The sequel to The Secret River (my blog entry here) is the story of Will Thornhill's daughter Sarah. The story of her discovery of her father's part in the massacre of Aborigines that is central to that book is told here by her. It is a rich and complex story and includes appealing characters (except for the wicked stepmother). Sarah was born in 1816, at the very end of The Secret...
This exhausting book covers a breath-taking range: from a present day story set in the Balkans to fairy tales that sometimes begin in the Ottoman days. The narrator is Natalia, a doctor who tells the stories of her grandfather in the course of a trip she makes with another doctor to take medical supplies to an orphanage in the countryside. One story necessitates the telling of another, for...
This short novel is set in Queensland and opens a few years before World War I begins. Jim's love of birds has resulted in a great change in his life, as Ashley, the young owner of the great estate, recognizes his gift and asked him to create a sanctuary. Early on, we learn that Jim … had a map of all this clearly in his head, as if in every moment of lying here flat on...
Reading Matters designated January as Australian Literature Month and has read and reviewed Australian books. The weekly "round-ups" have links to all who have sent their own reviews of Australian books, as well as links to interviews, book give-aways, and more. It was Reading Matters' Top Ten Australian novels that I consulted before a trip to Australia...
Audiobook. Drylands is a shrinking village well inland from the coast in the Brisbane area that has been suffering a drought for some years. Perhaps it is the lack of water that makes the men so hateful toward women and the women so inclined to inertia until they have no choice but to act. The village is revealed to us through individual stories of inhabitants who appear in...
The autobiographical nature of My Brother Jack is apparent from the outset. The narrator David, born before World War I in a lower class suburb of Melbourne tells about his parents who both served in the war overseas. When the parents returned, the house became a haven for men his mother brought home from the hospital and was litered for years with crutches, artificial legs, and men...
This mysterious and atmospheric story begins with the careful preparations for a picnic for the students of a posh girls' boarding school located in the countryside near Melbourne in 1900. After a meal at the picnic grounds of a local rock formation called Hanging Rock, four girls begin to climb to the rocks with admonitions to return within the hour. Three of the girls are the...
Audiobook. A very smart story centered on Katey who came to Manhattan from Brooklyn to make her way in the mid 1930s. She becomes friends with Eve who left her family's money behind in Indiana. They met the perfectly attired Tinker who treats them to the wonders of high-end Manhattan. The descriptions of what you can do with money in 1938 in Manhattan is like...
I had a very hard time becoming accustomed to the tone of this book. The Lieutenant by Kate Grenville is one of my favorite books and I was quite surprised by some of the strange awkwardness of this one. I thought at one point the book must be a writing exercise of some sort, the assignment being to write ludicrous internal monologue to convey unrealistic characters and at...
I read this based on the enthusiasm of KevinfromCanada's blog; he used a word he rarely uses to describe it: exquisite. The confounding thing about this book is that I can't quite figure out what makes it exquisite. How is it that the author ratchets up the intensity? I'm not sure I will find the answer to that question. The story is set in a part of the...