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.