Book Review: The Silver Donkey

From Goodreads: One bright spring morning in the woods of France, a soldier, blinded by the war, is found by a little girl named Coco, and her older sister Marcelle. In return for their kindness, the soldier tells the sisters marvelous tales, each story connected to the keepsake he carries in his pocket: a perfect, tiny silver donkey.
As the days pass and they struggle in secret to help the soldier reach home, Coco and Marcelle learn the truth behind the silver donkey, and what the precious object means: honesty, loyalty, and courage.

Thoughts:  Sonya Hartnett is quite simply a beautiful writer.  The Silver Donkey was her the first foray out of YA and Adult and into younger reader territory. In my mind that is always a dangerous time for an author, especially one who has so firmly cemented themselves as an outstanding YA author. In reality I think there are very few who do the cross over successfully - Hartnett is without doubt one of them.
The subtly of her writing is still strong - just because her audience is younger she doesn't feel the need to pander to them and explain every single event. A book such as this is ripe for discussion either in a class room or between parent and child. At the same time, Hartnett does not shy away from portraying war as a horrible and nasty business - no glorification here! 
Adults take a back seat in this story, the children are driving it, but adult help is sought when it's needed. By doing this Hartnett doesn't stray into the territory of the children accomplishing something they quite simply wouldn't be able to. Themes are plentiful and it could be used to fit many a theme - war, trust, secret keeping, how the world has changed, story telling, loyalty. In the lead up to Remembrance Day  it would be a good book to share with a child who appreciate a war story which did not focus so much on the fighting, but on the possible emotional issues faced by those caught up in such terrible times.

The Silver Donkey gets 4 stars 

 *        Did not like it
**       It was OK
***      Liked it
****    Really liked it

*****   It was amazing

 

Book Review: Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight

From Goodreads: Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight is two weeks in the life of Joel Hedges and Cat Davis. Joel would prefer to get through his final year of high school without Cat Davis or his mother's faux Spanish boyfriend and just hang-out with his best-friend Luke. Cat Davis has an annoying best-friend, and even more annoying little brother, and a deep abiding hatred of Joel Hedges.
Due to an unfortunate incident involving a leaking pen and suspected outbreak of Bird Flu, Joel and Cat are forced to sit next to each other in Extension English. To make matters worse, and to their mutual horror, they are paired together for a tandem story writing assignment. 

Thoughts: A tandem story about a tandem story! I am in awe of anyone who can write a good tandem story. I've read books where it worked really well like Gaiman and Pratchett's Good Omens, Green and Levithan's Will Grayson, Will Grayson and I've seen disasters like Picoult and van Leer's Between the Lines. Earls and Sparrow I am glad to report pulled it off with great aplomb! Joel and Cat Set the Story Straight is what good quality young adult fiction should be. It's fun, interesting, thought provoking, has a little bit of angst and laugh out loud funny.
For me, any good YA does have a bit of a moral/ education to it. Maybe it's the mum in me, maybe it's the teacher, or maybe it's just that I like books that give you that little bit extra than just pure entertainment. The real skill is presenting that information without hitting teens over the head with it, because, lets face it, we can't teach them anything! (Oh to be back in that time when I knew EVERYTHING!) The message in Joel and Cat can be summed up beautifully in this meme

Things are not always what they seem. The person who seems to have it all in reality most probably doesn't. It takes nothing to be kind and non-judgmental. You may find out something you never knew.

Joel and Cat Set the Record Straight gets 4 stars

 *        Did not like it
**       It was OK
***      Liked it
****    Really liked it

*****   It was amazing

Book Review: Amnesia

From Goodreads: It was a spring evening in Washington DC; a chilly autumn morning in Melbourne; it was exactly 22.00 Greenwich Mean Time when a worm entered the computerised control systems of hundreds of Australian prisons and released the locks in many places of incarceration, some of which the hacker could not have known existed. 
Because Australian prison security was, in the year 2010, mostly designed and sold by American corporations the worm immediately infected 117 US federal correctional facilities, 1,700 prisons, and over 3,000 county jails. Wherever it went, it traveled underground, in darkness, like a bushfire burning in the roots of trees. Reaching its destinations it announced itself: The corporation is under our control. The angel declares you free.
Has a young Australian woman declared cyber war on the United States? Or was her Angel Worm intended only to open the prison doors of those unfortunates detained by Australia's harsh immigration policies? Did America suffer collateral damage? Is she innocent? Can she be saved?

Thoughts: Peter Carey is one of those authors I've been meaning to read for years. He is lauded as one of Australia's greats and at the start of this book I could see why. However, by the end I just wanted it to be over. I listened to this as a audio book, read by Colin Friels and Friels voice may have been the only thing that stopped me ripping my headphones off in pure frustration.

As I said, it started well. The story was intriguing, the narrator someone you were willing to go along with.  Then part two of the book started. I started to wish the narrator would stop whinging, I kept waiting for the story to go somewhere, for the clear storyline from the first part to reappear. It didn't. Or maybe it did but I was so dispirited and confused I couldn't recognise it. Amnesia strikes me as the kind of book that was trying to be too clever for it's own good and in doing so it stuffed up what could have been a really interesting story. I haven't given up on Carey just yet, everyone deserves a second chance, but it may take me awhile before I'm willing to have another go.

Amnesia gets 2 stars

 *        Did not like it
**       It was OK
***      Liked it
****    Really liked it

*****   It was amazing 

Book Review: Gough Whitlam: A Tribute

From ABC Shop: An all new photographic tribute to a giant of Australian politics.

When Gough Whitlam died on 21 October 2014, his legacy to the Australian people was a nation transformed. With all royalties going to the Whitlam Institute, this tribute traces his extraordinary life through the photographers' lens from his childhood and meeting his great love Margaret, to the soaring successes and shattering defeats of his political life and his ongoing enthusiasm for the great cause of a fairer, more mature Australia.

Thoughts: This was a chance find. It simply came through the return chute at work and it appealed to me. I grew up in a very left wing house. Not surprisingly then, my own politics have a strong left lean to them. While I don't have a living memory of Gough Whitlam as Australia's Prime Minister (I was three when he uttered those immortal words, "Well may we say God Save the Queen, for nothing will save the Governor General!) my mother was a staunch supporter of him. My sister benefited from his belief that education was a right, not a privilege and studied her university degree under the no fee system introduced by the Whitlam government. Like or hate him, you have to admit the man had presence and his career will be forever talked about by both sides.

Each of the pictures in the book had a commentary about it - what it was, when it was taken and the significance of it - whether it was a family photo or Whitlam meeting international heads of state. It is unashamedly pro Whitlam. It focuses on his strengths, his desire to bring about radical change and his role as one of the first in government to lever the press in his favour.

If you want a snap shot of Whitlam, his life in and out of politics, you could do worse than this book. As for me, it has feed a desire to read something more in depth about this great man.

Gough Whitlam: A Tribute gets 3 stars 

 *        Did not like it
**       It was OK
***      Liked it
****    Really liked it
*****   It was amazing

Book Review: The Wife Drought

From Goodreads: ‘I need a wife’
It's a common joke among women juggling work and family. But it’s not actually a joke. Having a spouse who takes care of things at home is a Godsend on the domestic front. It’s a potent economic asset on the work front. And it’s an advantage enjoyed – even in our modern society – by vastly more men than women.
Working women are in an advanced, sustained, and chronically under-reported state of wife drought, and there is no sign of rain.
But why is the work-and-family debate always about women? Why don’t men get the same flexibility that women do? In our fixation on the barriers that face women on the way into the workplace, do we forget about the barriers that – for men – still block the exits?
The Wife Drought is about women, men, family and work. Written in Annabel Crabb’s inimitable style, it’s full of candid and funny stories from the author's work in and around politics and the media, historical nuggets about the role of ‘The Wife’ in Australia, and intriguing research about the attitudes that pulse beneath the surface of egalitarian Australia.
Crabb's call is for a ceasefire in the gender wars. Rather than a shout of rage, The Wife Drought is the thoughtful, engaging catalyst for a conversation that's long overdue.

Thoughts:  The tag line of this book - Why women need wives, and men need lives - may be off putting, particularly to the male portion of the population. Don't let it fool you. It means men need lives outside of work and our social paradigm makes that incredibly different.
Crabb defines a wife as "...male or female. Whether they're men or women, though, the main thing wives are is a cracking professional asset. They enable the busy full-time worker to experience the joy and fulfilment of children, without the considerable inconvenience of having to pick them up from school at 3pm...Having a wife means that if you get caught up at work, or want to stay later...it can be done. Many wives work, but they do jobs that are either part-time or offer sufficient flexibility for the accommodation of late-breaking debacles."
So a wife can be either male or female, but the reality is that it's usually the woman.
The thing I found quite refreshing about this book is it actually had a look at the effect of how our societal norms affect men as well as women. While it has worked to keep women out of the workforce, made it harder for them to move up the corporate ladder and achieve equal pay, it has worked equally hard to keep men in the workforce and out of the home. Men who do take time out to be "the wives" not only suffer in the workforce, but also in the world of the stay at home parent. Crabb points out that we have spent too long looking at what is happening in the workplace without considering what is happening in the home. The reality is most families need someone who is willing to be the wife. I know in my own house, my role as wife is essential and allows our house to operate smoothly, but it has come at the cost of my career. In houses where both parents work full time, women still tend to pick up the slack of running the rest of the house. While chores may be shared, women still do the lions share. They are the ones to organise the extra curricula activity and take time off when the kids are sick.
In this book, Crabb suggests until we address the inequality in the home - not only towards women, but men as well. We need to make it ok for men to take time off to be the wife. We need to value the wife's role and realise that without them many of our full time workers could not do what they do. 

The Wife Drought gets 3 stars.


*        Did not like it
**       It was OK
***      Liked it
****    Really liked it
*****   It was amazing

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Book Review - Eyrie

From Goodreads: Eyrie tells the story of Tom Keely, a man who’s lost his bearings in middle age and is now holed up in a flat at the top of a grim highrise, looking down on the world he’s fallen out of love with.
He’s cut himself off, until one day he runs into some neighbours: a woman he used to know when they were kids, and her introverted young boy. The encounter shakes him up in a way he doesn’t understand. Despite himself, Keely lets them in.
What follows is a heart-stopping, groundbreaking novel for our times – funny, confronting, exhilarating and haunting – populated by unforgettable characters. It asks how, in an impossibly compromised world, we can ever hope to do the right thing..

Thoughts: Does anyone do self absorbed characters like Tim Winton? He's also the master of the character driven novel. He takes mundane ordinary people who, lets face it, are often having a shit time, and make you want to know what happens to their sad, ordinary lives. Against all odds he makes you care about them.
Tom Keely's life is a mess. Instead of turning this into a "watch a good man pull himself up by his bootstraps" kind of book, Winton lets Keely wallow in his misery. What's more, he complicates things further with the introduction of Gemma, a girl from his childhood and Kai her six year old grandson. Everything that occurs simply leads the hapless Keely into deeper and deeper trouble until you wonder if he'll ever be able to extract himself.
Don't read this looking for an uplifting story. Don't read it looking for resolution. Read it for Winton's beautiful sparse use of language, his chronically flawed characters and his portrayal of life in all its messiness.

Book Review: The Arrival

From Goodreads: In a heartbreaking parting, a man gives his wife and daughter a last kiss and boards a steamship to cross the ocean. He's embarking on the most painful yet important journey of his life- he's leaving home to build a better future for his family.
Shaun Tan evokes universal aspects of an immigrant's experience through a singular work of the imagination. He does so using brilliantly clear and mesmerizing images. Because the main character can't communicate in words, the book forgoes them too. But while the reader experiences the main character's isolation, he also shares his ultimate joy.

Thoughts: Shaun Tan is fabulous. His ability to tell a full and emotive story suing pictures is bought to the fore in this book. The Arrival is a graphic novel without words, but at no stage are you left wondering what the story is about, what emotions the characters are feeling and why they are making the decisions they do.

The Suitcase - Shaun Tan

The Old Country - Shaun Tan

Telling the story of a man who leaves his family and journeys to a new country in search of a better life, Tan illustrates the strangeness of a new place, where nothing looks familiar and there are so many things you don't understand.

Freshman Monroe Scholars

The Market - Shaun Tan

Yet people are met, stories shared and you realise you are not the only one to have struggled in this new environment.

Columbus State University Unfamiliar Genre Wiki - Graphic Novels

Friends are made,

Dinner - Shaun Tan

families reunited,

Josephine Zupan's English 4561 E-Folio

and all without the reader having read a single word.

This book is so rich. You could easily spend a couple of hours pouring over the illustrations, looking at the detail and delighting at the story.

Shaun Tan explains some of the inspiration and processes behind The Arrival on this page. You will need to scroll down past the pictures to read the article. 

This book also fits into my 100 Best Book List Challenge, covering the Young Adult category.

Book Review: Spinifex Baby

From Finch Publishing: I thought I knew how hard it would be. What I didn’t know was that it would test me to the inner core. This desert with its rolling dune fields is an unforgiving land that relentlessly destroys even its own ancient beauty. It is a place where, compared to the age of the landscape, a single life means less than a grain of sand. I could not have known that the biggest challenge I would face would not be from the piercing sun, not from the unforgiving dust, not even from the aching loneliness of isolation, but from the treachery of my own self.
 
When Karen and her partner Al set forth from the cold mountains of Tasmania to the 45-plus degree heat of central Australia to transform a cattle station into a conservation reserve, they were ready to embrace the beauty of the land and throw themselves into the task of protecting native plants and animals. They thought they had all the skills necessary to beat the heat, the dust and their isolation from society. However, when Karen became unexpectedly pregnant, their lives were turned upside down. Suddenly their biggest danger was not their exposure to the harsh elements but to the deepest fears that resided within themselves…

Thoughts: I'm so excited to read this book, if for no other reason than it signifies the return of book group in my little corner of the world!! Yay!! Spinifex Baby was recommended by one of book group members who happens to be Karen Harrland's sister-in-law.
As an Australian, you can hardly imagine two landscapes more different than the Tasmanian mountains and the Queensland outback. One cool, green, wet with lush bushland. The other hot, red, dry (unless it's wet season and then it's really wet) and sparse vegetation. Add to this the remoteness of the desert and Karen and Al are way more adventurous than I would ever be!
Karen truly brings the beauty of the outback to the fore. Her writing has made me want to visit the landscape. She does however, also bring the harshness out. A place where when you hang washing, the first piece is dry before you put the last piece on the line. A place where a walk across the yard can leave you exhausted and sunburnt. A place where the nearest medical help is four hours by plane.
Given how ill she was during her pregnancy, I'm in awe of the fact she stayed out there. I wasn't even remotely as ill as Karen and I found it hard to go to the shops, let alone help keep a remote station running. As for returning after she'd had the baby, I don't think wild horses could have dragged me back!
Spinifex Baby is a wonderful book. It showcases the Australian outback without romanticising it. You are left with no doubt that it's not easy out there, but if you are willing to put the effort in, the rewards are incredible. It's a great read and I'm really looking forward to the discussion I know it will spark on Saturday.

Book Review: Ugly

From Goodreads: Robert Hoge was born with a giant tumour on his forehead, severely distorted facial features and legs that were twisted and useless. His mother refused to look at her son, let alone bring him home. But home he went, to a life that, against the odds, was filled with joy, optimism and boyhood naughtiness.
Home for the Hoges was a bayside suburb of Brisbane. Robert's parents, Mary and Vince, knew that his life would be difficult, but they were determined to give him a typical Australian childhood. So along with the regular, gruelling and often dangerous operations that made medical history and gradually improved Robert's life, there were bad haircuts, visits to the local pool, school camps and dreams of summer sports.
Ugly is Robert's account of his life, from the time of his birth to the arrival of his own daughter. It is a story of how the love and support of his family helped him to overcome incredible hardships. It is also the story of an extraordinary person living an ordinary life, which is perhaps his greatest achievement of all.

Thoughts: Another book I came across one day while shelving and decided to grab. I'd heard of Robert Hoge, seen a few of the publicity interviews when this book came out and knew that I wanted to read it.
First up this is a very well written memoir - unsurprising given Hoge's background as a journalist. However, I often find a journalist style doesn't transfer well to story telling. Hoge's however has spent a life time writing stories which was obviously a good grounding for this book. His style is easy to read, conversational. Along with looking a serious issues such as his medical care, Hoge's lightens the tone with stories of any normal Australian childhood. In fact for me, the strength of this book is the highlighting of the normality of his life. His struggles are ones many can identify with (fitting in, feeling/ looking different, making friends etc) even if the reasons for those differences are not the same.
Ugly is well worth the read if you are after a book to inspire you. It's a book that supports the theory that often the only limitations we have are the ones we place on ourselves.

Book Review: My Brilliant Career

From Goodreads: This classic Australian novel was written by Miles Franklin, and details her life being born of the bush in Australia. A fantastic, well-written book with lively descriptions of a girl's life that can't be passed up by anybody who is drawn by good stories with captivating details. This novel should be required reading by anyone interested in Australia or important female writers and novelists in history.
Thoughts: I read this as part of my 100 Best Books List Challenge, covering the Australian category.
This is one of those books taht as an Australian, I have heard about over the year but somehow have never picked it up or had it set as  a text at school. Most probably the most surprising thing for me was the ease with which it was read. Franklin's writing is light and breezy, but not trivial.
Sybylla is a wonderfully complex character. I loved her refusal to compromise, to become someone she knew she wasn't. Her determination to follow her own path obviously made her mother and grandmother despair!  Given it's setting of the late 1800's, she set herself a very difficult path being against marriage (for herself) and an atheist. You want a strong female character? You've got one here! On the other side she has plenty of self esteem issues. She constantly refers to herself as ugly, stating no-one could want someone as ugly as her. This continues even when others disagree with her. It's not helped by her mother though who is more than eager to agree. I read one review which suggested she seem to have manic depressive traits - high highs and soul destroying lows - and I can agree with that point of view.
Written when she was just 16 and published when she was 21. My Brilliant Career is a literary feat way beyond the author's years. The speculation around whether the book was autobiographical caused her much grief and she put off the publication of the sequel - My Career Goes Bung. I glad she did publish it, as I look forward to read it and other titles from one of Australia's greats.

Challenges: 100 Best Books List Challenge

Land's Edge

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Land's Edge: A Coastal Memoir - Tim Winton

From Goodreads: On childhood holidays to the beach the sun and surf kept Tim Winton outside in the mornings, in the water; the wind would drive him indoors in the afternoons, to books and reading. This ebb and flow of the day became a way of life.
In this beautifully delicate memoir, Tim Winton writes about his obsession with what happens where the water meets the shore – about diving, dunes, beachcombing – and the sense of being on the precarious, wondrous edge of things that haunts his novels.
Complemented by the breathtaking photographs of Narelle Autio, Land's Edge is a celebration of the coastal life and those who surrender themselves to it.

What I Thought: Every time I read a Winton book I am amazed. The man's talent is boundless. He has a uniquely Australian voice without sounding overdone or ocker - a mature voice which retains the simplicity and straight forwardness of Australia. And in Land's Edge, he writes part of my childhood. The duality of suburb and coast, where coast makes you more alive, feel more, brighter colours and days that go too fast.

A quintessential Australian suburban life...But again, when I dream, when I remember...I don't see the picket fences and the Holden in the driveway... or hear the whine of the mowers...on rare and dreaded family slide nights,...I have to strain to recognise myself in Hush Puppies and a mohair turtleneck...Because in my memory of childhood there is always the smell of bubbling tar, of Pinke Zinke,the briny smell of the sea. It is always summer and I am on Scarborough Beach, blinded by light, with my shirt off and my back a map of dried salt and peeling sunburn.

 Another review I read described this book as a love letter to the sea, which is a perfect description. At just over 100 pages, it's a quick read, but once again Winton's prose is pure poetry. In chapter three there is a passage about swimming with sharks which had me enthralled - not a terrifying, heart stopping, over dramatic description, but one of wonder and awe that these creatures should  fill us with.

The shark alters course and the real shock hits you as you begin to see the size of its body. The colossal flanks are delicately spotted, as mesmeric as an Aboriginal dot painting, and at first sight as intimidating as a ship's hull. Astonishingly silent, unhurried and seemingly in slow motion, but hard work to keep up with for too long. Festooned with remoras, suckers, cleaners, tiny opportunists. Spangled and speckled by the light on the moving surface of the water, it makes you smile around your snorkel.

 Like Tim Winton, I am lucky enough to live close enough to the sea to experience it every day, and like him, it feeds my soul, soothes me and touches me daily. His description of Australians relationship with the sea is spot on.

Australians do not go to 'the seaside'...We go to the beach with a mixture of gusto and apprehension, for our sea is something to be reckoned with. We are reared on stories of shark attacks, broken necks from dumpings in the surf and the spectre of melanoma. I suspect we go because of these warnings, at times, and not simply despite them.

 Challenges: Aussie Author Challenge

Six Sentence Sunday

As frequently happens when I haven't blogged for awhile, I get a little overwhelmed with what needs to be reviewed.

I'm not sure where 6 Sentence Sunday comes from but I've seen it around. Basically it means you review your book in 6 sentences or less. I have four to catch up on, so lets get started!

Russian Winter - Daphne Kalotay

In the hope of closing the curtain on painful memories, Nina Revskya, a Russian ballet dancer who defected to America, is selling her extensive jewelery collection and donating the proceeds to the Boston ballet. Griogori Solodin is a professor in Russian who believes he has a link to the famous ballerina. Kalotay writes a beautiful story of a woman living in very dangerous times and a man desperate to know the truth. Jumping back and forth from present day Boston and Stalinist Russia, the story exposes piece by piece the mystery behind Revskya and Solodin's past. Russian Winter is a beautifully written history lesson, love story and mystery all rolled into one - highly recommended.

The Lacuna - Barbara Kingsolver

 This was our first Book Group selection for the year but due to my 10 year old breaking his leg I was unable to get to the meeting. The Lacuna traces the life of Harrison William Shephard, a half Mexican, half American raised in Mexico but moving back to America as an adult. I don't find Kingsolver easy to read and this was no exception. I spent much of the novel waiting for something to happen, and with our main character encountering real life people such as Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and  Trotsky, you expected something to happen! In the end the prose kept me going, it is beautifully written. Just don't pick it up expecting a great page turner.

Challenges: Ebook Challenge

Paper Towns - John Green

 I'd heard the John Green around the blogosphere a lot but had never picked up one of his books until Paper Towns - and wow - I now get the hype. Recently I have come to the realisation that a lot of YA fiction no longer does it for me - most probably because I am way past being a YA myself. But every now and then you discover something that works and for me this was it. I loved the characters, the story line, the adventure, the puzzle, everything. I'll be looking for more of Mr Green's work!

Halt's Peril - John Flanagan

Oh but it was good to be back with Halt, Will and Horace as they search for Tennyson and his band of followers. One of the things I love about this series is the characters actually change and grow as the books progress. This is the ninth book in the series and Horace and Will have obviously become very competent young men, well past their apprenticeships. Flanagan continues to produce quality writing that is a wonderful introduction into the fantasy genre for younger readers.

Challenges: Aussie Author Challenge

So there I am caught up, thanks to Six Sentence Sunday!

Book Review - The Rook

From Goodreads: "The body you are wearing used to be mine." So begins the letter Myfanwy Thomas is holding when she awakes in a London park surrounded by bodies all wearing latex gloves. With no recollection of who she is, Myfanwy must follow the instructions her former self left behind to discover her identity and track down the agents who want to destroy her.
She soon learns that she is a Rook, a high-ranking member of a secret organization called the Chequy that battles the many supernatural forces at work in Britain. She also discovers that she possesses a rare, potentially deadly supernatural ability of her own.
In her quest to uncover which member of the Chequy betrayed her and why, Myfanwy encounters a person with four bodies, an aristocratic woman who can enter her dreams, a secret training facility where children are transformed into deadly fighters, and a conspiracy more vast than she ever could have imagined.

Thoughts: The first thing this book manages to do is make me feel old - not the fault of the author, but the fault of the person who recommended it to me...who I use to babysit...who just got married...whose sister has two children...making me old!
Anyway, once I'm past that I take the book on it's own merits. The premise of the book is interesting - the main character awakens in a London Park, surrounded by bodies and no idea who she is. A letter in her pocket begins with the words "The body you are wearing use to be mine." The letter then goes on to give the new owner two choices - select box number one, run away, become someone else or try and figure out who did this to them. Sensibly, Myfawny (rhymes with Tiffany) chooses option one - until events force her to choose number 2 instead.
Luckily for her, her predecessor knew what was going to happen and has left some most helpful letters plus a file detailing all she needs to know to continue living her life as an administrator for a paranormal secret service while trying to solve the mystery of who wants to kill her.
The book is well written and a very enjoyable read. A really enjoyed the clear division between new and old Myfanwy is clear and evident. Personally I think the amnesia has done her a favour. The world constructed by O'Malley is believable and fantastical - and it's nice that for once it all started in somewhere other than America! If I had one criticism it's the fact that old Myfawny seemed to have managed to include all the information new Myfawny could possibly need in her letters and file. At no point was new Myfawny left frantically scrabbling through her information only to find a hole. For me the file and letters became a bit of a plot device - almost clunky. Thankfully the use of both dropped off and the pace of the book picked up because of it.
The Rook is worth reading - some great funny parts (like the future telling duck!) and I look forward to the next in the series. Best of all, it fits into all my challenges!  Thanks to Luke for recommending it, can you go back to being 10 now? 

Challenges:  Ebook Challenge, Aussie Author Challenge, 13 in '13 

The Light Between Oceans

Title: The Light Between Oceans
Author: M.L Stedman
Genre: Fiction
Audience: Adult
Format: Kindle

FromGoodreads: In 1918, after four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia to take a job as the lighthouse keeper on remote Janus Rock. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes only four times a year and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Three years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel is tending the grave of her newly lost infant when she hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up on shore carrying a dead man and a living baby. Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the dead man and the infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom’s judgment, they claim the child as their own and name her Lucy, but a rift begins to grow between them. When Lucy is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world…and one of them is desperate to find her lost baby.

What I thought: Wow! What a wonderful book! Whether it was because I read it after a truly awful book or something else, I truly enjoyed this book. In fact, I found myself slowing down to read it because I didn’t want it over too quickly. The writing was gorgeous, flowing and so easy to lose yourself in. I could feel the salt spray, see the storm clouds, taste the sea air – totally stunning.
And I felt for all of Stedman’s characters, the woman desperate for a child of her own, the man torn between doing what he knows is right and keeping the woman he loves happy, the woman who wonders what happened to her baby, the grandparents who see the child as a way to mend past hurts and the innocent child who will lose, no matter what happens. Stedman treats all of them with the greatest respect, making sure that all of their stories are told with care and compassion. In fact, for the first time in a long time, I found myself not just with a tear running down my cheek at the end, but sobbing, needing tissues crying. This is a book I know I will revisit, reread and lose myself in again and again. I will be highly surprised if it doesn’t win awards of some kind.

Challenges: eBook Challenge, Aussie author Challenge

The Potato Factory

Title: The Potato Factory
Author: Bryce Courtenay
Series: The Australian Trilogy
Genre: Fiction
Audience: Adult
Format: Audio book - Kindle

From Courtenay's Website: Ikey Solomon is in the business of thieving and he's very good at it. Ikey's partner in crime is his mistress, the forthright Mary Abacus, until misfortune befalls them.

They are parted & each must make the harsh journey from thriving nineteenth century London to the convict settlement of Van Diemen's Land. In the backstreets & dives of Hobart Town, Mary learns the art of brewing & builds The Potato Factory, where she plans a new future. But her ambitions are threatened by Ikey's wife, Hannah, her old enemy.

The two women raise their separate families, one legitimate & the other bastard. As each woman sets out to destroy the other, the families are brought to the edge of disaster.

 
What I thought: Finally finished it! I have vague recollections of trying to read this many years ago when it first came out and really struggling with it. As I listened, I tried to remember what my issue was and I think it's this...Bryce Courtenay is very wordy! He seems to take the attitude of why say in 10 words what you can say in 50. He also goes off on little historical jaunts which while may be interesting, do tend to distract from the main story.
I must say though, the person who narrated it, Humphrey Bower, breathed life into this audio book. It's a long listen (almost 24 hours) which means it's essential to have someone who can keep you interested and engaged and not have you drifting off into other thoughts. In the end, I enjoyed the Potato Factory and have downloaded the second in the series, Tommo and Hawk. Here's hoping it doesn't take me quite as long to get through that!

Challenges: Library Challenge, Aussie Author Challenge,

48 Shades of Brown

Title: 48 Shades of Brown
Author: Nick Earls
Genre: Fiction
Audience: Young Adult
Format: Book - library

From Goodreads: Australian teenager Dan Bancroft had a choice to make: go to Geneva with his parents for a year, or move into a house with his bass-playing aunt Jacq and her friend Naomi. He chose Jacq’s place, and his life will never be the same. This action-packed and laugh-out-loud-funny novel navigates Dan’s chaotic world of calculus, roommates, birds, and love.

What I thought: I make no secret of my love of Nick Earls. I think is one of the funniest, wittiest writers around. I also think he has a great knack for getting inside the head of his characters and making you feel every thing they do. While reading this, I could feel Dan's anxiety, tension, worry - every tiny bit of teenage angst you can imagine. The mother in me wanted to gather him in my arms and tell him it will all be OK, all he needs to do is be himself! Which in the end is the moral of this story - be yourself, because being someone else is too much hard work! It's great advice for any teenager.
Challenges: Library Challenge, Aussie Author Challenge

Ishmael and the Return of the Dugongs

Title: Ishmael and the Return of the Dugongs
Author: Michael Gerard Bauer
Genre: Fiction
Audience: Young Adult
Format: Book - library

From Goodreads: Scobie, Zorzotto, Prindabel, Kingsley and Leseur are back at St Daniel's for Year Ten. Ishmael is feeling confident that he is over the worst of Ishmael Leseur's syndrome and, with Barry Bagsley neutralised for the time being, is hoping for a smooth ride. Instead, it's a seriously gut-wrenching struggle against social humiliation on a scale undreamt of before when he and the Razzman discover girls. His world is now seriously changed, and suddenly Ishmael needs a list to help him make a phone call. Meanwhile their father plans a potentially embarrassing comeback with his old band the Dugongs.
 
What I thought: I love Ishmael. I can only hope my boy grows up to be as thoughtful and lovely as this fictional character. Not that he's perfect - no, he gets into his fair share of trouble, but he thinks about others, is a good friend and his heart is usually in the right place!
I feel a bit disjointed with this series because I read the last book first, something I just don't do! I did however, enjoy it just as much as the other two books. My saddest thought is Scobie, Zorzotto, Prindabel, Kinglsey and Leseur have now graduated high school and unless Bauer plans to follow them to university (unlikely I think) this is my last Ishmael book.

Challenges: Library Challenge

Storm Peak

Title: Storm Peak
Author: John A Flanagan
Genre: Fiction
Audience: Adult
Format: Book - library

From Goodreads: Jesse Parker, ex-Denver police detective, has returned to his hometown of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, to spend the winter working the ski patrol and taking it easy. But he is reluctantly dragged back into a world of violence and murder when a serial killer begins a killing spree in the sleepy ski town. The town's popular sheriff, Lee Torrens, asks Jesse to help her out with the investigation as the killer continues to stalk the town, leaving little clue as to his motive. Are the murders random acts of a psychopath, or a cold, calculated escalation of terror? As the two friends work together, the embers of an old union reignite, but the growing notoriety of the Silver Bullet Killer brings complications that will shake the foundations of the small town. No-one is safe.
 
What I thought: I borrowed this from the library when I was looking on the catalogue for other John Flanagan books in the Ranger's Apprentice series. Anyone who has read this blog for more than 5 minutes will know how much I love the Ranger's Apprentice series so I thought I would check out one of his adult books.
Storm Peak was OK. It kept me reading, but didn't set anything on fire. For me it was a pretty stock standard mystery book. There was nothing in it that I wasn't expecting, the characters were nothing new. What the book did have over many mysteries I have read was good writing. Nothing jarred, stood out like a sore thumb. Flanagan obviously knows his stuff in term of skiing and used that to keep the scenarios in the book believable (mostly!) Would I read another of his adult books? Not in  a hurry, but I wouldn't turn one down either.

Challenges: Library Challenge, Aussie Author Challenge, What's in a Name Challenge

Cloudstreet

Title: Cloudstreet
Author: Tim Winton
Genre: Austrlian fiction
Audience: Adult
Format: Audio book - Library
From Goodreads:  Struggling to rebuild their lives after being touched by disaster, the Pickle family, who've inherited a big house called Cloudstreet in a suburb of Perth, take in the God-fearing Lambs as tenants. The Lambs have suffered their own catastrophes, and determined to survive, they open up a grocery on the ground floor. From 1944 to 1964, the shared experiences of the two overpopulated clans -- running the gamut from drunkenness, adultery, and death to resurrection, marriage, and birth -- bond them to each other and to the bustling, haunted house in ways no one could have anticipated.

What I thought: Being rather naughty, I am writing this review at work! (shhh, it’s quiet and I don’t think anyone I work with reads this blog!) The big advantage of doing this is that if I have left the audio book in the car (which I did!) I can grab a copy off the shelves to refer to while I write my review!
Having done so, I have discovered a bunch of comments on the back of the book that say so well what I feel about this book.

If you have not read Cloudstreet, your life is diminished. – Mem Fox

Cloudstreet shows an exquisite feel for the language, the smell, the very pulse of Australia. – Andrew Denton

I fell in love with that book and have been the most extraordinary Tim Winton fan ever since. - Judith Lucy

Reading it felt like coming home. It feels like looking through the plane window when you’re flying back in to the country. It really does. - Marieke Hardy

Every single word of these comments rings true for any Winton book as far as I am concerned. If you want to read an Australian author who captures Australia at its most pure, this is your man, and Cloudstreet is the book. And listening to it read aloud is about as perfect as it can get. Winton is pure manna for the mind and the soul. In the words of another famous Australian – do yourself a favour, go read a Tim Winton book.

Challenges: Aussie Author Challenge

The Coming of the Whirlpool

Title: The Coming of the Whirlpool
Author: Andrew McGahan
Genre: Fiction
Audience: Young Adult
Format: Book - library

From Goodreads:  It is not drowning your mother fears. What she truly dreads is that if you go to sea then you will come to the attention of the Ship Kings. And that if they discover who you are, they will kill you. Young Dow Amber is no sailor. But driven by a strange sea-longing he ventures from the high country of New Island all the way down to a grim fishing village on the shores of the bay known as the Claw. There he finds a cursed people living in dread not only of the mysterious Ship Kings that rule their country, but also of the fury of the ocean itself. When the Ship Kings sail their tall ships into the Claw, Dow's forbidden longing only grows. Who are the Ship Kings? How do they navigate the high seas? And what of the strange and fascinating girl who lives aboard one of their ships? When the whirlpool rises, will the call of the sea lead Dow to his heart's desire or to certain death? The Coming of the Whirlpool is the first book in Andrew McGahan's stunning new Ship Kings series.
What I thought: This is the fourth book from the The Children's Book Council of Australia Older Reader's Short list. 
OK, when I reviewed The Dead I Know, I said if you only read one book off the list, that should be it. Well, you're going to have to read two! If I had to chose between The Dead I Know and The Coming of the Whirlpool, I would have a hard time - for completely different reasons.
The Coming of the Whirlpool is brilliantly written. The story is engaging and the characters are ones you will find yourself truly caring about. As I read, there was something about the writing that I just couldn't put my finger on. At the end of the book, in the author bio, was the answer. While The Coming of the Whirlpool is not McGahan's first book, it is his first for young adults and he has managed that rare thing of his writing having an adult feel while aimed at young adults. I'm not sure I explained that well! I often find YA authors lack a certain maturity to their writing - almost condescending, or trying to be cool and fit in, but not quite making it. McGahan's writing had the feeling of an adult who had mastered the art of talking to young adult's as equals, while still acknowledging their lack of life experience. I would love to read some of his adult stuff to see if it measures up to what I now expect! I look forward to the sequel to The Coming of the Whirlpool.

Challenges: Aussie Author Challenge