Busy, Reading

Whoops, nearly let a month go past without updating this blog. Tamarisk Row was a sad sort of book, young boy growing up under the cloud of a father caught up in the vicious cycle of gambling. Then embarked on the very good, but chunky The Trout Opera; everything in that book that I like about reading Australian literature - the land, its history and its people. This one set in the Snowy River area, from 100 years and more ago, in Jindabyne, Dalgety as well as modern day Sydney, even Murwillumbah and Mt Warning, where we visited 18 months or so ago, in Northern NSW.

I have now started reading The Passage by Vance Palmer, published in 1959. It's set on a coastal passage about a family who is scraping by living off fishing. The setting is tiny coastal settlements on the brink of subdivision and tourism. Good reading.

Economics?

Maybe not.Three books at the library today, one from The Australian's 2011 Best Books list on Keynes, the economist credited with helping lift Britain out of its financial slump in the 1930s. It looks to be quite well written and important because of its relevance to current financial issues, shall we say. The book is quite a compact, lightweight paperback. Not a big dull Economics sort of text book thing at all. But I am not sure my heart's in it. Have made a start instead on Tamarisk Row by Gerald Murnane, published in 1974.

Mary Poppins

I have just finished The Shiralee - a shiralee is a swag, a burden. Lovely story, some nice images of dusty, tough rural Australia. A bittersweet story about a drifter Dad with his little girl Buster. Made into a movie in 1987.

There are another couple of books to pick up from the library which I will try and do tomorrow. Meantime I have started reading Mary Poppins as an iBook on the iPad. PL Travers was born in Maryborough, just up the road in Queensland. The show Mary Poppins is currently on in Brisbane.

The Shiralee

Finished Dog Rock this morning (yes, I am on a week's break) and got The Shiralee from the library this morning. The Shiralee was published in 1955. Maybe it's about a girl who wears red ribbons at the ends of her plaits?

Project Gutenberg Australia (PGA)

I finished Obernewtyn a couple of days ago, now back to Dog Rock. I am thinking about ways to access some of the more difficult to find, out of print, rare books and found a couple of titles on PGA, including Out of the Silence, by Erle Cox. Cox's book is a very early example of science fiction; Obernewtyn is fantasy. Dog Rock is just plain comical, very funny.

Obernewtyn and Dog Rock

I did finish Cargo the second night of reading it. I started Dog Rock (funny story about very small town Australia in the '60s) but in the meantime, Obernewtyn has become available at the library. It is a fantasy story, not at all my thing I would have thought, but it's quite well written.

Jessica Au - Cargo

I finished Be Near Me so Dominic and I went to the library last night after dinner as this book became available - it's another from The Australian's Best Books of 2011 list. Its author is Australian, the book is most definitely Australian and I am two-thirds of the way through it already. I could have read until I finished it late last night but I am back to work now and thought I had better get some sleep. Hopefully I can finish it tonight!

Jessica Au has a website - click on her name.