Two Birds; One Stone.

In preparation for #AusReadingMonth in November, I will create a few posts full of Aussie books to help inspire and expand your true blue wishlists.

Today we start with Non-Fiction.

November has become one of my busiest reading and blogging months of the year. In 2013, not only did I start hosting #AusReadingMonth for the first time, but Kim & Leslie began the very first Non-Fiction November. Doing two reading challenges in one month is certainly not unheard of for me, but it is a juggle!

This year, to make life easier for myself, I'm determined to combine both events by focusing on Australian non-fiction.

This is harder than it sounds.

I love Australian non-fiction, but only a few Aussie bloggers participate in Non-Fiction November, so what happens as I go around visiting everyone else's posts, is that I get excited and tempted by a whole stack of international non-fiction titles and suddenly my TBR wishlist explodes with non-Australian titles.

However, this year, I'm going to be strong and stick to my Australian non-fictions goals.
It's not like I don't have enough choices.

Below are all the Aussie non-fiction books on my real-life TBR pile.

If you're looking for #AusReadingMonth inspiration that combines with #NonficNov, then look no further!

Agamemnon's Kiss by Inga Clendinnen
Almost French by Sarah Turnbull
The Art of Reading by Damon Young
The Art of Time Travel by Tom Griffiths
Arthur Phillip by Michael Pembroke
Australia Day by Stan Grant
Australian Notebooks by Betty Churcher
Axiomatic by Maria Tumarkin

• Winner of the 2018 Melbourne Prize for Literature’s Best Writing Award
• Shortlisted for the Stella Prize 2019
• Shortlisted for the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction at the 2019 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards
• Shortlisted for the 2019 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards Non-fiction
• Shortlisted for the 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards Non-fiction

Boys Will Be Boys by Clementine Ford
The Bush by Don Watson
The Cost of Courage in Aztec Society by Inga Clendinnen
Craft for a Dry Lake by Kim Mahood

Dancing With Strangers by Inga Clendinnen
Darwin's Armada by Iain McCalman
Dragon and Kangaroo by Robert Macklin
Dymphna by Judith Armstrong

Elizabeth Macarthur by Michelle Scott Tucker

The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes
From the Edge by Mark McKenna

Georgiana by Brenda Niall
Ghost Empire by Richard Fidler
The Great Barrier Reef by Bowen
Griffith Review #63 Writing the Country
Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia edited by Anita Heiss

• Winner of Small Publisher’s Adult Book of the Year at the 2019 ABIA Awards

Gum by Ashley Hay

Inner Worlds Outer Space by Ceridwen Dovey
Island Home by Tim Winton

Joe Cinque's Consolation by Helen Garner
Journey from Venice by Ruth Cracknell

Modern Love by Lesley Harding & Kendrah Morgan

Napoleon: Passion, Death and Resurrection 1815 - 1840 by Philip Dwyer
No Friend But the Mountain by Behrouz Boochani

• Winner of General Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the 2019 ABIA Awards
• Winner of the Prize for Non-fiction and the overall Victorian Prize for Literature at the 2019 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards
• Winner of the Special Award at the 2019 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards
• Winner of the National Biography Award 2019

Not Drowning, Reading by Andrew Relph
Notebooks by Betty Churcher

Only in New York by Lily Brett
Origin Story: A Big History of Everything by David Christian

Position Doubtful by Kim Mahood

Quarterly Essay #73 Australia Fair
Quitting Plastic by Clara Williams Roldan & Louise Williams

Reading by Moonlight by Brenda Walker
A Reef in Time by Charles Veron
Resilience by Anne Deveson
Riding the Trains in Japan by Patrick Holland

Sagaland by Richard Fidler and Kari Gislason
Sand Talk by Tyson Yunkaporta
Silent Invasion by Clive Hamilton
A Single Tree by Don Watson
Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters by Margot Neale
The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin
The Spare Room by Helen Garner
Sydney Harbour: A History by Ian Hoskins

Thirty Days by Mark Raphael Baker
Tiger's Eye by Inga Clendinnen
The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein

• Joint Winner of the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction at the 2019 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards
• Winner of the Victorian Prize for Literature 2018 and the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Writing for Non-fiction 2018
• Winner of the Dobbie Literary Award 2018
• Shortlisted for the National Biography Award 2019

True North by Brenda Niall
True Stories by Helen Garner

The Unknown Judith Wright by Georgina Arnott
Unpolished Gem by Alice Pung

Welcome to Your New Life by Anna Goldsworthy
Women Kind by Dr Kirstin Ferguson & Catherine Fox
The Writing Life by David Malouf

You Daughters of Freedom by Claire Wright

• Shortlisted for the 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards Australian History

YES, I have a problem!
I grant you, it's a good problem to have. Although a little overwhelming when I see all these wonderful books lined up in one place, waiting for me to read them.

However, if that was not enough list for you, let me tempt with this year's award winning Australian non-fiction titles!

Eggshell Skull by Bri Lee

• Winner of the Davitt Award for Debut 2019
• Winner of the Ned Kelly Award for True Crime 2019
• Winner of the People’s Choice Award at the 2019 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards
• Shortlisted for the 2019 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards Non-fiction
• Shortlisted for the 2019 Indie Book Award for non-fiction

Family: New Vegetable Classics to Comfort and Nourish by Hetty McKinnon

• Winner of Illustrated Book of the Year at the 2019 ABIA Awards
• Shortlisted for the 2019 Indie Book Award for illustrated non-fiction

Deep Time Dreaming by Billy Griffiths

• Winner of Book of the Year at the 2019 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards
• Joint Winner of the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction at the 2019 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards
• Winner of the 2019 Ernest Scott Prize
• Shortlisted for the 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards Australian History

The Erratics by Vicki Laveau-Harvie

• Winner of the 2019 Stella Prize
• Shortlisted for the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction at the 2019 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards

The Arsonist by Chloe Hooper

• Winner of the Davitt Award for Non-fiction Crime 2019
• Winner of the 2019 Indie Book Award for non-fiction
• Shortlisted for the 2019 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards Non-fiction
• Shortlisted for the 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards Non-fiction

Welcome to Country by Marcia Langton

• Winner of the 2019 Indie Book Award for illustrated non-fiction
• Shortlisted for General Non-fiction Book of the Year at the 2019 ABIA Awards

Sorry Day by Coral Vass and Illustrated by Dub Leffler

• Winner 2019 CBCA Eve Pownall Award for Information Books

Any Ordinary Day by Leigh Sales

• Shortlisted for the 2019 Indie Book Award for non-fiction
• Shortlisted for General Non-fiction Book of the Year at the 2019 ABIA Awards

The Land Before Avocado by Richard Glover

• Shortlisted for the 2019 Indie Book Award for non-fiction

Australian Dreamscapes by Claire Takacs

• Shortlisted for the 2019 Indie Book Award for illustrated non-fiction

A Painted Landscape: Across Australia from Bush to Coast by Amber Creswell Bell

• Shortlisted for the 2019 Indie Book Award for illustrated non-fiction
• Shortlisted for Illustrated Book of the Year at the 2019 ABIA Awards

Teacher by Gabbie Stroud

• Shortlisted for Biography Book of the Year at the 2019 ABIA Awards

Boys Will Be Boys by Clementine Ford

• Shortlisted for General Non-fiction Book of the Year at the 2019 ABIA Awards

Mirka and Georges by Lesley Harding & Kendrah Morgan

• Shortlisted for Illustrated Book of the Year at the 2019 ABIA Awards

Special Guest by Annabel Crabb and Wendy Sharpe

• Shortlisted for Illustrated Book of the Year at the 2019 ABIA Awards

The Cook’s Apprentice by Stephanie Alexander

• Shortlisted for Illustrated Book of the Year at the 2019 ABIA Awards

Tracker by Alexis Wright

• Shortlisted for the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction at the 2019 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards

Sagaland by Richard Fidler and Kári Gíslason

• Shortlisted for the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction at the 2019 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards

A Certain Light: A memoir of family, loss and hope by Cynthia Banham

• Shortlisted for the 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards Non-fiction

Half the Perfect World: Writers, dreamers and drifters on Hydra, 1955–1964 by Paul Genoni & Tanya Dalziell

• Shortlisted for the 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards Non-fiction

Rusted Off: Why country Australia is fed up by Gabrielle Chan

• Shortlisted for the 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards Non-fiction

Dancing in Shadows: Histories of Nyungar performance by Anna Haebich

• Shortlisted for the 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards Australian History

The Bible in Australia: A cultural history by Meredith Lake

• Shortlisted for the 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards Australian History

The Land of Dreams: How Australians won their freedom, 1788–1860 by David Kemp

• Shortlisted for the 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards Australian History

Staying: A Memoir by Jessie Cole

• Shortlisted for the 2019 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards Non-fiction

Miss Ex-Yugoslavia by Sofija Stefanovic

• Shortlisted for the 2019 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards Non-fiction

Dr Space Junk vs The Universe: Archaeology and the Future by Alice Gorman

• Shortlisted for the University of Queensland Non-Fiction Book Award 2019

An Unconventional Wife: The Life of Julia Sorell Arnold by Mary Hoban

• Shortlisted for the University of Queensland Non-Fiction Book Award 2019

Shakespeare’s Library: Unlocking the Greatest Mystery in Literature by Stuart Kells

• Shortlisted for the University of Queensland Non-Fiction Book Award 2019

The Eastern Curlew by Harry Saddler 

• Shortlisted for the University of Queensland Non-Fiction Book Award 2019

Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia by Christina Thompson

• Shortlisted for the University of Queensland Non-Fiction Book Award 2019

Are you tempted?

Flames by Robbie Arnott

It's a long weekend in Australia, and for the first time in over a year, we've enjoyed a lazy, nothing-to-do-but-flop-around-the-house kind of weekend. It has been blissful. Even with the ghastly high temps and even higher humidity, or maybe because of, it has been the perfect time for reading, snoozing and listening to music as we sporadically clean and tidy the house.

Typing up reviews has been the furthest thing from my mind.

Lots of changes (the good, positive, life-going-forward kind of changes, but changes nonetheless) are coming our way this year - starting next week when B18 goes away to Uni.

The teenage years are not easy for anyone to live through, which is maybe Nature's way of making it easy for both teens and their parents to let go. But as tough as the last few years have been (and there were times when I thought my sanity would not survive intact), I wouldn't now swap them for anything.

Which brings me to Flames by Robbie Arnott. Like a teenager in full flight, it's a hard novel to define or pin down. Like a teenager, it's a debut with flights of fancy, bravado and wild schemes. It's on the verge of greatness, oozing potential and grand ideas. But unlike living with teenagers, I loved every minute of it and can't wait to see what Arnott does next!

The Tasmanian environment is one of the prominent characters throughout this genre-defying story which Arnott uses to stress the interconnectedness between us all. Fire, water, trees and the gods play their parts too.

Flames has a fablesque quality and is mythological in tone with different writing styles to suit each characters story. Arnott plays around with magic realism, an epistolary chapter, report writing and the fabulous chapter with the female private eye that reads like a Tasmanian Philip Marlowe, just to name a few. It should have felt disjointed and all over the place, but just like a teen, it somehow made sense and seemed like just the right thing to do at that time.

Through his various characters, Arnott explores the wild, raw nature of grief, mourning and love. We watch them come to terms with letting go of what they thought they knew as they learn to embrace the unknowable future and whatever it might bring. No matter how far apart you may seem to be, you are still family, you are still connected, and it will ultimately keep you afloat, if you let it.

Arnott is a young Tasmanian copywriter. Flames has been shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction, the Indie Book Awards for Debut Fiction, and the Queensland Literary Awards: University of Queensland Fiction Book Award 2018.

Facts:

• Longlisted | 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.
• Winner | Margaret Scott Prize | Tasmanian Premier's Literary Awards 2019
• Shortlisted | Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Fiction 2019
• Longlisted | Indie Book Awards for Debut Fiction 2019
• Shortlisted | UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing | NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2019
• Shortlisted | Queensland Literary Awards Fiction Book Award 2018
• Shortlisted | Kathleen Mitchell Award 2019
• Longlisted | ALS Gold Medal 2019
• Longlisted | Miles Franklin Literary Award 2019
• Longlisted | Voss Literary Prize 2019
• Shortlisted | Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize UK 2019

Taboo by Kim Scott

I'm not sure I will be able to adequately sum up my thoughts and impressions about Taboo by Kim Scott, but I'll give it a shot.

Scott has been shortlisted for this year's Miles Franklin Award; he has already won it twice. In 2000 for Benang: From the Heart and again in 2011 for That Deadman Dance.

Benang is on my TBR pile, but I have yet to read either. My understanding is that they are both historical fiction in nature, with an Indigenous perspective of our shared history. Taboo is contemporary fiction, with not only an Indigenous perspective of our shared history but also with an eye towards our possible shared future. I found it to be an extraordinary feat of compassion, revelation and hope. 

After stumbling through the first 50 pages or so, lost and unsure how to proceed, I found a kind of rhythm and sense to the disjointed passages. The jumps and starts started to feel symbolic and purposeful. I then began to see the poetry in the chaos. 

Scott described this style in the Afterword as, 

a trippy, stumbling sort of genre-hop that I think features a trace of Fairy Tale, a touch of Gothic, a sufficiency of the ubiquitous Social Realism and perhaps a tease of Creation Story.

The story at the heart of Taboo is the memory of an 18th century massacre and the work that a small country town in W.A. does to heal this wound. From this brutal past, with all its miscommunication, misinterpretation & denial as well as the stark realities of modern life for many Aboriginal Australians, Scott encourages us to find connection and shared meaning.

And country.

Like, Scott, I believe that the hope for our future lies in our shared sense of country. It is thanks to our Aboriginal heritage that many Anglo-Australians have changed the way they/we/me use the word 'country' to describe our sense of belonging and attachment to this place we call home. It's an important shift in thinking and feeling that gives all of us a common sense of belonging, well-being and pride. 

The power of words and the importance of language is another central idea explored by Scott in Taboo,

Story like this really about coming together, healing and making ourselves strong with language.

He reminds us that many place names as well as the names for native plants and animals have been derived from their Aboriginal names. Aboriginal history is all around us; in country and in words.

We'll take the language back, the stories that belong here and tell us who to be, what we can do.

Mangart - Jam tree - Acacia acuminata

'Words hold everything together.'

One of the trees endemic to the Noongar region of W.A., that Scott's characters regularly referred to, was a jam tree. The stone curlew was important too. I didn't know either by sight, so I did a quick search to help me with imagining the environment accurately. 

Bush stone curlew

As you might expect from a story about a massacre, spirits, ghosts, presences and apparitions haunt as well as welcome our characters - the Aboriginal characters as well as the Anglo ones - to place and time. They are,

'something both new and old, something recreated and invigorated.' 

Scott doesn't shy away from the complexities inherent in modern Australian life. His characters were not stereotypes or caricatures. They were flawed, idealistic, weak, contrary human beings trying to be the best they could.

Or as Scott says in his Afterword, 'a little band of survivors following a retreating tide of history, and returning with language and story...provides the connection with a story of place deeper than colonisation, and for transformation and healing.'

Bill @The Australian Legend has written an informative post about the Cocanarup massacres that are central to this story.

If you'd like to learn more about Noongar language and culture visit their website here.

Scott has also been engaged in the Stories Project that produces illustrated picture books in Noongar language.

The Garma Festival is currently on in Gove, Northern Territory. An awareness and appreciation for our Indigenous past is slowing, oh so slowly, gaining momentum, although our politicians response to the Uluru Statement from last year is sadly lagging behind the thinking of many other Australians.

Book 14 of #20BooksofSummer (winter)
24℃ in Sydney
21℃ in Northern Ireland

Dark Emu Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident? by Bruce Pascoe

Dark Emu Black Seeds challenges the orthodoxy of how Australia was settled and what the settlers actually saw when they arrived.

To the victor goes the spoils...as well as the right to write history their way.

Reading E.H. Carr's What is History? during my first year at Uni was the first time I had cause to think about the nature of history, facts and evidence. I was amazed, at the tender age of 18, to think that facts where selected by historians to suit the story they wanted to tell. They decided which facts were important and which ones weren't. Personal bias and agenda abounded.

The belief in a hard core of historical facts existing objectively and independently of the interpretation of the historian is a preposterous fallacy, but one which it is very hard to eradicate.

It was also the first time that I considered the role of revisionism in history and how modern thinking could colour how we viewed the 'historical facts' at different times throughout history. Carr also went on a bit about the progress of man towards some kind of better, more evolved state which was an idea that even at the tender age of 18 I struggled to swallow!

The progression of man towards some better end was definitely in the minds of many of the early white explorers and settlers to Australia. To that end, they saw everything about the Aboriginal way of life as backward and evidence of their lesser standing. This belief made it easier for them to dismiss and ignore any signs of civilisation or community. And to deny Aboriginals many basic human rights, including the most basic of all, life itself.

Pascoe writes with a barely contained anger. By the end of this slim volume it's hard not to acknowledge that this anger is justified. Through his anger, Pascoe explores the writings and texts of many of the early explorers, settlers and historians. He pulls out all the documentation showing examples of large, established Aboriginal settlements, farming and fishing industries, food storage as well as the finely tuned water and fire management that many people may already be familiar with.

It's fascinating stuff and I urge you to read this book to see all the evidence for yourself.

I've just started reading Shashi Tharoor's Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India which addresses many similar issues. In his Introduction, Tharoor discusses the idea of reparation, but personally feels that atonement is probably a more do-able option. He also discusses the idea of
teaching alternate histories or histories told from the other side of colonisation in schools throughout the former Empire.

Books like Tharoor's and Pascoe's are a good start.

It seems improbable that a country can continue to hide from the actuality of its history in order to validate the fact that having said sorry we refuse to say thanks.

 

Offshore: Behind the Wire on Manus and Nauru by Madeline Gleeson

I have no idea how to adequately review Offshore: Behind the Wire on Manus and Nauru.

Refugees, asylum seekers and offshore processing has polarised politics and opinion in Australia for several years now. A book like this, that attempts to provide an 'uncompromising' overview that 'gets behind the rumours and allegations to reveal what is known' will probably only be read by those already convinced that there has to be a better way to manage the perceived crisis in asylum seekers.

Gleeson has put together a thoughtful, cohesive and detailed document. Her anger and frustration at the living conditions on Manus and Nauru and the uncertainty around processing individual claims is palpable. Yet Offshore still offers the reader opposing ideas, contradictory evidence and controversial opinions in an attempt to provide a balanced argument.

However it was impossible for me to get to the end of this book without being appalled by the conditions that the asylum seekers are currently living in on Manus and Nauru. The only justification for this treatment appears to be the idea that it will act as a strong deterrent for anyone considering arriving in Australia by boat.

Given that so many of the world's governments seem to be in a race to head to the right, I'm not sure how or when this situation will ease. After reading about the amount of money our government has spent and continues to spend on maintaining Manus and Nauru, the problem is not the money.

The problem seems to be how we actually perceive asylum seekers and refugees. Currently our ability to perceive, know or understand all the reasons why this situation has occurred are shrouded in double speak and political obfuscation. This ignorance creates fear and distrust.

Morally and ethically we know what should be done, so why aren't we doing it? What is the political expediency that is driving our current course of action? Why are we deliberately creating more damage for people already damaged? What will the long term cost for this psychological damage be? For them and for us? How can we possibly think that it will end well for any of us to create this level of trauma in human beings?

My only problem with Gleeson's book is that none of these questions could be answered.

Future history students will one day be studying this period of time and citing these events as one of the causes for what happens next. They will shake their heads in wonder that we couldn't see and didn't do anything to change the course of history.

It would seem, that history does indeed, repeat itself.

James Kane from Goodreads has posted the review for Offshore that I wish I could have written.

Offshore was longlisted for this year's Stella Prize, shortlisted for the University of Queensland Non-fiction award 2016 and winner of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Writing for Non-fiction 2017.

Six Bedrooms by Tegan Bennett Daylight

Six Bedrooms has been on my radar ever since an ARC turned up at work last year, but something about "the dangerous, tilting terrain of becoming an adult" from the back blurb put me off.

The becoming an adult stage was traumatic enough to live through first time around; I wasn't sure if I was brave enough to relive it all over again via Tegan Bennett Daylight's stories.

But now, Six Bedrooms has been shortlisted for this year's Stella Prize as well as the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards and lots of interesting, intriguing reviews are appearing. Enough to make me ignore the ghastly front cover design and finally dive into the short stories inside.

Daylight starts with a quote from Tim Winton's Aquifer, which sets up her stories perfectly,

...the past is in us, and not behind us. Things are never over.

A handful of the stories present Tasha at various stages of her coming of age - awkward, destructive and defiant - while the rest explore relationships exposed to loss, pain and sexual longing and confusion.

Daylight's writing is evocative and painfully honest.

Her story about a teen party full of wanna-be Madonna's doing 'Like a Virgin' moves across the sunken lounge room could have come straight from my own history! Daylight recreates that scary, exciting sense of being hopelessly adrift in the big wide world for the first time. All that rebellion and determination to do better, be better than your own parents making you brash and abrasive and oh so vulnerable. Trying desperately to find a place to fit in but still feeling out of place everywhere.

The sign of a good book, dare I say, a profound book, is one that instils in you a desire to be a better person.

Reading Six Bedrooms has been a timely prompt for me to remember just how full of angst this phase was as my stepsons now enter this unknown terrain themselves. A reminder of how important it is to always have a safe harbour to sail into when it all gets too much.

Only the Animals by Ceridwen Dovey

Ahhhhh!

The sigh of satisfaction after finishing an extraordinary, quirky, thought-provoking book is a blissful sound indeed!

At the start I had no expections for Ceridwen Dovey's Only the Animals.

My aversion to talking animal stories is well documented!
The cover also intrigued & repelled in equal measure.

And for the first 2-3 stories I struggled a little with the talking animals. Not because the animals were talking....but because I kept forgetting that I was reading about animals who could 'talk'. I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't reading a story about humans.

Perhaps that's the only real flaw I can bring up with Only the Animals. All the animals are personified to such a degree that you forget that they are animal.
That's where the beauty & the uncomfortable part comes in though - what is human nature & what is animal nature & is the difference between the two really that great?

Although the book is set up as separate short stories, and I found that I could only read one at a time, the whole thing flowed together through time and space to present a united front.

Each animal was connected to a human writer at a time of conflict. I had enough literary knowledge to recognise & enjoy most of the references, allusions & homages. But I'm convinced you could enjoy these stories at any level.

My personal favourites? The Jack Kerouac style mussel story was hilarious, Colette's cat was seductive, Tolstoy's tortoise & the inspiring twin sister elephants will be revisited for the pure pleasure of it all.

I will leave you with the dolphin who wrote a letter to Sylvia Plath. She is discussing Ted Hughes, as dolphins do,

"Back then, I had admiringly thought he was trying to understand the human by way of the animal, 

but now I can see that in fact he wanted to justify the animal in the human."

Later:

Nancy, in the comments below, asked me about Dovey winning the New Australian Writing Award, and I had to confess to not knowing anything about it.

Since then I have done some research.

Readings is an Indy bookshop based in Melbourne with several shop fronts. They have been in business since 1969. Last year they created two new book awards to encourage new authors and children's writing. The prize money for each was $4000.

The New Australian Writing Award (RNAWA) is designed to encourage new and emerging writers. As such writers will only be eligible for the award with their first or second published work. The inaugural award was won last year by Ceridwen Dovey for Only the Animals (her second published work).

The Readings Children Book Prize (RCBP) is also for new and emerging authors of children's books (but not picture books). Last year's inaugural winner was Julie Hunt for Song For a Scarlet Runner.

For the record, Dovey has also recently won the Steele Rudd Award (Short Story collection) for the 2014 Queensland Literary Awards (QLA) and has been shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards (2015).

This post is part of my Australian Women Writers challenge.

Boy, Lost: A Family Memoir by Kristina Olsson

I've been going through a phase of reading sad, bittersweet books these past few weeks...and I feel like I've been through the wringer!

Boy, Lost is no different.

Based on the true story of what happened to Olsson's family in the 1950's in Queensland, Australia, this memoir is retold with grace, understanding and a deep, overarching love and care for everyone concerned. She gently walks through the complexities of memory, loss and grief.

But this is so much more than a beautiful told family memoir. It is also so much more than one family's attempt to confront their past & lay their ghosts to rest.

Olsson takes the time to consider all the other 'lost' children in Australia during the 1950's. She discusses how it was that our society allowed these children to be taken, and so often mistreated, as well.

I'm feeling so awash with emotion from this book (and Tyler's and Hay's) that I know I have not done it justice with this review.

All I can do is give it a highly recommended, a big thumbs up and five stars!

Boy, Lost won the Queensland Literary Awards last year. It was shortlisted for the Stella Prize and the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards this year.

Breaking news: Boy, Lost shared the first prize for the NSW Premier's Literary Awards Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-Fiction 2014 with Michael Fullilove's Rendezvous with Destiny.