Happy Reading in 2012

I finally finished The Pea-Pickers a couple of days ago. I did enjoy it even though I made heavy weather of it. As the back cover blurb says, "What love of words, and skill with words, what love of Australian earth and Australian people ..."

However, since I have the attention span of a gnat and I am fatally attracted to lists, I have started along another path of literary meandering. This list was recently in The Australian, Best Books of 2011 as chosen by a variety of authors, critics and the like. And each has nominated a clutch of books. So it's going to add bulk and spice to my current reading. I've started "Be Near Me" as it was the first available book on the list, sitting on the shelves in the Maroochydore library. I guess I am more or less planning to alternate between the 2 lists.

The garden photos are for fun, taken today on New Year's Day 2012 in our garden.

I sat out here for a little while reading today.


The basil has been extraordinarily vigorous and we've have several batches of beautiful pesto from it.

Then there are the Bloodwood trees and the banana palms...

Picking Peas, Slowly ....

I have been reading this book for a while now, and whilst it's a good book (set in the Aussie landscape of Gippsland, country-folk in the 40s) it has been slow-going...

Forward to the Ice Station

Was never really engaged by The House of Balthus which I (blessedly) finally finished just before getting off my return flight from Melbourne today. Apparently, in this book, "characters from the artist Blathus' paintings walk out of the canvas and take on a life of their own..." but sadly - it just didn't click with me. Guess I can't like them all!

Wonder if I will have better luck with Ice Station. Matthew Reilly's new book Scarecrow is selling well, according to The Age's book stats I flicked through briefly today.

March, Little Women, House of Balthus

I finished March yesterday. The blurb on the back of the book indicates that March is the story of the absent father in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women! Which I haven't read but it is available free and now downloaded onto the iPad!

I've read a little of it already but have now started The House of Balthus - a slim volume for easy packing for my trip to Melbourne in a couple of days... but I will be packing a couple of other slim volumes, again in anticipation of reading time aplenty in Melbourne.

March

I finished The Deep Field last night; it's a lovely book and I am really glad I own it. Now I am reading March which is a library book. It's due back in a couple of weeks so I will have to read it quickly, get it read before I go to Melbourne in 10 days.

The Deep Field

Another of my recent batch from Leura books, I started The Deep Field last night. It's a lovely book in great condition. It's also a lovely book to read, a beautifully written story set far, far into the future. The writing has an antiquated feel to it, so it's an odd counterbalance to its futuristic setting and I am really enjoying it so far.

Edens Lost

Very quickly finished David Malouf's slim volume and almost through Edens Lost; plenty of reading time with recent trips to Melbourne and Sydney. Edens Lost is part of a recent haul from Leura. I've also had quotes for some of the really hard books to find, and they are WAY out of the league of this little clutch - over $100-200! I will put the details on here when I have a little more time.

Picked up Ice Sation for $10 at an airport shop.

Fly Way Private Man, Come Back Peter

Plenty of reading time going to Melbourne for a few days. Finished The Private Man on the flight home and now reading David Malouf's 1982 novel(lla) Fly Away Peter.

A Private Man

Finished Morgan's Run last night. Now reading A Private Man... not the edition with the "girly" cover, either!!

Morgan's Run

Began reading this chunky book by Colleen McCullough last night... and that's what I'm off to do right now ... carry on reading it!

The Washerwoman's Dream

This is a partly fictionalised account of a fascinating life - of a woman who arrived in Australia in the 188os with her father. She had the toughest of existences, just incredible. I started the book yesterday after finishing The World Beneath.

Now to The World Beneath

So I finished Gilgamesh in double quick time then polished off the rest of My Place. And now I am ripping through - and really enjoying - The World Beneath!

Gilgamesh Express

Last weekend I discovered I couldn't renew Gilgamesh as there was another reserve on it. So, even despite working back a lot this week, I managed to finish this rather sad book in time to have it back to the library today.

Raising a son can be a brittle, fragile affair; this book touched a nerve.

And now it's back to Sally Morgan's My Place where Nan is finally talking about growing up blackfella...

My Place

Finished Red Dust a week or so back and now reading My Place. Not a novel at all but a wonderful mix of autobiography and oral history. An Aboriginal family who hid their background from their young generations because of shame, fear, the idea that it was safer to forget. But Sally Morgan eventually got her mother, Nan and an uncle to talk and it's all recorded here. There is much shame in the stories but it should be that of the perpetrators of this history. But are we permitted to judge history like that? Anyway, this is a book that I am grateful to be reading.

Red Dust

Another stack from the library today. Timely, since I finished Peter Kocan's stories last night. I think they might have been somewhat autobiographical as they were set in a psychiatric prison institution. I will be interested to do some more research into Peter Kocan and his writing.

Meantime, feeling like a complete change of gear and deliberately chose the next batch of books to be written by women. Red Dust looks like a good easy read, even got large print. It's a bit frustrating at the moment, just wanting to read in the evenings, but I have presentations to put together for work. However, I am not going to totally ruin a weekend and go to work tonight and tomorrow night; so tomorrow it is and I will get stuck into some reading in the meantime.

The Treatment and The Cure

What sort of quirky person voted for Dutiful Daughter as their FAN? It was weird.

Peter Kocan sounds interesting: at age 19, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the attempted assassination of a federal politician. He did some of his writing from prisons and psychiatric wards.

A Dutiful Daughter

Finished Transit of Venus last night. Two Australian women in the story does not an Aussie book make... let's try a Tom Keneally!

The Transit of Venus, Shirley Hazzard

I've been a bit forgetful on this blog lately! I didn't get stuck into the book Gez gave me but about a week or more ago started this book instead. There are two young Australian women in the story; so far, the book is set in England. It's quite beautifully written but again, another somewhat "twitty" over analytical book, the young protagonists have too much navel-gazing time on their hands ... Still, it's a nice escape from all the other "busy" that's going on at the moment.

The photo is of Shirley Hazzard in 2007, taken by Christopher Petersen.

The Transit of Venus, her third novel, won the 1980 National Book Critics Circle Award.[5] Her next novel, The Great Fire, which took her twenty years to write, garnered the 2003 National Book Award, the 2004 Miles Franklin Award, and the 2005 William Dean Howells Medal. It was also shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction, longlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize, and named a 2003 Book of the Year by The Economist.[6] Her second novel, The Bay of Noon, was nominated for the Lost Man Booker Prize.

It's interesting that only Transit made it on to the FAN list ...

Henry's Daughter

A couple of nights back, I finished Mallawindy. Now reading Henry's Daughter but it's just more dysfunctional, impoverished rural small town Australia with FAR too many children. So it might be quite nice to break away and read the book that Geraldine brought over when she and the girls came for afternoon tea yesterday ...

Lovely Loot from Leura

Shopping in Books of Buderim the other day, I spotted a Furphy, Such is Life. I nearly bought it. But it was about $30. Instead I thought I'd see if Leura books stocked it. And because they ship free for orders of $30 or more, I kept shopping until I'd clocked up the required amount. 5 books for the price of one.

It's sad, but it's no surprise the independent booksellers are struggling. I'd really like to support them but my cash is hard-earned and books are a luxury these days. And I quite like that these books come with a history - they're not brand new but they are in pretty good nick, the Furphy all nicely done up in a plastic cover. Thanks again to the crew at Leura books.

Joy Dettman

These two books have been on order for a few weeks now - they must be very popular. Dominic and I went to the library after dinner to pick them up. I am starting with Mallawindy. And it's a very grim start...

I finished Maestro last night.

Maestro

Having trouble getting an image (but finally did, a bit blurry)on here of the second Peter Goldsworthy book I'm reading, Maestro. But since I'm nearly finished it, thought I'd better get something on here ...

Three Dog Night ended up really irritating me with its implausible moral dilemma. I got quite cross with it - shades of For Love Alone.

Maestro is better.

Henry's Daughter is waiting for me at the library; might take Dominic after work tomorrow to pick it up.

Contillo; then a book by Dr Goldsworthy

I finished reading Tangara about Wednesday and am now well over half way through Contillo, another of my Leura book bargains. Contillo is a lovely gentle, understated read; so compelling though, as the characters are wonderful. Not outrageous, but ordinary and perfectly brought to life by Aitchison's writing. The book begins in an impoverished rural village in Italy just before the onset of WW2. Stefano Contillo is a farm labourer with an ever-increasing family. He emigrates to Australia so he can send money back to support his family. He misses the war in Italy but is interred in Australia. The book says little about that but says so much about other aspects of social and political life in Australia at that time. From the unionised steelworks and slums of Sydney to the rough, empty and rutted-roaded Queensland where Contillo goes cane-cutting. It's wonderful.

Dr Peter Goldsworthy (father of Anna, of Piano Lessons fame) featured recently in an article in a local rag; I think he's taking part in a Noosa Long Weekend culture fest. So I thought I'd see what he's written and there are at least a couple, from memory, maybe three, of his books on my list. Three Dog Night was available in the library so I will start with that once I have finished (and I will be sad) Contillo.