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.