution.

I researched the L'Internationale** to find out the various interpretations of the phrase that Thien used in her title.

I simply couldn't get enough of this book - I wanted to know more, delve deeper. I wanted to totally immerse myself in the reading experience.

On the surface, this is a story about a Chinese composer called Sparrow and the things that happened to him and around him during his lifetime. A lifetime that encompassed the extraordinary events from the Chinese Revolution to Tiananmen Square.

However, Thien weaves in many threads and motifs, until we have a story within a story, across three generations and two continents. She plays with recurring themes, copies of copies and the cyclical nature of history.

Music is a big part of the story and I found her descriptions of the creative process and the interpretation of music mesmerising.

Equally mesmerising, but in a horrifying way, was the astounding use of double-speak by politicians and revolutionaries during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution in China.

Thien showed some of the effects of 'self-criticism', 'struggle sessions' and 'denunciations' on the creative mind as they learnt to silence their talents and learnt to live without their language.

One of the major themes developed throughout the story was the life of homosexuals in China*** during the Mao years. Sparrow and Jiang Kai obviously had an intense loving relationship that could not be realised openly. One had to become a hard-line revolutionary, destroying art and lives, while trying to protect his friend from within, who eventually fled the country. While the other stayed, gave up his career as a composer, married and worked in a radio factory of the governments choosing.

Later on, Sparrow's daughter, Ai Ming, also developed very strong feelings for her female neighbour during the heightened times surrounding Tiananmen Square.

Thien intertwined mathematics, etymology, translation, calligraphy, memory, disappearance, loss, free-will, and the nature of time seamlessly. There were moments of humour and moments of pathos.

I have read some reviews that felt Do Not Say We Have Nothing was too wordy. Not for me. I loved every single moment and thoroughly enjoyed the multi-layered, enchanting nature of Thien's loquaciousness.
However this book will not be for everyone.
Hopefully this review will help you decide whether it's for you or not.

Do Not Say We Have Nothing is a keeper for me. I plan to reread this one day and I will be devastated if this book doesn't win one of the book awards that it is currently shortlisted for (Booker and Giller Prizes as well as the Canadian Governor General's Literary Award).

Below are some of the results of my research (thank you wikipedia):

• The Chinese Soviet Republic (1931-1937) adopted a 19th century French socialist worker's song called L'Internationale** as their anthem. There was a line in the original (Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout) that according to Wikipedia could be translated as 'we are nothing, let us be all'.

• Qu Qiubai translated a version of this song from Russian into Chinese in 1923 which changed this line to mean 'Do not say that we have nothing.'

• To my mind, the Chinese version has a sense of martyrdom inherent in its phrasing. They are being watched and judged by others who say they have nothing. Whereas the English translation seems to resound with solidarity and a proactive intent.

• The anthem later became a rallying cry for the students during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

• Glenn Gould* (25 September 1932 – 4 October 1982) was a Canadian pianist. He became famous for his interpretations of Bach's music. His methods of recording, splicing, mixing and editing his performances in the studio caused controversy at the time. Critics questioned the authenticity of his work and made claims of imitation. More delicious multiplicity on Thien's behalf.

• Historically China, was tolerant of sexual experimentation and same-sex couples. However in 1949***, homosexuality was declared to be a sign of Western bourgeois decadence and vice by the Communist Party. 

• Treatment of homosexuals during the Cultural Revolution was harsh, many were humiliated in public and some were executed. They were forced into heterosexual marriages and all LGBTQ art and culture was destroyed. However, all sexual activity and discussion was considered lustful and decadent during this time. Personal choice was not important. Affairs, sexual freedom and even sex education in schools were all considered enemies of class. Neutral gender clothing was promoted and monogamy expected.

• Some of the books read by the characters during the story - David Copperfield by Charles Dickens and Notes From the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Friedrich Schiller's On the Aesthetic Education of Man, Kang Youwei's Book of the Great Community and Border Town by Shen Congwen.

• Thien was born in Vancouver. Her mother was born in Hongkong and her father was born in an ethnic Chinese area of Malaysia. They met whilst studying in Australia. The immigrated to Canada in 1974 just before Thien was born.

Stories & Shout Outs #11

A whole swath of shortlists have been buzzing around the bookish world lately.

Some have got me bibliograpically excited but some have left me scratching my head.

Kim @Reading Matters alerted me to the Canadian literary award - The Giller Prize. It has been around for twenty years and recognizes 'excellence in Canadian fiction'.

For a full rundown on the longlist and the history of Kim's shadow reading of  the Giller longlist, click on her link above.

The shortlist will be announced at the end of this month and the winner will be declared in November. But for now, here's the longlist...

13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad

Yiddish for Pirates by Gary Barwin

Pillow by Andrew Battershill

Stranger by David Bergen

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue

The Party Wall by Catherine Leroux, translated by Lazer Lederhendler

The Two of Us by Kathy Page

Death Valley by Susan Perly

Willem de Kooning's Paintbrush by Kerry Lee Powell

By Gaslight by Steven Price

Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien

The Best Kind of People by Zoe Whittall

The Man Booker shortlist is now out there too! The (wo)man booker shadow panel read through the longlist and prepared their own thoughts about what should have been shortlisted and why. The various posts and links to the panel are here @Dolce Bellezza. 

The official list, I confess, has me scratching my head. I really thought The North Water was a contender for taking out the big prize this year. I do at least have Do No Say We Have Nothing on my TBR pile, so I can read one of the books on both of these lists so far.

Paul Beatty (US) - The Sellout

Deborah Levy (UK) - Hot Milk

Graeme Macrae Burnet (UK) - His Bloody Project

Ottessa Moshfegh (US) – Eileen

David Szalay (Canada-UK) - All That Man Is

Madeleine Thien (Canada) - Do Not Say We Have Nothing

Meanwhile the Royal Society Science Prize has a shortlist that I can get very excited about. Especially as I've read one of the contenders (Cure), I'm a third of the way through another (The Invention of Nature) and have my eyes on a third (The Gene).

Cure Jo Marchant

The Gene Siddhartha Mukherjee

The Hunt for Vulcan Thomas Levenson

WINNER - The Invention of Nature Andrea Wulf

The Most Perfect Thing Tim Birkhead

The Planet Remade Oliver Morton

Finally, closer to home, we have the shortlist for this year's Queensland Literary Awards. They have an incredible number of categories to work through, so grab a cuppa and settle back to check out the wonderful diversity that makes up Australian writing in 2016.

Queensland Premier's Award for a work of State Significance

Nadia Buick & Madeleine King Remotely Fashionable: A Story of Subtropical Style 

Matthew Condon All Fall Down 

Elspeth Muir Wasted

P. J. Parker The Long Goodbye

WINNER - Lesley and Tammy Williams Not Just Black and White

The University of Queensland Fiction Book Award

Tony Birch Ghost River

WINNER - Georgia Blain Between a Wolf and a Dog

David Dyer The Midnight Watch

Patrick Holland One

Charlotte Wood The Natural Way of Things

The University of Queensland Non-fiction Book Award

Madeline Gleeson Offshore: Behind the Wire on Manus and Nauru

Stan Grant Talking to My Country

Drusilla Modjeska Second Half First

Tim Winton Island Home

WINNER - Fiona Wright Small Acts of Disappearance: Essays on Hunger

Griffith University Young Adult Book Award

Will Kostakis The Sidekicks

WINNER - David Metzenthen Dreaming the Enemy

Glenda Millard The Stars at Oktober Bend

James Roy and Noël Zihabamwe One Thousand Hills

Claire Zorn One Would Think the Deep

Griffith University Children's Book Award

Lucy Estrela, illustrator: Matt Ottley Suri's Wall

Bob Graham How the Sun Got to Coco's House  (R)

Libby Hathorn; illustrator: Gaye Chapman Incredibilia

WINNER - Julie Hunt; illustrator:Dale Newman KidGlovz

Chris McKimmie Me, Teddy

University of Southern Queensland History Book Award

Vicken Babkenian and Peter Stanley Armenia, Australia and the Great War

Stuart Macintyre Australia's Boldest Experiment: War and reconstruction in the 1940s

WINNER - Julia Martinez and Adrian Vickers The Pearl Frontier: Indonesian Labor and Indigenous Encounters in Australia's Northern Trading Network

Jeff Maynard The Unseen Anzac

John Newton The Oldest Foods on Earth: A history of Australian native foods with recipes

Garry Wotherspoon Gay Sydney: A History

University of Southern Queensland Australian Short Story Collection - Steele Rudd Award

Tegan Bennett Daylight Six Bedrooms

Sonja Dechian An Astronaut's Life

WINNER - Elizabeth Harrower A Few Days in the Country and Other Stories

Julie Koh Portable Curiosities

WINNER - Fiona McFarlane The High Places

State Library of Queensland Poetry Collection – Judith Wright Calanthe Award

Joel Deane Year of the Wasp

Liam Ferney Content

Sarah Holland-Batt The Hazards

WINNER - David Musgrave Anatomy of Voice

Chloe Wilson Not Fox Nor Axe

Queensland Premier's Young Publishers and Writers Awards

WINNER - Emily Craven

Sam George-Allen

Anna Jacobson

WINNER - Michelle Law

Andrew McMillen

Unpublished Indigenous Writer - David Unaipon Award

WINNER - Paul Collis Dancing Home

B.A. Quakawoot The Song of Jessica Perkins

Yvonne Weldon 67 Days

Emerging Queensland Writer – Manuscript Award

H.E. Crampton for The Boatman

Laura Elvery for The Elements

Which book, from all of the above, should I read next?

Miss Moon: Wise Words from a Dog Governess by Janet Hill

Miss Moon is one of those delightful picture books for children, that's really for the grown-ups (and dogs) in their life!

Full of simple truisms and etiquette advice designed to remind us of what really matters. Each double page spread elegantly highlights such gems as -

• Always give the warmest of welcomes.
• A tidy space is a welcoming space.
• Show your loved ones you care.
• Respect the property of others.
• Friends come in many shapes and sizes.
• A good book will chase away the dark.

Most of the story is actually revealed on the fly cover of the book.

We are told that Miss Wilhelmina Moon is a dog governess. Her first placement was on a small island off the coast of France looking after 67 dogs!

In this book, she collects twenty of her hard-won lessons in "raising happy, healthy, well-mannered pooches - and people."

She is a Mary Poppins for dogs!

Miss Moon is unflappable and dignified at every eventuality.
Poise and graciousness are paramount. Kindness is expected as the norm.
What's not to love?

Canadian artist, Janet Hill uses oil on canvas to create these beautiful pages. You can watch her technique here at the Daily Globe and Mail site.

Each double page spreads has a border with a lesson insert. French chic oozes from every image.

The dogs are given anthropomorphic characteristics (I haven't had a chance to use that word since my Uni assignments on themes in childhood literature!)

We see dogs in glasses, in Halloween outfits, riding bikes and dressed as pirates.

Miss Moon is more an art book than a story book and a more useful guide to living than anything Marie Kondo has produced so far! In fact, everything about this book brings you joy.

Full of doggy adorableness and cuteness, this is a dog lovers paradise.

Also available as Mademoiselle Moon Gouvernante de Chiens.

This post is part of my Paris in July challenge.

Man by Kim Thuy

Earlier on in the year I attended an author event with Thuy and read Ru. I adored it. It was beautiful, heart-felt and poetic.

Last week I was in need of some beauty and picked up Thuy's latest book, Man in anticipation.

Once again, Thuy explores the immigrants story. The search for self, family and belonging is teased out thoughtfully via our narrator, Man.

Language and its many vagaries are played with, although sadly, I suspect that reading this book in English means that we miss many of the subtleties between Vietnamese and French.

Thuy/Man also talks about this issue of language,

To grasp the nuances between two related words, to distinguish melancholy from grief, for example, I weigh each one. When I hold them in my hands, one seems to hang like grey smoke while the other is compressed into a ball of steel. I guess and I grope and the answer is often the right one as the wrong one. I constantly make mistakes.

I confess that Man's story failed to engage me in the same way as Ru. It was an interesting, enjoyable tale, but it lacked the vibrancy and beauty that I experienced with Ru.

Perhaps the autobiographical nature of Ru added that personal touch that gave its story an extra edge or immediacy. Maybe the love story at the centre of Man felt unbelievable. I also wanted more food stories.

But there is no denying Thuy's ability to create unique word pictures in both books:

I had learned how to fall asleep very quickly, on command, so that my eyelids would serve as curtains over landscapes or scenes from which I preferred to be absent. I was able to move from consciousness to unconsciousness with a snap of the fingers, between two sentences, or before the remark that would offend me was spoken.

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.

The Blue Castle by L M Montgomery

L. M. Montgomery only wrote 2 adult novels. One of them was The Blue Castle published in 1926.

I had never heard of it until last year when I wrote a post about The Ladies of Missalonghi by Australian author Colleen McCullough. McCullough was accused of plagiarism because of the number of similarities between the two books.

I have to say, that it does look incredibly suspicious.

McCullough claims no knowledge of The Blue Castle.
Perhaps it was one of those books she picked up in the library as a little girl, browsed through it, liked the idea enough for it sneak into the back reaches of her memory, only to emerge in her adult years as an 'original creative idea'?

Whatever happened, The Blue Castle and The Ladies of Missalonghi are basically the same book. One is set in Ontario, Canada, the other in the Blue Mountains, NSW.

They both describe a quiet, genteel, unlovely young woman, slowly becoming a fearful, poor relation spinster. Suffocated by her controlling family, suffering pangs & pains of the heart and finding solace in her local library.

A visit to the doctor changes everything when she finds out she has only a year to live.

What happens next in both books is a sweet, delightful romance as Missy/Valancy throws off her cares and fears to embrace life. She speaks her mind, shocks the family, changes her hair and clothes, asks a man to marry her & runs away to live happily ever after.

The various plot twists are predictable and easy to spot. There is nothing challenging about either book, but, ohhh, they are just so soul-satisfying!

Missy/Valancy stand in for every shy, insecure girl in history. They give hope that every single one of us can be beautiful when loved. That everyone can dream of love and eventually find true love if only they are brave enough and honest enough to be themselves.

The Blue Castle AND The Ladies of Missalonghi are now two of my very favourite rainy afternoon comfort reads.

The Blue Castle counts as my book for The Colour Coded Reading Challenge hosted by My Readers Block.

Jane, The Fox and Me by Fanny Britt & Isabelle Arsenault

I'm not a huge graphic novel aficionado, but every now and again, one comes along that grabs my attention.

Maybe it had something to do with the Jane Eyre reference or maybe it was the rave review from the rep that had stuck in my mind, but when I saw this book displayed on our shelves, I knew I just had to read it.

Helené is a recently rejected girl at school. Once popular with friends, she suddenly finds herself on the outer. She is taunted, teased and bullied.

Her loneliness, confusion & sadness are beautifully depicted in the grey wash illustrations by Arsenault. This is a graphic novel that is still also a picture book at heart.

The thing that keeps Helené going, that offers her respite from the taunts, that fills the void of friends, is books.

And one book in particular speaks to her - Jane Eyre.

All of a sudden we turn the page to find a little bit of Jane Eyre's story as seen through Helené's eyes.

The illustrations change - we see colour, lovely old-fashioned fonts & we also see hope.

Helené sees Jane as a kindred spirit - a connection is made through the pages of the book. Through Jane, Helené feels understood. Jane's story not only gives Helené respite, but hope.

During a ghastly school camping excursion, Helené spies a fox in the woods.

She reaches out & makes a connection with the fox.

This encourages her to make a connection with one of the other girls, Géraldine, also on the outer with the popular group.

There is nothing particularly new or earth-shattering about this classic tale of bullying & loneliness.

Or the redemptive power of a good book.

But Jane, The Fox and Me is told so tenderly that I defy anyone to resist its charms.

I certainly couldn't!

Fanny Britt is from Quebec.
The book was translated into English by Christine Morelli & Susan Ouriou.

This book has mature themes but would be suitable for good 10+ readers as well as high school students.

A Tale For the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

A Tale For the Time being is the book that has kicked off my Booker shortlist campaign for this year. And it nearly stopped me in my tracks.

It's not that I didn't enjoy it.
I did.

That is, I really enjoyed the middle section when I finally got going on it last weekend.

The first 10 chapters or so, I had been reading at night, before bed when I was tired and I was struggling to engage with it completely. I wanted to like it; I felt that I probably would like it; I just needed a good run at it. Nao's teenage voice started off a little annoying and Ruth, the author as narrator seemed a little too convenient.

But last weekend was the trick.

I found myself engaging with the characters and I let myself get carried away by the story.

I loved the references to Japanese culture that I knew next to nothing about. I adored all the fascinating ideas & philosophising about the nature of time. Oliver's scientific explorations were equally intriguing (I learnt about gyres, the Great Western Garbage Patch & quantum physics!) There was also Zen Buddhism, Proust, manga and cyber-bullying. What more could you want in a book?

The switching of POV between each chapter developed a nice rhythm as the book went along as well. One chapter was Nao's diary written in Japan a decade before while the alternate chapters belonged to Ruth, a Japanese/Canadian author who discovered the diary and other artefacts washed up on the shores of her Canadian island home.

This gave Ozeki lots of room to play with ideas about authorship, the nature of writing, reading and the power of words.

We were going along swimmingly - until last night!

I can only describe the last (small) section of the book as some kind of writers flight of fancy. Quantum physics merged with dreams, mythology and computer science in a way I found rather unsatisfactory. Perhaps it was an attempt at magic realism? Or simply an authors attempt to tie up all the loose ends?

Since writing the above I have visited The Guardians 2013 Booker Hustings link to this book.

I'll finish with a quote that I thought many of you in blogger land would appreciate as much as I did,

"This agitation was familiar, 
a paradoxical feeling that built up inside when she was spending too much time online, 
as though some force was at once goading her and holding her back. 
How to describe it? 
A temporal stuttering, an urgent lassitude, 
a feeling of simultaneous rushing and lagging behind."