tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62618346775793956862024-03-15T05:49:02.788+11:00A Strong Belief in WickerLouisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.comBlogger1249125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-45629484547148949922020-08-10T22:14:00.002+10:002020-08-10T22:14:58.384+10:00Mirror, Shoulder, Signal<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">What a delight this quirky little Danish novel is! I came across <a href="https://www.dorthenors.dk/english" target="_blank">Dorthe Nors</a> in the first story I read from Found in Translation last week. I had decided to read the 20 short stories written by women in this collection for Women in Translation Month #WITMonth. And I was very quickly off to an auspicious start with Dorthe Nors' She Frequented Cemeteries (from the short story collection Karate Chop).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I enjoyed the writing and translation of She Frequented Cemeteries so much that I searched for anything by Dorthe Nors on Audible. And there I found Mirror, Shoulder, Signal. A few days later I was downloading it. And what an utter delight it is!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sonja is 40 something. She lives alone in Copenhagen, and works as a translator of Stieg Larsson style Swedish crime fiction novels, violent tomes with many murdered women strewn about the Swedish countryside. Sonja </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">grew up on a Danish farm among the rye fields in remote Jutland. She has vivid childhood memories of playing in the rye fields, and the calls of the </span><a href="https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/whooper-swan/" style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;" target="_blank">Whooper Swans</a><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> are evocative. She reminded me somewhat of Eleanor Oliphant with less vodka and less childhood trauma. Sonja is afflicted with <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/vertigo/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20370060" target="_blank">BPPV</a> as is her mother. It was fascinating to see this condition used in a story. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">There are a small cast of supporting characters, Sonja's two driving instructors at her driving school where a lot of the action of the book happens, Ellen, Sonja's New Age masseuse, and her friend Molly who is a psychologist and overshares about her patients. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and Molly proceeds to talk about her clients. Sonja's certain that that's forbidden but noone's very concerned about oaths of confidentiality anymore. The private has become so trivial and pawed over anyway, and who cares? So she sits there and watches Molly expand on someone else's catastrophe.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sonja has become estranged from her family, and she mulls over them and her rural origins. She writes cards and letters to them that she will never post.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The place you come from is a place you can never return to.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">There is much humour to be had in Mirror, Shoulder, Signal, something that is not always easy to achieve in translated fiction. Or in any fiction to be fair. A large part of this must come down to the considerable skill and wonderful translation by Misha Hoekstra (<a href="https://twitter.com/mishap13?lang=en" target="_blank">@mishap</a>). </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The last chapter and especially the very last few pages/minutes of the book confused me somewhat. I went back and listened to the last chapter to see if I had missed something, but I don't think I did. This was a mere quibble really and not enough to staunch my joy at finding this wonderful book, and an intriguing new author. One that I hope will become a firm favourite. I ordered all her books today! I can only imagine that I'll love them all. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Denmark is rather high on my travel wish list. Not that I know all that much about it really. Princess Mary. Hygge. Hans Chrisitian Andersen. No-one is travelling internationally in 2020, and I can't imagine I'll be travelling anywhere like Europe before 2022 and yet I was able to spend a delightful few days driving around Copenhagen with Sonja.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I really enjoyed Kate Rawson's delightful narration. Although it feels a bit odd when she slips into rural British accents for the rural Danish characters. Her pronunciation of many Danish place names and words seems very good to my uneducated ear. I always enjoy it when the narrators can seamlessly pronounce the meaningful words of the text. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Mirror, Shoulder, Signal has many echoes of She Frequented Cemeteries, both female characters like to spend time in the lonely, quiet parts of cemeteries as they hide away from friends, family and the modern world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.dorthenors.dk/english" target="_blank">Dorthe Nors writes fiction in Danish, and essays in English</a>!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Dorthe has given us her <a href="https://www.wanderlust.co.uk/content/5-reasons-to-go-to-denmark-dorthe-nors/" target="_blank">Top 5 reasons to go to Denmark</a></span>Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-31164723935126350112020-07-31T11:27:00.000+10:002020-07-31T11:27:40.932+10:00An Isolated Incident<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I've been meaning to read An Isolated Incident for at least three years. I saw <a href="https://www.emilymaguire.com.au/" target="_blank">Emily Maguire</a> speak at <a href="http://astrongbeliefinwicker.blogspot.com/2017/04/newcastle-writers-festival-2017.html" target="_blank">Newcastle Writers Festival back in 2017</a>. Remember when Writers Festivals were a thing? It makes me all nostalgic. I had a copy somewhere I bought back in 2017, but fear it has disappeared somewhere. Recently I found the audiobook on my BorrowBox. A few days ago, I started listening, and then, four days later I was done. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">An Isolated Incident kicks off grabbing our attention from the very start. A young policeman is knocking on a door to tell a woman that the body of her sister has been found. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It was the new cop who came to the door, the young fella who'd only been on the job a couple of months. I thought that was a bit rough, sending a boy like him to do a job like that. Later I found out that he was sent because he'd gone to pieces at the scene. That's what we all call it now: the scene. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Chris is a local barmaid, working at one of the four pubs in Strathdee, a small town in South West New South Wales. She is perhaps a bit rough around the edges, but she loved her younger sister very much. They had a difficult mother, and a difficult childhood for various reasons, and they've been very close as adults. Bella's murder hits Chris and the small town hard. Much of the book is told in first person narration by Chris.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The other narrative voice is May, a journalist who has come to town to cover "the story". To me An Isolated Incident was then somehow like a female version of Chris Hammer's Scrublands- which was also an audiobook for me, and another NWF connection! (<a href="http://astrongbeliefinwicker.blogspot.com/2019/07/scrublands.html" target="_blank">see my review</a>) Female author, female journalist. Female victim. An Isolated Incident is of course the earlier of the two books, but a similar story with a damaged journalist coming to a small town. Of course this perspective from the outside fills out the story a lot, and gives a broader perspective on the town and it's inhabitants. The articles that May writes for her online newspaper are included too. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I always enjoy a multiple point of view but the dual narrative was sometimes confusing, as changes in narrator are unannounced on the audiobook, which is an ongoing audio problem. Just a short pause between sections is all we ask. Too much? Seems to be. The print book has obvious spaces, give us pauses on the audio. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">An Isolated Incident asks us not to see Bella's murder as an Isolated Incident, but to see how it sits within the history and context of violence against women. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">This had nothing to do with what happened to Bella and what happened to Bella had nothing to do with Tegan Miller and none of it had to do with the rich Sydney housewife left out to rot in the street which had nothing to do with the Nigerian girls stolen as sex slaves or the Indian woman eviscerated on a bus or the man grabbing women off the streets in Brunswick. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It also explores family, female friendship, marriage, infinidelity, our culture of alcohol. It is sexy and provocative in a way that is rather unusual for a murder mystery. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I've been listening to quite a bit of crime fiction over the past year since I listened to Scrublands really. I'm just about half way through Nicci French's Frieda Klein series, and loving it. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The narration by <a href="https://www.katherinelittrell.com/" target="_blank">Katherine Littrell</a> (what a surname!) is masterful. She is astonishing actually. She is a trained actor- which really shines through, and does work in multiple accents and dialects- Australian, New Zealand, American and British! Wow. Sadly most of the titles she narrates are not my cup of tea, but I'll be searching out more of her work. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">An Isolated Incident was Shortlisted for the <a href="https://thestellaprize.com.au/prize/2017-prize/" target="_blank">2017 Stella Prize</a></span></span><br />
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Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-18575205330311305352020-07-23T21:57:00.003+10:002020-07-23T22:06:30.781+10:00Heartstopper Vol 1-3<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm sick this week. Not super sick. In pre-COVID times I would have gone to work and struggled on, But in these times of modern plague no-one wants to see you, no-one wants you at work coughing and spluttering and spreading viral particles, so I've been at home since Friday, seven days and counting so far. I have the rest of the week off for plans that no longer exist so I thought I'd try and knock over 7 books this week. A big ask for me any week. But what better excuse to finally get to Heartstopper?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've been aware of Heartstopper for some time, but wasn't aware of the genesis and birth of these books. Nick and Charlie the two main characters of Heartstopper were first side characters in Alice Oseman's first novel, Solitaire, which is the story of Charlie's older sister Tori. I haven't read Solitaire, and it's certainly not necessary. Heartstopper stands alone. Nick and Charlie were born when Alice Oseman herself was in high school, and came to life firstly as a web cartoon in 2016 on Tumblr and Tapas (never even heard of that one), and then helped over the school fence by Patreon and Kickstarter in 2018, becoming a major success and have since been commercially published. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Charlie Spring is 14 and in Year 10 at Truham Grammar School for Boys. He is the only openly gay boy at school having been outed the year before, he is in a secret relationship with Ben at the start of the book, but feeling used, and not happy about it when he is assigned to sit next to Nick Nelson in roll call. Charlie is the small, quiet, musical nerdy type while Nick is a rugby player in Year 11. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Volume 1 tells the story of Charlie and Nick becoming friends and even rugby teammates rather than names on a roll. Volume 2 is the story of their deepening relationship, and my favourite volume. While in Volume 3 there is a school trip to Paris. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Heartstopper is a lovely tale of nervous early days starting a new relationship, true at any age but especially for teenagers as depicted here. Insecurity, anxiety, self-esteem are issues for pretty much everyone, and regardless of the genders of the people involved. Charlie was bullied badly the year before when he was outed and this is a theme that carries through all the volumes. Identity, self-acceptance and kindness are also very well done.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I hope Heartstopper is widely available in libraries and particularly school libraries in Australia and around the world. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Volume 3 take a school trip to Paris. Which must be it's own kind of hell. They hit all the tourist hot spots. Monmartre. The Eiffel Tower. The Louvre. Shakespeare and Co. Yes, I was going - tick, tick, tick. Been to all of those. Even graphic novel drawings of Paris make my heart beat a little bit faster. And let me sneak in a post for <a href="https://thyme-for-tea.blogspot.com/2020/07/week-4-paris-in-july.html" target="_blank">Paris in July</a>, from which I have been sadly rather absent this year. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">There's great use of social media and texting as befits a modern book about teenagers. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix6oPM0fNp44NUBwnjAOOORDqBgZSLHFLJWt5NCdTrGeZfk5Oh1XQ_Zh5QFAaF5YUzKDMErpUfBOPXhZYmC6zUnv1lBPWh6FuXQ2G7LMl1pzAIoLYvnqBgDNUBgTez7l6leD1ywjOD-7R7/s1600/fullsizeoutput_9daf.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="904" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix6oPM0fNp44NUBwnjAOOORDqBgZSLHFLJWt5NCdTrGeZfk5Oh1XQ_Zh5QFAaF5YUzKDMErpUfBOPXhZYmC6zUnv1lBPWh6FuXQ2G7LMl1pzAIoLYvnqBgDNUBgTez7l6leD1ywjOD-7R7/s320/fullsizeoutput_9daf.jpeg" width="180" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Heartstopper had a few major surprises for me. Alice Oseman is English and Heartstopper is set in an English high school. I'd presumed it was American. Not sure why.</span><br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOcau4gN6cwZ5BS1n6wkppbb4zonaRNztF3BPJqrJ24_2LXtWnUR6yyvO9pp9fH8g2SKL8N6yQ5nebG3oSKQ6IMT-VK6C-7QIeDELW2KvXVk1e51WCmg3kTK61k-1DRHwu4gptHHMYpGJd/s1600/fullsizeoutput_9dab.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1003" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOcau4gN6cwZ5BS1n6wkppbb4zonaRNztF3BPJqrJ24_2LXtWnUR6yyvO9pp9fH8g2SKL8N6yQ5nebG3oSKQ6IMT-VK6C-7QIeDELW2KvXVk1e51WCmg3kTK61k-1DRHwu4gptHHMYpGJd/s320/fullsizeoutput_9dab.jpeg" width="200" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">So English, how could there have been any doubt?</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">At the end of the first volume there is a mix tape made by Charlie for Nick! <span style="text-align: center;">Alice Oseman herself has put this list on </span><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2VVxXOGEP5EufSFIZGZjlz" style="text-align: center;" target="_blank">Spotify</a><span style="text-align: center;">. I listened to it while reading Volumes 2 and 3. I impressed myself by recognising the second song. Then realised it was Fleetwood Mac... the only other song I recognised was The Beatles. My teenager did much eye rolling. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I was hoping for further mix tapes in Volume 2 and 3, but no such luck. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Volume 4 is coming early in 2021 I believe, I'll be there. </span>Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-8433142600812390182020-06-09T13:44:00.000+10:002020-06-09T13:44:31.303+10:00The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_eOYoiXFbXxaGewojK_R8xDI-A3o3mKigjYyH44udIhkiKdQ5l3eJ7b2kNvYIIJJ2V1ZBD_Vjt-YaVsC7jl7N6Ct7EENjfWdQSzEE4fStboiDRSz5dCyT-O74xF5eKB086BT05o4XInjK/s1600/2560.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="961" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_eOYoiXFbXxaGewojK_R8xDI-A3o3mKigjYyH44udIhkiKdQ5l3eJ7b2kNvYIIJJ2V1ZBD_Vjt-YaVsC7jl7N6Ct7EENjfWdQSzEE4fStboiDRSz5dCyT-O74xF5eKB086BT05o4XInjK/s400/2560.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/21/best-books-of-the-21st-century?CMP=share_btn_tw" target="_blank">This list</a> from the Guardian caught my attention back in September, but I've been so slack about the place here, that it's only now that it caught my attention again this week, that I'm getting around to finishing off this post. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It's a worthy list. I'd be very happy with myself to read all of these, even some more of these books. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">100. I Feel Bad About My Neck - Nora Ephron 2006</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">99. Broken Glass - Alain Mabanckou 2005, translated by Helen Stevenson 2009</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">98. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson 2005, translated by Steven T Murray 2008</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">97. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - J.K. Rowling 2000</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">96. A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara 2015</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">95. Chronicles: Volume One - Bob Dylan 2004</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">94. The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell 2000</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">93. Darkmans - Nicola Barker 2007</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">92. The Siege - Helen Dunmore 2001</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">91. Light - M. John Harrison 2002</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">90. Visitation - Jenny Erpenbeck 2008, translated by Susan Bernofsky 2010</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">89. Bad Blood - Lorna Sage 2000</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">88. Noughts & Crosses - Malorie Blackman 2001</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">87. Priestdaddy - Patricia Lockwood 2017</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">86. Adults in the Room - Yanis Varoufakis 2017</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">85. The God Delusion - Richard Dawkins 2006</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">84. The Cost of Living - Deborah Levy 2018</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">83. Tell Me How It Ends - Valeria Luiselli 2016, translated by Luiselli with Lizzie Davis 2017</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">82. Coraline - Neil Gaiman 2002</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: red;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red;">81. Harvest - Jim Crace 2013</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">80. Stories of Your Life and Others - Ted Chiang 2002</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">79. The Spirit Level - Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett 2009</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">78. The Fifth Season - N.K. Jemisin 2015</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">77. Signs Preceding the End of the World - Yuri Herrera 2009, translated by Lisa Dillman 2015</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">76. Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman 2011</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">75. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead - Olga Tokarczuk 2009, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones 2018</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">74. Days Without End - Sebastian Barry 2016</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">73. Nothing to Envy - Barbara Demick 2009</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">72. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism - Shoshana Zuboff 2019</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">71. Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth - Chris Ware 2000</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">70. Notes on a Scandal - Zoë Heller 2003</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">69. The Infatuations - Javier Marías 2011, translated by Margaret July Costa 2013</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">68. The Constant Gardener - John Le Carré 2001</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">67. The Silence of the Girls - Pat Barker 2018</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">66. Seven Brief Lessons on Physics - Carlo Rovelli 2014</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">65. Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn 2012</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">64. On Writing - Stephen King 2000</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">63. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks - Rebecca Skloot 2010</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">62. Mother's Milk - Edward St Aubyn 2006</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">61. This House of Grief - Helen Garner 2014</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">60. Dart - Alice Oswald 2002</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">59. The Beauty of the Husband - Anne Carson 2002</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">58. Postwar - Tony Judt 2005</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">57. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon 2000</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">56. Underland - Robert Macfarlane 2019</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f4cccc; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">55. The Omnivore's Dilemma - Michel Pollan 2006</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">54. Women & Power - Mary Beard 2017</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">53. True History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey 2000</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">52. Small Island - Andrea Levy 2004</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">51. Brooklyn - Colm Tóibín 2009</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">50. Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood 2003</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">49. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal - Jeanette Winterson 2011</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">48. Night Watch - Terry Pratchett 2002</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f4cccc; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">47. Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi 2000-2003, translated by Mattias Ripa 2003-2004</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">46. Human Chain - Seamus Heaney 2010</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">45. Levels of Life - Julian Barnes 2013</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">44. Hope in the Dark - Rebecca Solnit 2004</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">43. Citizen: An American Lyric - Claudia Rankine 2014</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">42. Moneyball - Michael Lewis 2010</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f4cccc; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">41. Atonement - Ian McEwan 2001</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">40. The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion 2005</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">39. White Teeth - Zadie Smith 2000</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">38. The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst 2004</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">37. The Green Road - Anne Enright 2015</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">36. Experience - Martin Amis 2000</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">35. The Hare with Amber Eyes - Edmund de Waal 2010</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">34. Outline - Rachel Cusk 2014</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">33. Fun Home - Alison Bechdel 2006</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">32. The Emperor of All Maladies - Siddhartha Mukherjee 2010</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">31. The Argonauts - Maggie Nelson 2015</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">30. The Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead 2016</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">29. A Death in the Family - Karl Ove Knausgaard 2009, translated by Don Bartlett 2012</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">28. Rapture - Carol Ann Duffy 2005</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">27. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage - Alice Munro 2001</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">26. Capital in the Twenty First Century - Thomas Piketty 2013, translated by Arthur Goldhammer 2014</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">25. Normal People - Sally Rooney 2018</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: red;">24. A Visit from The Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan 2011</span> (<a href="http://astrongbeliefinwicker.blogspot.com/2012/01/visit-from-goon-squad.html" target="_blank">see my review</a>)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">23. The Noonday Demon - Andrew Solomon 2001</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">22. Tenth of December - George Saunders 2013</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #f4cccc; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">21. Sapiens - Yuval Noah Harari 2011, translated by Harari with John Purcell and Haim Watzman 2014</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: red;">20. Life After Life - Kate Atkinson 2013</span> (<a href="http://astrongbeliefinwicker.blogspot.com/2018/10/life-after-life.html" target="_blank">see my review</a>)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">19. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon 2003</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">18. The Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein 2007</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: red;">17. The Road - Cormac McCarthy 2006 </span>(<a href="http://astrongbeliefinwicker.blogspot.com/2007/08/road.html" target="_blank">see my review</a>)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">16. The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen 2001</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">15. The Sixth Extinction - Elizabeth Kolbert 2014</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">14. Fingersmith - Sarah Waters 2002</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">13. Nickel and Dimed - Barbara Ehrenreich 2001</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">12. The Plot Against America - Philip Roth 2001</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">11. My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante 2011, translated by Ann Goldstein 2012</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">10. Half of a Yellow Sun - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 2006</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">9. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell 2004</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">8. Autumn - Ali Smith 2016</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">7. Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates 2015</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">6. The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman 2000</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">5. Austerlitz - W.G. Sebald 2001, translated by Anthea Bell 2001</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">4. Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro 2005</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">3. Secondhand Time - Svetlana Alexievich 2013, translated by Bela Shayevich 2016</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">2. Gilead - Marilynne Robinson 2004</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">1. Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel 2009</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Damn, I'm really going to have to read Wolf Hall sometime. It's so daunting though. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I'm impressed! I've read </span><span style="color: red;">19/100</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>Not great by most standards, but pretty good for me. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I've finished two of these books (Normal People, Autumn) in the last month or so and I finished a Top Ten title this week! Ali Smith's Autumn. I don't think it would make my Top Ten, but I'm glad to have read it. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I've started 4 of these books but not finished them (for various reasons). I need to crack on. Many of them are already in the house.</span>
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Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-47374021452734252432020-04-17T11:35:00.000+10:002020-04-17T11:35:15.766+10:00Ghost Wall<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgogsbz7a506o0zpIa-x9mFUc9aTyB6Xj8pBM4Eb-FQHM7t0h2sEI5qTVzDIYy8D7P-3G1y0Ua4217DLgqoxWCeqR5ugywyfCa5Ola_WsC2ZsR1ZfptBgbbuOJq3Lws03IU43EWHCXWmi5a/s1600/Unknown-26.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="219" data-original-width="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgogsbz7a506o0zpIa-x9mFUc9aTyB6Xj8pBM4Eb-FQHM7t0h2sEI5qTVzDIYy8D7P-3G1y0Ua4217DLgqoxWCeqR5ugywyfCa5Ola_WsC2ZsR1ZfptBgbbuOJq3Lws03IU43EWHCXWmi5a/s1600/Unknown-26.jpeg" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I listened to Ghost Wall in January (January 2019! Seems I forgot to post this). I was spellbound. When I finished I couldn't settle on another audiobook to start after it, so I just listened to it again straight away. That was partly the story, but also the wonderful audiobook narration by <a href="https://www.loudandclearvoices.com/voice/christine-hewitt/" target="_blank">Christine Hewitt</a>. I loved her Northern English voice so much. It was one of the audiobooks where you sit in car parks after you've arrived somewhere just to keep listening.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The opening words are arresting. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">They bring her out. Not blindfolded, but eyes widened to the last sky, the last light. The last cold bites her fingers and her face, the stones - not the last stones- bruise her bare feet. She stumbles. They hold her up. No need to be rough, everyone knows what is coming. From deep inside her body, from the cord in her spine and the wide blood-ways under the ribs, from the emptiness of her womb and the rising of her chest, she shakes. A body in fear. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"No need to be rough, everyone knows what is coming." I don't! I don't know what is coming, but I sure want to now... The first page or so sets an incredible scene, and then there is an abrupt change of pace, and I was initially confused by this change, thinking that I'd missed something. And so I started the audio again, but I hadn't missed anything. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Fifteen year old Silvie and her parents have joined a university excursion in Northumberland in the recent past. The Berlin Wall has recently fallen. Silvie's father is obsessed with Iron Age Britain, and the excursion is an exercise in 'experiential archeology', a reality tv type experience of living as people would have done some 2,000 years ago. Silvie's father is not an academic though, he's a working man, a bus driver, and the Iron Age is his hobby, and he's dragging his family along with him on his annual leave. Because of his passion for it his wife and daughter have become experts in the Iron Age too. </span></span><br />
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The group must are wearing scratchy gather their own food, and it falls to Silvie's mother to prepare food for everyone- the Professor, the three university students, and her own family.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I didn't see quite a few of the themes as strongly as many English readers, people I follow on booktube. But certainly Sarah Moss was talking about Brexit and migration and very modern issues in her ancient story. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ghost Wall is such a tight compact little book. It is rather tense at times. There is a lot to think about. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have some minor quibbles with the very end of Ghost Wall, but that wasn't enough to diminish my joy in this fascinating tale. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sarah Moss on her blog, <a href="https://www.sarahmoss.org/on-prehistorical-fictions/" target="_blank">On Prehistorical Fictions</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1450814019553" target="_blank">CBC Interview with Sarah Moss</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-50009496952908092092020-04-14T01:34:00.000+10:002020-04-14T01:34:03.284+10:00Convenience Store Woman<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOYI3WovfiDemQXxw4sUaY-ixYtzAGivjdqsV5srME6LloLmscHrzoa9gSEsreE6n9WBSE_GQRa1QXBBFfIzIFhwQHolmODSpXElEz6N5HzK_iArQ80zFg5AdHlU6_3a3g-imckg7TSxd3/s1600/Unknown-7.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="278" data-original-width="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOYI3WovfiDemQXxw4sUaY-ixYtzAGivjdqsV5srME6LloLmscHrzoa9gSEsreE6n9WBSE_GQRa1QXBBFfIzIFhwQHolmODSpXElEz6N5HzK_iArQ80zFg5AdHlU6_3a3g-imckg7TSxd3/s1600/Unknown-7.jpeg" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">For some reason I've been very drawn to books by Japanese and Korean writers of late. Particularly to books by women writers. I've bought quite a few of them of course, but hadn't got to reading any of them yet. Most of them are tantalisingly short and with my attention span and concentration all but shot by the disaster movie that is 2020 I was looking for a nice short comforting read, and I was hopeful that Convenience Store Woman would fit the bill. I think it mostly did.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Keiko Furukura is 36 years old, she somewhat accidentally started working at a convenience store in Tokyo when she was 18 years old, and she's never left the security that she found there. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The tinkle of the door chime as a customer comes in sounds like church bells to my ears. When I open the door, the brightly lit box awaits me - a dependable, normal world that keeps turning. I have faith in the world in that light-filled box. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Keiko has always been unusual. Particularly literal as a child, she becomes quite a loner as she grows up. As a young uni student she finds a part time job at a Smile Mart. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">At that moment, for the first time ever, I felt I'd become a part in the machine of society. <i>I've been reborn</i>, I thought. That day, I actually became a normal cog in society. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Keiko is comforted by the routines and rhythms of the store. The store training, the uniform, the scripted phrases and preferred facial expressions, all make her more comfortable. "It was the first time anyone had ever taught me how to accomplish a normal facial expression and manner of speech." </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">For breakfast I eat convenience store bread, for lunch I eat convenience store rice balls with something from the hot-food cabinet, and after work I'm often so tired I just buy something from the store and take it home for dinner. I drink about half the bottle of water while I'm at work, then put it in my eco bag and take it home with me to finish at night. When I think that my body is entirely made up of food from this store, I feel like I'm as much a part of the store as the magazine racks or the coffee machine. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've long held a similar notion, but about the culinary highlights of my life, not the slapdash lunches I eat at work. I like to think that at least a few carbon atoms that I ate for lunch at the Ritz in Paris in 1998 are still rattling about inside me somewhere. The carbon that made up those truffles on the pasta or the Golden Wine of the Jura that I had for lunch that day are still locked away in my cells. I'm sure they are. Better that than thinking the remnants of some chicken nuggets that I scoffed in a car one day are still there. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I did like how Keiko (Ms Furukura really to me) refers to the many store managers she has seen come and go in numerical order. Currently Manager #8 is in charge. I didn't enjoy the change to the narrative when a new employee Shiraha arrives later in the book. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">On the whole though I did enjoy this quirky tale about an unusual woman. And now not only do I want to read more Japanese and Korean books, I want to go to a Tokyo convenience store on a hot summer day, and have some rice balls (onigiri) or spicy cod roe pasta, and a cold drink, and wonder about the staff working there, and what their life is like.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Convenience Store Woman is the first of Sayaka Murata's ten books to be translated into English. Translation by Ginny Tapley Takemori.</span>Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-88867238107239267052020-03-31T16:51:00.004+11:002020-03-31T16:51:47.587+11:00The Weekend<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Holiday reading is always fun to think about. So much expectation, of the holiday itself of course, and what you'll read while on holiday - always massively over calculated. I'm coming to the growing realisation that I rarely get more than one book read while I'm away, no matter the length of the holiday. I tend to do more holidaying than reading. Even so I always pack at least four books, knowing that I will buy many more while away. For quite some time I was planning that I would read Trent Dalton's Boy Swallows Universe while I was in Tasmania in January (ah, interstate travel in a group, so last year). He's got a new book coming out in a few months, and I haven't read his first one yet. I hate that.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Somewhat out of the blue Trent got pipped at the post by a more recent book Charlotte Wood's The Weekend. No particular reason. I did consider some Tasmanian books - Heather Rose's Bruny, Robbie Arnott's Flames, and also some themed books, notably Alice Bishop's A Constant Hum as Australia continued to burn, and I knew I would see bushfires from my plane seat.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">But I'd been intrigued by The Weekend since I'd first heard about it. A tale of three close friends, now in their 70s, coming together to clear out the holiday house of their fourth friend who had died earlier in the year. Increasingly I love stories about older adults. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I really enjoyed getting to know Jude, Wendy, Adele and their absent friend Sylvie. I've recently taken to travelling with three friends, there was the shock of recognition at times, and prophecy. Hopefully decades away for us though. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Adele and Wendy and Jude did not fit properly anymore, without Sylvie. They had been four, it was symmetrical. When they went on holidays they shared two hotel rooms, two beds in each. There were four places at the table, two on each side. Now there was an awful, unnatural gap. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I enjoyed the stories of how the four of them met, their friendship over time, and the various hurdles that life throws our way. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This was something nobody talked about: how death could make you petty. And how you had to find a new arrangement among your friends, shuffling around the gap of the lost one, all of you suddenly mystified by how to be with one another. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've read two Charlotte Wood novels now. I read The Natural Way of Things (<a href="https://astrongbeliefinwicker.blogspot.com/2016/02/the-natural-way-of-things.html?m=0" target="_blank">see my review</a>) back in 2016. The Weekend was certainly a less discomforting read, more suburban. But Charlotte Wood still has her eyes keenly focused on our culture and societal changes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Everybody hated old people now; it was acceptable, encouraged even, because of your paid-off mortgage and your free education and your ruination of the plant. And Wendy agreed. She loathed nostalgia, the past bored her. More than anything, she despised self-pity. And they <i>had</i> been lucky, and wasteful. They had failed to protect the future. But, on the other hand, she and Lance had had nothing when they were young. Nothing! The Claires of the world seemed to forget that, with all their trips to Europe, their coffee machines and air conditioners and three bathrooms in every house. And anyway, lots of people, lots of <i>women</i> - Wendy felt a satisfying feminist righteousness rising - didn't have paid-off mortgages, had no super. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Young people, Australians, now spoke with American accents, pronouncing their r's at the end of words and saying <i>afterr,</i> the <i>a</i> like in apple. Why was this? The Western world had blurred itself into one jellied cultural mass. Her students last time she had lectured - years ago, when they still wanted her - knew the names of suburbs in San Francisco or Seattle better than the names of towns of Western Victoria. It was strange. For almost all of Wendy's life the only things Australians knew about America were the words 'New York' or 'LA' or 'Niagara Falls', but now her friends' grandchildren were buying brownstones and running businesses in Brooklyn as if this was the most normal thing in the world. <i>Neighbourhood</i>, they said. Bed-Study. Prospect Heights. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I really loved the first two thirds or so, but didn't enjoy it as much after two new, and not particularly likeable, characters were introduced later on in the book. I do wonder about the title of The Weekend, as it isn't set over a weekend. It's set at Christmas. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Christmas was supposed to mean renewal. It meant the beginning of things not the end. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Which I found a nice accident for my January holiday read. It was also set somewhere north of Sydney, which is where I grew up, it's all a bit vague in the book, a fictional location, but I was perpetually looking for clues as to where it was "really" set. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">As always reading this book has only increased my TBR, as I'm keen to read more Charlotte Wood. I've read two of her six novels now, four to go!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Charlotte Wood interviewed on <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/the-book-show/charlotte-wood/11612858" target="_blank">RN The Book Show</a>, where she refers to The Weekend as a </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"cautionary self portrait", and that the creative impulse of curiosity about the ageing process.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">https://australianwomenwriters.com</td></tr>
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Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-7450322624891136082020-01-10T23:47:00.001+11:002020-01-10T23:47:27.883+11:00The Household Guide to Dying<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyakLHRmzl46OgmRwD-aVw-l-246SRBf-1WTYAR_AX4unB9E5K8TDWohuWnrKfdlAo67oe_nFTQNSErNMfSZhmLwGCguyUxs9LwZy-gc-zaKksJP5OtNMmPpMle4iRc2oU0olC-8qOKRp8/s1600/Unknown-49.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="215" data-original-width="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyakLHRmzl46OgmRwD-aVw-l-246SRBf-1WTYAR_AX4unB9E5K8TDWohuWnrKfdlAo67oe_nFTQNSErNMfSZhmLwGCguyUxs9LwZy-gc-zaKksJP5OtNMmPpMle4iRc2oU0olC-8qOKRp8/s1600/Unknown-49.jpeg" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It wasn't my intention to start this book a few months ago. I didn't think it would be a good idea given that my week was going to include the funeral of an old friend. But then I hopped in my car for a road trip to discover that I had forgotten to download the other audiobook that I was actually planning to listen to. What to do? What to do? I had to listen to something... so I started this one, albeit somewhat cautiously. Planning to bail and just listen to music if I had to. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Only to have the first chapter be all about dying in spring. Oh dear. This was flying rather close to reality. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It didn't get more cruel than this: the season of expectation, of hope, of growth; the season of the future, when there was none at all. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">But there were enough difference to let me continue. Our first person narrator of The Household Guide to Dying is Delia Bennet. A woman in her late thirties, with a husband and two young children, Delia is dying of metastatic breast cancer. Depressing enough when you're feeling a bit fragile. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Delia is a copyeditor, proofreader and writer and has had an "accidental" career as an author to various <i>Household Guides</i>. The Household Guide to Home Maintenance. The Household Guide to the Kitchen. The Household Guide to the Laundry. A veritable modern day Mrs Beeton (who is reference multiple times in the book). </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now Delia wants to write <i>The Household Guide to Dying</i>.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Always a devoted reader, I found myself surprisingly ahead when I commenced the arts degree. I finished under time to discover I was brilliantly unqualified for anything. </span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The Household Guide to Dying is filled with literary references, whether discussing dying mothers</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">How cruel, how unfair, how totally unsporting, how unlike the stout mothers of public life, the mothers of fiction. You could never imagine Mrs Gandhi or Mrs Micawber or Mrs Thatcher or Mrs Weasley dying before their time and leaving their children unmothered. The prime minister's wife - any prime ministers wife - Nicole Kidman's mother, Mrs Jellyby, Angelina Jolie, the Queen, Lady Jane Franklin, Mrs George Bush Senior and Junior .... they would never have died young and left motherless children. They might have been doubtful, dominating or dysfunctional - all Dickens's mothers were- but they stayed around. Even Lady Dedlock hung in there. Jane Austen's Mrs Bennet would never have left five young daughters weeping over a coffin. </span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">or dying readers. There is a whole chapter on what to read when you're actually, actively dying. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Even before I realised I'd be leaving this world prematurely, I had fantasised over what I would be reading at the point of death. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">How practicalities interfered.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Middlemarch was far too heavy. Witty, yes. Ardent, doubtless. But just too damn heavy.... Lolita was too clever. Pride and Prejudice was suddenly all so brittle... Madame Bovary far too sly... Then I realised, when I started rejecting books that I knew were perfect works of literature, that it was not them, and not the authors. It was me, the reader. The reader in me was unwinding, spooling backwards. The reader who was me was now no longer. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">But it's more than a book about illness and dying, it's also mediation on the lives of modern women and mothers.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Thirty years later, it was different. We women of the early twenty-first century knew we were poised somewhere between domestic freedom and servitude. The home was ripe for reinvention. Event he theorists were claiming it. Angels were out, they'd been expelled years back. Now you could be a goddess, a beautiful producer of lavish meals in magnificent kitchen temples. Or a domestic whore, audaciously serving store-bought risottos and oversized oysters and leaving the cleaning to others. Goddess or whore, both were acceptable. </span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The burden of choice, one of the late twentieth century's most insidious was lifted. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: -webkit-standard;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">One of the literary references really spoke to me. The Metaphysical Poets </span></span>was not a book I knew. Despite the fact that this was published in 1965 and I could well have been tortured with it in high school. I've never recovered from my lifelong loathing of poetry caused by misadventures in high school English. Of course a few days later on a spontaneous visit to the Newcastle Lifeline Book Fair the universe threw up a copy of this classic into my path. I couldn't help but buy it... among a few other things. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It was if one person in the world had decided that school-kids should eternally read <i>Hamlet</i>, <i>To Kill a Mockingbird</i>, Herodotus's <i>Histories</i>, <i>The Catcher in the Rye</i>, and something called <i>The Metaphysical Poets</i>.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Of those I only had to suffer through <i>Histories</i>. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">There was a lot of beautiful writing about the mundane, the every day. About back yards, lawns and chook sheds. </span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I entered the shed. Despite the dust, the earthy pungency of the chicken manure, the remains of bones and shell and everything else they unearthed in their endless, resales scratching for vermicular treats, the shed and the run was a pleasant place. It offered tender moments that couldn't be found anywhere else. The angled poles of light capturing swirls of golden dust. The feathers rising and settling on the ground. The clucking that sounded equally contented and distressed. The air of expectancy that emanated from every hen, no matter how silly. The pure optimism that kept her laying an egg day after day, when day after day that egg was taken away. </span></span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">My day job often interferes with my enjoyment of medical scenes or procedures. There is a rather preposterous medical situation later in the book, and it was so egregious that for me it was like the rest of the book was suddenly a bit out of focus ( even though I was listening to it). Although when Delia goes to observe an autopsy it was clear that Debra Adelaide had been in Glebe Coroner's Court, and I had more than a tingle of recognition. </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Overall my sad week in September was actually a good week to listen to The Household Guide to Dying. Some of it resonated very strongly, and much of it has stayed with me months later. I have more Debra Adelaide on my TBR, I'm looking forward to getting to it. </span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I loved Heather Bolton's narration of the audiobook. She had me in from the start. </span>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Read in 2019, blogged in 2020.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">http://australianwomenwriters.com</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">http://australianwomenwriters.com</span></td></tr>
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Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-23090150484472023682020-01-02T18:42:00.000+11:002020-01-02T23:58:50.606+11:00The Yellow House<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWT9kOwF9k9abMbBSx_AOrTR5Jswaqh0IxyN7-5yDTsPEiDAS1D3QV2tYUYgEvTUZL9qh2y0V6qRl0XIH198qDKhOcX_uOlUs2fEUDItnvrIZtDLuC3utYm5zj0_OLuqmei-LkctxZtkt2/s1600/Unknown-53.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWT9kOwF9k9abMbBSx_AOrTR5Jswaqh0IxyN7-5yDTsPEiDAS1D3QV2tYUYgEvTUZL9qh2y0V6qRl0XIH198qDKhOcX_uOlUs2fEUDItnvrIZtDLuC3utYm5zj0_OLuqmei-LkctxZtkt2/s1600/Unknown-53.jpeg" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I haven't had a big reading year it must be said. And I haven't been blogging about those few books that I have read. Although most of what I've actually read has been audiobooks I do believe. I will have to tally up the proportion when I do my end of the year post. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Yellow House was another audiobook for me. Despite it winning The Vogel Award last year I first heard of The Yellow House when I saw Emily O'Grady speak at a panel at <a href="http://astrongbeliefinwicker.blogspot.com/2019/04/newcastle-writers-festival-2019.html" target="_blank">Newcastle Writers Festival</a> earlier this year. I was intrigued by this book so came home with an autographed copy, which I then didn't actually read. Opening up my copy now I see that my lovely friend <a href="https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/06/04/the-yellow-house-by-emily-ogrady-2018-vogel-winner/" target="_blank">ANZLitlovers</a> is blurbed! How fabulous. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Newcastle Writers Festival was way back in April, so when I approached The Yellow House in December I had pretty much forgotten what it was about. The Yellow House has a child narrator, not something that every one likes. I usually do, but I was a bit frustrated by our 10 year old narrator here at times. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ten year old Cub (Coralie) is a twin. She lives with her twin brother Wally, who sounds as obnoxious as a ten year old boy can be, her older brother Cassie (Cassius) and her parents on a property some way out of town.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Our house sat at the edge of the paddock, down a dirt road off the side of the highway. There were no other houses close by, except for the yellow house over the fence. A weatherboard, almost identical to ours except for the colour: the same rickety verandah that looked out over the hilly paddock and the inky mountains on the other side of the highway, the dirt crawl space that rustled like tinsel if you gave the nesting cockies a fright.</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Cub's family are on the outskirts of town in more ways than one. Her maternal grandfather Les committed a series of terrible crimes before she was born, and her family is still paying the price for his actions more than a decade after he died. They are shunned socially, her father and brother find it hard to get work. The twins have never really been able to make any friends at school. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Then Cub's aunt Helena and cousin Tilly come to live in the yellow house next door, her brother Cassie makes a new friend Ian, and things begin to change. Cub's parents have taken great pains to keep her and Wally in the dark about their grandfather's crimes. That bit took quite a bit of suspension of belief for me. I really don't think that you could survive five or six years at school and have not one kid (or teacher) say something about the nationally famous crimes of your grandfather. Or that some kid would find that really the twins were just kids despite the warnings of their parents and befriend them, at least in the school yard. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Cub was not the overly precocious child narrator, indeed she was quite in the dark about most things, she was a pestery questioning kid though. But she couldn't know some things I really wanted to know. Why did her aunt Helena move to the yellow house? It's suggested along the way, actually I think Helena's perspective would have been really interesting. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Most of the action of the story takes place on the family property or at the local public school were the twins attend school. Cub's world is quite small so the story is quite small really. The twins spend most of their time at home, especially over the long summer holiday when a lot of the book is set. Like all country kids they roam about the paddock and the dam, but they have always steered clear of the knackery that was involved in their grandfathers crimes. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">While reading I didn't get a good feeling for when the book was set. Perhaps I missed obvious statements, but sometimes it felt like it could have been set anytime from the 1950s onwards. No-one had laptops or internet, but there were cars, microwaves and it became more obviously recent past. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I didn't particularly like the very end of the book. I wanted something else, more perhaps. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I know I'll be gravely disappointed (pun almost intended) but whenever I come across a ghost drop (Cub's favourite lolly) I'm going to have to have one. I'd never heard of them before. Perhaps they're a Queensland thing?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Read in 2019, blogged in 2020. Yes I'm trying to catch up a bit, clear the backlog.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1068" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqqwqC9s5ZMrqWcRIKt6r9JuRbj2z7L3pr5bsuJ6PsBRGXeEHTUMVqVw2b2_dVAApTUQ8Yp3YvaK44dzsZT6H29KaHnwEymc6a7YelkVPSXKgJ5oCujR5AIUgGLrwS0rsvAcA7l6n5I0K0/s320/image1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="213" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">http://australianwomenwriters.com</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOttrMbW4ekSYIyxiyNd7tNjtjTQqwCHi7rx54XGJh23bgA4wJ_-_fiHp8nxlTx3p1YwrMBW5IEIGBngc3oAYzDEorR3WiflROt_-aOzSRc3iUkYarTAEPMN7mSk2jSqLODQdw1JwXrXOi/s1600/20191211_122139-687x1024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="687" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOttrMbW4ekSYIyxiyNd7tNjtjTQqwCHi7rx54XGJh23bgA4wJ_-_fiHp8nxlTx3p1YwrMBW5IEIGBngc3oAYzDEorR3WiflROt_-aOzSRc3iUkYarTAEPMN7mSk2jSqLODQdw1JwXrXOi/s320/20191211_122139-687x1024.jpg" width="214" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">http://australianwomenwriters.com</td></tr>
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Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-68025492377213025862019-12-18T09:10:00.000+11:002019-12-18T09:10:17.726+11:00Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsHL3nlXAPLgcCwasDOL40FwFOyUBLkNMlKnhi6e7FoZ8yMBfc-po-icL1-ux1E8xc0IZUE-7X6NdM8vtYolooRN5yC20ylbvO_qj_3aZVxYC1WiMFiGYhuju2RWVQ-hdvNW25MP2tGq-6/s1600/Unknown-44.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="276" data-original-width="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsHL3nlXAPLgcCwasDOL40FwFOyUBLkNMlKnhi6e7FoZ8yMBfc-po-icL1-ux1E8xc0IZUE-7X6NdM8vtYolooRN5yC20ylbvO_qj_3aZVxYC1WiMFiGYhuju2RWVQ-hdvNW25MP2tGq-6/s1600/Unknown-44.jpeg" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Who can possibly resist such a title? Certainly not me. I'd been meaning to read <a href="http://caitlindoughty.com/" target="_blank">Caitlin Doughty</a> for some time. I have her first book Smoke Gets in Your Eyes lurking in the TBR somewhere, but it was this one, her most recent title that really hooked me in.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs is a collection of short essays, most a couple of pages, all answers to questions that Caitlin has been asked by children. Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs kicks off the collection, and the answer is not all that reassuring.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">No, your cat won't eat your eyeballs. Not right away, at least. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">But the news is even worse for we dog owners.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Your dog will totally eat you. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Hmmm, my dog doesn't like going hungry. It's true. She will eat me. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Naturally, in a book like this there are many fascinating random factoids.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Cannibalism is not illegal.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Humans are red meat.</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Blowflies can smell death from up to 10 miles away. (Small wonder they know when I've just opened the screen door- not that my kitchen smells like death, well I hope it doesn't, maybe it does to a fly?)</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">There are chapter exploring so many topics. What would happen if you die in space? Transporting bodies killed in war, both in the past and of course sadly the modern world still has a significant need for this. Entrepreneurial embalmers would follow battles around during the American Civil War, and used so much arsenic to preserve the bodies that arsenic can still be found flowing from certain Civil War cemeteries. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">As the book is written for children, it is entertaining, often funny, and the tone is generally kept light even when discussing these rather distressing subjects. I found myself actually laughing out loud at times, helped along by such phrases as a "freaky Violet Beauregard situation". Caitlin Doughty treads a fine path through some tricky topics.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Every chapter is intriguing in its own right. And often eye opening. I've worked in health care for 20 years and learnt a great many things from this book, and I've reconsidered my wishes regarding my own death. I'm not all that sure I want to be cremated any more. I've long assumed I would be, but had never thought about the process. Yes, I will be dead, but I'm not sure I want to put myself through it.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br />While cadaveric kidney transplants are common place and not at all disturbing, I was very disconcerted by the notion of a cadaveric blood transfusion! Not sure why, but I find it profoundly disturbing. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We're very lucky to live in the modern era where while dying and death is still recognised as a process, it is easy enough to pronounce someone dead and there are strict protocols for determining brain death. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In Germany, in the late 1700s, there were physicians who believed that the only way to tell if someone was truly dead was to wait for the person to start rotting - bloating, smelling, the whole works. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The whole concept of a <a href="https://historycollection.co/buried-alive-common-victorian-era-doctors-used-10-methods-prevent/7/" target="_blank">Leichenhaus</a> is extraordinary, and I'm so relieved that we no longer need these "waiting mortuaries".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I read Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? all the way back in Nonfiction November. As I was thinking recently about what book to take for the Secret Santa for my book group ladies, it seemed an obvious, if not particularly festive choice.</span><br />
<br />Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-46014486422940671082019-11-13T11:00:00.000+11:002019-11-13T11:01:11.971+11:00Time's Best 10 Fiction Books of the 2010s<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">We're hurtling towards the end of a decade, and the end of a decade lists are coming.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Time has released a <a href="https://time.com/5719966/best-fiction-books-2010s-decade/" target="_blank">Best 10 Fiction Books</a> of the past 10 years. It's an interesting list. I've considered reading all but one of these books, and have most of them in the house somewhere. I should try to read through this list.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: red;">A Visit from the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan</span> (2010) (<a href="http://astrongbeliefinwicker.blogspot.com/2012/01/visit-from-goon-squad.html" target="_blank">see my review</a>)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">My Brilliant Friend - Elena Ferrante (2011)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn (2012)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche (2013)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: red;">Life After Life - Kate Atkinson</span> (<a href="https://astrongbeliefinwicker.blogspot.com/2018/10/life-after-life.html" target="_blank">see my review</a>)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Tenth of December - George Saunders (2013)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The Sellout - Paul Beatty (2015)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: red;">Sing, Unburied Sing - Jesmyn Ward</span> (2017) (<a href="http://astrongbeliefinwicker.blogspot.com/2019/02/sing-unburied-sing.html" target="_blank">see my review</a>)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng (2017)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The Nickel Boy - Colson Whitehead (2019)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">30% read. Not a terrible result for me. I listened to two of them, and read one.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It's a very American-centric list. 70%</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">60% female authors.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The Time article claims that Gone Girl is responsible for the whole Girl genre thing. I think that actually dates back at least to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo which was released in English in 2008. I saw the movie and really didn't like the last third. I'd passed on the idea of reading the book, but maybe I'll have to look at it now?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I'd also decided to pass on My Brilliant Friend. I didn't read it at the peak of the hype, and then I read a picture book by Elena Ferrante (The Beach at Night), which I really, really hated...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Time has released both <a href="https://time.com/5719966/best-fiction-books-2010s-decade/" target="_blank">Fiction</a> and <a href="https://time.com/5720016/best-nonfiction-books-2010s-decade/" target="_blank">Nonfiction</a> lists. I think I need to try and look at my best books of the decade.</span>Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-31025615392724644732019-11-12T12:07:00.000+11:002019-11-12T12:07:09.761+11:00The White Girl<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">,<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyVChaw8PeMTYWW8iqbTYJwG4KErDVZfwMk4sQu3sjZpP4Py-8KeY0T2gRMsTKKBSkPMoNnUoJoJRIAmcfuTa5C_46wL2xvtWZ7USm9tcRbPZ_c8zZ5K3f3qAGfUpshp_7Iq7nS8LNcb5a/s1600/Unknown-2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="240" data-original-width="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyVChaw8PeMTYWW8iqbTYJwG4KErDVZfwMk4sQu3sjZpP4Py-8KeY0T2gRMsTKKBSkPMoNnUoJoJRIAmcfuTa5C_46wL2xvtWZ7USm9tcRbPZ_c8zZ5K3f3qAGfUpshp_7Iq7nS8LNcb5a/s1600/Unknown-2.jpeg" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Tony Birch is a writer I've been meaning to read for ages. I remember his debut novel Blood coming out in 2011 and wanting to read that then. I've bought a couple of his books in the years since, for which I'm sure he is grateful, but I hadn't got to reading any. Back in July I used ANZLitlovers Indigenous Literature Week to spur me on to listen to Tony Birch's newest novel The White Girl. And of course I'm very glad that I did.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The White Girl is a quiet, small story about Odette Brown and her granddaughter Sissy living a rather marginal existence on the outskirts of Deane, a small town in Menzies-era rural Australia. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Odette Brown rose with the sun, as she did each morning. She eased out of the single bed she shared with her twelve-year-old granddaughter, Cecily Anne, who went by the name of Sissy. Wrapping herself in a heavy dressing gown to guard against the cold, Odette closed the bedroom door behind her and went into the kitchen. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The location is never really specified, which I often find annoying, but I do see that it's used to make a more universal story. The mention of mountains and beaches made me think most of New South Wales, but Tony Birch is a Victorian. In the Author's Note at the end of the book, Tony Birch says The White Girl is a "fictional work set in a fictional town somewhere in Australia".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Odette has raised Sissy, the white girl of the title, ever since Sissy's mother left town about 10 years earlier. </span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">The arrival of a new police officer, Sergeant Lowe, changes things for Odette and Sissy. </span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In his new role he was simultaneously appointed as a Guardian to the Aboriginal population of the district. He found the title both enticing and apt. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I really like Tony Birch's storytelling, it is often deceptively simple, yet political, truthful and yet humorous.</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Odette had been raised to excuse the ignorance of white people, but it was a difficult task. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Odette is a calm, wise, and generous woman. Particularly generous. </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">'Because they're the ones we deal with every day of our lives. Police. Not the Welfare or the ones who write the rules for the government. Think if you were police, Jack, knowing that one day you'd be told to go into a house and take kiddies away from their family. If you were to treat people with any decency, you couldn't do that job. This fella is giving us a hard time, he needs to be angry at us. Maybe even hate us. The only way they get by.'</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I'd like to meet her. I'd like to be her friend. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The 1950s and 60s was of course still the time of the Stolen Generations. The White Girl humanises these events, </span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">'Because any older Aboriginal woman I set my eyes on, I really believe she could be my mother. Never is, of course.'</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The White Girl is </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">a rather domestic novel, that I thought surprising for a male author, it packs political heft as it </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">explores major life issues for Aboriginal people of the time. The casual and institutional racism. Lives lived in poverty and governed by paternalistic governments, laws and local police. I wasn't aware that under the <a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/aborigines-protection-act" target="_blank">Aborigines Protection Act</a> Aboriginal people used to need travel permits to leave the district where they lived, and that these travel permits would be granted, or not, by the local police. </span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Aboriginal people needed police permission to travel to visit family, or just go to another town for shopping or an appointment. That a small number applied for <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2014/01/31/3935994.htm" target="_blank">Exemption Certificates</a> from the Act by which they could travel freely, and enjoy some of the freedoms of white people. </span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">It's extraordinary. It's extraordinary that I didn't know this. The ongoing ignorance of white people I guess ... </span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The local police had total control over the lives of Aboriginal people, and very few of them walked through the station door of their own accord. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The White Girl possibly has the best cover image ever. It's striking to look at, and absolutely perfect for the story.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I listened to the audiobook of The White Girl narrated by Shareena Clanton. She is an Australian actor, and did a great job of the audio narration. I particularly liked her voicing of Odette. It's lovely, and warm, and brings her to life perfectly. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">ABC RN <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/conversations/tony-birch/4816588" target="_blank">Conversations Tony Birch</a> (2013)</span></span>Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-13694838196184028642019-11-05T22:25:00.000+11:002019-11-05T22:25:29.208+11:00Paris and Other Disappointments<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNDZ7_j3MqFpR78av7oCPwuZ7Lsx9alNt5o_-W0sr-vi7ipR0gB87INdfXVeLK38KHJJ7GRBL7_5wZkZHdCWJ3TU9fK7uOX4yS5qhIrwxL3zi9Dc7jCL_sBOK2_7RCPeEyUtLQ9I1pVu4_/s1600/Unknown-43.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="278" data-original-width="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNDZ7_j3MqFpR78av7oCPwuZ7Lsx9alNt5o_-W0sr-vi7ipR0gB87INdfXVeLK38KHJJ7GRBL7_5wZkZHdCWJ3TU9fK7uOX4yS5qhIrwxL3zi9Dc7jCL_sBOK2_7RCPeEyUtLQ9I1pVu4_/s1600/Unknown-43.jpeg" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This book was totally a cover buy. Of course I've never been disappointed in Paris. Well, when I say never- sometimes a particular patisserie will be fermé on the day you go. That's disappointment right there. But that's a rookie error and you soon learn to check if where you're planning to go is randomly shut that day. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Paris and Other Disappointments is a travel memoir. Adam's father, Tommy, was born in Germany, and came to Australia at age 2. Tommy had never been back. He would often comment "I'd bloody love to go to Europe". So one day Adam took his father at his word, and suggested a trip. Soon they were making preparations, and settling on an itinerary - Germany, France and London. Although you do have to wonder why his father wanted to go...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Though I struggled to find what he liked, I definitely knew what he didn't like. The arts were not for him, having never shown an interest in theatre, architecture, gardens, live music, painting, dance, literature, sculpture, poetry or history. I've never known him to go to a museum, probably because when you think about it it's just a 3D book that you have to walk around, and I knew where he stood on both books and walking. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Well, I'm glad I won't ever have to travel with Adam's father. We wouldn't make good travel companions. I have travelled to Europe with elderly relatives, and it was great. But they were interested in all the things that Adam's father wasn't. Thankfully. It just took a bit more research, and asking the whereabouts of the l'ascenseur (lift), it's usually there somewhere, just well hidden. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Even as we were first preparing for the trip, I knew finding things to do was going to become an issue. Not liking anything at all tends to eliminate possibilities at a fairly rapid rate, and a continent with such a rich history gave Dad an almost limitless supply of things to turn down. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Adam was quite well travelled, and often travelled alone, but his family aren't big travellers. "To me it's a choice not to go overseas, because nowadays, with such cheap flights and accommodation packages available, it's so easy."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm not from a family of travellers. Mum and Dad both immigrated to Australia as babies - Dad from post-war Germany and Mum from India, where her father was stationed while serving in the British Army. It staggered me that, apart from my sister going to Japan on exchange in high school, 80 per cent of my family hadn't been overseas as adults. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And Paris? They got off to a bad start. An overcrowded train from the airport into the city. Adam had booked a really bad AirBNB. No lift, and an absolute cesspit of an apartment. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The bedrooms contained sheetlets mattresses, which in a past life must have been used to soak up spilled colostomy bags. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Wow. You're never going to have a good stay anywhere you're staying in an apartment like that. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Naturally, Adam explores the lure of European churches to the Antipodean traveller. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'm not a huge fan of either - of churches or paedophiles - and there's no way I'd ever visit a church in Australia expect for a wedding or christening.... In Europe churches have a magnificence that draws people into them, regardless of their denomination. I'm also more inclined ato have a look knowing I can leave whenever I want, without having to sit through my friends' self-written vows. I guess the ornate detail is also a drawcard, the churches decked out to show riches and wealth - effectively the casinos of their time. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And so how did father and son get on? Pretty much like everyone who travels with someone. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Life wasn't built for people to get along every second of every day. Overseas trips are worse, small annoyances heightened by the stress and expectation of travel, plus the close quarters, tension building like the single drops of water on the forehead of a torture victim. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="http://www.rozie.com.au/" target="_blank">Adam Rosenbachs</a> is an Australian comedian. His wasn't a name I knew particularly. Although he was a writer for Spicks and Specks so I'm sure I've seen his work. </span><br />
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Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-61519405894432542532019-11-01T09:54:00.000+11:002019-11-01T09:54:06.630+11:00The Gap<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I came across The Gap recently while browsing the new releases on one of my library e-audibook apps. I hadn't heard of it, or the author (or so I thought) but borrowed it immediately and was soon listening to it in the car and out on walks with the dog. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Gap of the title refers to a beautiful clifftop on the South Head of Sydney Harbour. It offers a wonderful view, and a lovely sea breeze. But it has long been a busy spot for those wishing to end their lives. And so it was in the Sydney Summer of 2007-8 when Benjamin Gilmour was an ambulance paramedic stationed at Bondi, Sydney's most famous beach, a short drive south from The Gap. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">At the highest point of the The Gap where the clifftop rises like a tower it is 90 metres to the sea. Tourists and day-trippers come in groups to stand at the wood and wire fence inhaling the sunrise. They chatter about nothing of consequence but are quickly made speechless by nature's might. I've seen them stand like people at a crossroads, suddenly conscious of their smallness. The Gap is a place of great change, new journeys, different paths but for others who come their hope is long lost. To them The Gap is a backdrop for the final act of life. It's the edge of the world from which they leave. Fifity or more go over each year from the top or further around where the fence is easier to scale. They do it at dawn, in the heaviest rain and on the quietest of nights. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">For us local paramedics the beauty up here is hard to admire.</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Gap was written at the time, but Benjamin Gilmour thought it was too sensitive to publish at the time, and it is only with the passage of time that he feels these stories can be told. I did wonder at the rather strong trigger warnings in the Introduction, about mental health, black humour and the need for it for emergency services workers at all levels. Having read the book I can fully understand it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">What will never change is the trauma and death that paramedics are exposed to and the impact this can have on us and the way we manage our mental health. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The manuscript was even assessed by psychologists, and changes made to soften imagery and remove explicit detail. At the beginning I was dismissive about this, but then I listened to the book. It's by no means soft or warm and fuzzy. There is a lot of death, a lot of it by suicide, but also trauma, heart attacks and other medical conditions. Benjamin Gilmour and his partner have a bad run of calls, and come to refer to their ambulance as the Suicide Truck, and feel that he is a Suicide Magnet. All while Gilmour and his (ambulance) partner John are going through the breakdown of their own personal relationships.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Gilmour is an author and filmmaker and he doesn't just write about a series of jobs he has attended as an ambo in Sydney, he takes a longer lens to look at his patients and their lives. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">As we leave the building I contemplate the lives that have ended here. The building is a repository of worn-out men and women with deeply tragic stories. Lives spoiled by drugs and alcohol, marriage breakups and mental illness.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is not a cheery, postcard touristy version of Sydney that emerges from these pages. The Gap takes a long hard look at the very detrimental effects of shift work and sleep deprivation on ambos, who have a challenging job to begin with. Traumatic shared experiences at work creates close bonds among paramedics and other emergency services personnel. These experiences also take a great toll on the health and well being of those who respond to these calls. But they have great resilience, showing up for shifts when they can be hurting more than the people who have called them for help.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The cases are banal, but as soon as I'm chatting to my patients I'm in their lives and not in mine, and that's what I'm here for. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">At the time of writing most of the book Gilmour had not had a patient suffering an out of hospital cardiac arrest survive to hospital discharge. Not uncommon. In the introduction he says that has changed in the decade since, with better bystander CPR, and public access to defibrillators, that he has had some saves. Still survival of out of hospital cardiac arrest is around 10% in Australia.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"We tried our best, but he didn't pull through". It's a worn phrase that makes it sound like it's the old man's fault, as if he refused to come back. "We tried our best" sounds inadequate too. It may be true that we tried our best, but I wonder if trying is good enough. In our line of work where the opposite of success is death there's no prize for trying. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hmm, yes, but these people are already dead. There were several sections where Gilmour talked about the words we use at times like this. I have to speak to people frequently at these times in my own job, and I enjoyed his thoughts and perspective on the words we use. These are difficult times, for everyone. The ambos, the families and loved ones. Gilmour's partner John used to tell suicidal people that you don't have to kill yourself to get people to listen. I like that phrase.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I listened to the last third of the book in one afternoon. I hadn't intended to. I planned to listen for an hour or so while I was doing some weeding, but was unable to stop. I had tears streaming down my face for much of that last section. I finished off the remains of a bottle of red that night, and then had an extra glass for good measure. I had been planning to start watching Unbelievable that evening, but I chose a couple of episodes of Black Books instead as some much needed relief. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Matty Morris did a sterling job of the audio narration, coping well with all the medical terms that necessarily lace a paramedic memoir. But I wish someone had given this poor Melbourne lad some help with the pronunciation of Sydney place names - Clovelly, Cahill Expressway, Vaucluse and more. In a book where the Eastern Suburbs Sydney location was such a major part of the story it would have been nice.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Benjamin Gilmour <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/the-gap---a-paramedics-memoir/11391348" target="_blank">RN Lifematters interview </a></span></span><br />
<br />Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-46167636141325520752019-10-29T23:06:00.000+11:002019-10-29T23:06:21.260+11:00The Godmother<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I heard about The Godmother on Episode 120 of <a href="https://www.chat10looks3.com/podcast/ep120" target="_blank">Chat 10 Looks 3</a>. Possibly my favourite ever podcast. I've listened to all of it, bar one episode. Annabel Crabb had just read The Godmother as her friend <a href="https://www.stephaniesmee.com/" target="_blank">Stephanie Smee</a> translated it. I was immediately intrigued. I do love a French book in translation, so it wasn't a particularly hard sell. Annabel gushed over it and described it as "spiky, original and laugh out loud funny", and said that it was like "a very original hat". </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Godmother is a French Noir crime book. And yes it really is </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"spiky, original and laugh out loud funny". The Godmother is Patience Portefeux, a 53 year old widow, who has lived a tough life. Patience had a very unorthodox childhood. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">My parents were crooks, with a visceral love of money. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The family home was "in the no man's land between a motorway and a forest". Her father was a French Tunisian <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied-Noir" target="_blank">pied-noir</a></i> (not a term I'd heard before) and her mother an Austrian Jew. Both of them were displaced, they had "lost everything ..... including their country". Her father uses his trucking company to ship drugs then later weapons and ammunition. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">To get a job with <i>Mondiale</i> you had to have first done time, because according to my father, only somebody who'd been locked up for at least 15 years could cope with being stuck in a truckie's cab for thousands of miles, and would defend his cargo with his life. </span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Patience grows up </span>to marry young, and is then widowed young, at 27, and left with two young girls to bring up. She begins working as a French/Arabic court interpreter to support her family. She offers many fascinating insights into the modern multicultural country that is France. Patience like all of us is initially enthusiastic and empathetic to those she interprets for. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I felt infinitely sorry for many of the Arabs whose words I reproduced in those trials. Men who were extraordinarily poor, with little education; impoverished migrants looking for an El Dorado that didn't exist, forced into a life of small-time skullduggery and petty crime so as not to die of hunger. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">But she becomes disenfranchised with the French court system. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The interpreter was simply a tool to accelerate the act of repression. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Patience is now interpreting police wiretaps from drug surveillance operations, and becomes personally involved in one of her cases. This is all set amongst the common baby boomer scenario of being trapped between elderly parents in care, and young adult children. Patience's mother is dementing and in a nursing home, which appears to be very expensive in the French system. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">There we all were, part of that great middle-class mass being strangled by its elderly. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I loved so many things about The Godmother. The writing. The plot (although yes it does go a bit OTT at some stages, but I'll allow it, given the rest of the book). The humour. The <a href="https://www.amazon.com/LU-Chamonix-Orange-French-Cookies/dp/B003K5M5DM" target="_blank">Chamonix Orange Cake</a> references (yes, I need to try one now, although I really suspect they won't be my thing). The view of French society that I haven't seen before. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Fourteen million cannabis users in France and eight hundred thousand growers living off the crop in Morrocco. The two countries are friendly, and yet those kids whose haggling I listened to all day long were serving heavy prison sentences for having sold their hash to the kids of the cops who were prosecuting them and of the judges who were sentencing them, not to mention to all the lawyers who were defending them. It didn't take long for them to become bitter and poisoned with hate. I can only think, though ..... that this excess of resources, this furious determination to drain the sea of hash inundating France, teaspoon by teaspoon, is above all else a tool for monitoring <i>the population</i> insofar as it allows identity checks to be carried out on Arabs and blacks ten times a day. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hannelore Cayre is a practising French criminal lawyer and author. The Godmother is her fifth novel, but I think this is the first of her works to be translated into English. I certainly hope the others will follow. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.stephaniesmee.com/" target="_blank">Stephanie Smee</a> did a cracking job with the translation, Stephanie is also a lawyer, and has translated work from French and Swedish, she also speaks German and Italian! Wow. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I really don't like the Australian cover, it looks more Mother Superior to me than Godmother. I tried to buy the original French version, La Daronne, on kindle but haven't managed to get around Amazon's geoblocking as yet. I must try harder. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/sites/default/files/The-Godmother_Book-Club-Notes.pdf" target="_blank">The Godmother Book Club Notes</a></span>Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-52526347001805398302019-10-16T11:04:00.000+11:002019-10-16T11:04:39.627+11:00No One is Too Small to Make a Difference<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The book of the year? Maybe. Certainly one of the most important ones. Climate change is the issue of our time. Right here, right now. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It really is extraordinary that it has taken a diminutive schoolgirl from Sweden to mobilise the world. Not into taking action mind you, we haven't managed that as yet, but we have seen global passion and protest that I think is unprecendented. As well it should be. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I want you to act as if our house is on fire.<br />Because it is. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">No One is Too Small to Make a Difference is a small book. Almost a pamphlet. </span>Some have criticised the book to say that it is repetitive. Which is to miss the point entirely. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is a collection of 11 speeches written and delivered by Greta Thunberg from September 2018 to April 2019. Some of these speeches have been delivered to a variety of rather distinguished audiences, the British Houses of Parliament, the European Parliament and the World Economic Forum. Others have been delivered to rallies, and even a Facebook post. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I really had no idea where Greta Thunberg had sprung from. Yes, I'd heard about her rise to prominence in the past few months, but it was fascinating to read it from her perspective in </span></span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">I'm Too Young to Do This, a Facebook post from 2 February 2019. Greta won a newspaper writing contest about climate change in early 2018, and after that she came into contact with activists and groups. She liked the idea of a school strike, but no-one else was interested. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">But since I am not that good at socializing I did this instead. I was so frustrated that nothing was being done about the climate crisis, and I felt like I had to do something, anything. And sometimes NOT doing things- like just sitting down outside parliament - speaks much louder than doing things. Just like a whisper is sometimes louder than shouting. </span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">She posted her initial School Strike on Instagram and Twitter, it went viral, and that, as they say, is history. Greta's sense of urgency is one of the most striking things.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">We are about to sacrifice our civilisation for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue to make enormous amounts of money. We are about to sacrifice the biosphere so that rich people in countries like mine can live in luxury. But it is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">So is her determination to make a difference. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The climate crisis is both the easiest and the hardest issue we have ever faced. The easiest because we know what we must do. We must stop the emissions of greenhouse gases. The hardest because our current economics are still totally dependent on burning fossil fuels, and thereby destroying ecosystems in order to create everlasting economic growth. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is sobering to read that "we are failing but have not yet failed".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It's fascinating to ponder why (mainly) men are so threatened by this small 16 year old Swedish schoolgirl. One who is after all trying to save the earth for all of us. It's incredible that all this started with Greta sitting down outside the Swedish parliament on Fridays. It's incredible that she can not only stand up to this torrent of abuse, but that she can even can push back. We ignore her at our peril. </span></span><br />
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<br />Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-49442621290588545802019-10-14T00:34:00.001+11:002019-10-14T00:34:52.397+11:00The Book of Idle Pleasures<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I found this unexpected delight at the recent Newcastle Lifeline Book Fair. A few days later I was prostrated by illness and a rather consumptive cough and took an afternoon rest and decided that this would make a great accompaniment. How right I was.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'd never heard of this book before, or either of the two editors or 13 contributors I suspect. But I'm mightily impressed with this little book from 2008. It is a "restorative gift book for the stressed out, tired and hassled" according to the back cover.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Very simply, it is a compendium of mini essays about Idle Pleasures. Some of these are rather obvious. Cloud Watching. Taking a Bath. Good Company. Others not so much- Slouching, Putting Out the Washing, Learning the Names of Trees and Walking Back Home Drunk. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It turned out that even Being Ill was an Idle Pleasure. Which is lucky I guess because I'm still ill over a week later, although I've been at work and not particularly idle. The Book of Idle Pleasures was actually quite prescient for its time. While concepts such as mindfulness and hygge were yet to take the world by storm in 2008, they were spelt out here using slightly different words. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Enforced idleness is a rare treat. Those brief moments in life where for one reason or another you are forced to just stop and think. In waiting rooms, queueing, for example, or even just sitting on a train. Waiting for the tea to brew is one of those moments. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Which is all so delightfully English. In 2008 these moments didn't give us enough time to 'do' anything else. Now of course we have a screen handy at all times that we can stare at and scroll. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I loved the deliciously English turn of phrase so often used, and how wonderful it is to find that chuntering is indeed a real word: from the start of a passage extolling the virtues of Sleeping in Your Clothes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">After a busy day you find yourself lying on the sofa drifting off into a hypnogogic state in front of a chuntering TV screen. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Or that merely owning a dressing gown could be a sign of hope, that a dressing gown can actually be the uniform of revolution. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Each Idle Pleasure is accompanied by a fabulous illustration by Ged Wells. I think they are lino cuts, whatever they are, they're great.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The whole book is great. I was going to read it and pass it along. But I'll be keeping it on my shelves instead. </span>Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-30614140903825165162019-09-17T21:02:00.001+10:002019-09-17T21:02:21.570+10:00Whiling Away the Hours 2019 Edition<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I recently had the privilege and pleasure of travelling to Europe. So I spent a lot of time whiling away the hours in economy. I was desperate to watch Fleabag, but Series 1 was not available anywhere sadly.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">On the way to Helsinki I only managed one movie. I finally got to watch The Wife. I've been keen to watch this for a while, but never managed it, so enjoyed the opportunity to finally see it. I haven't read the book, but knew enough about the book and movie to guess the plot twist very early on. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I'm not sure if it was the cramped economy watching, or the middle of the night feelings, but while Glenn Close was fantastic, a couple of the male actors really got on my nerves. Unusually after watching the film, I'd still be interested in reading the book. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I really can't explain what else I did on the way to Helsinki, but I didn't watch anything else. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I watched two movies on the way home. Both on my rather sleepless Hong Kong to Sydney flight. First up I watched Swimming with Men.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Which was perfect economy seat fodder. Light, fluffy, no surprises particularly (although perhaps how long it took me to recognise Jane Horrocks was a surprise), and actually laugh out loud funny at times. Always good for your neighbouring passengers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Then I watched The First Monday in May. I do so love a fashion documentary, and this one was particularly fascinating. I watched it twice back to back. I did manage my only sleep between Budapest and Helsinki during the first run through, so I rewatched it and managed to stay awake the second time. Indeed I was riveted to the small screen. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The First Monday in May is a 2016 documentary looking at the year of preparation and planning for the 2015 Met Gala, the annual fundraiser for Metropolitan Museum of Art's Anna Wintour Costume Center. Each year the Gala is themed for the upcoming spring fashion exhibition at the Met. In 2015 that exhibition and theme was <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2015/china-through-the-looking-glass" target="_blank">China: Through the Looking Glass</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It was a fascinating peek into the amount of hard work that goes into creating a blockbuster fashion exhibition and event. Months of meetings. Trips to Paris and Beijing. I loved seeing Andrew Bolton (curator of the exhibition) wetting himself visiting the YSL Archive in Paris. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Naturally there were tortured discussions and a lot of hand wringing about whether fashion is art- at this level it certainly is, and whether it belongs in a museum- yes, it certainly does. Even though the designers deny that rather strenuously. Karl Lagerfeld was still with us and he called what he did applied art, while Jean Paul Gautier said that he doesn't design clothes expecting them to be in museums. I well remember the sensational <a href="http://astrongbeliefinwicker.blogspot.com/2014/12/jean-paul-gaultier-from-sidewalk-to.html" target="_blank">Jean Paul Gautier exhibition</a> I saw in Melbourne (way back in 2014! Can that really be 5 years ago?).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The final exhibition looked amazing. Chinese art and film was displayed along with the fashion. The presentations of the <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2015/china-through-the-looking-glass/exhibition-galleries" target="_blank">rooms</a> were incredible, every one jaw dropping, different, so imaginative. Glass poles lit from below creating a bamboo forest of light sabres! Definitely next level. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I learnt about some topics that I'm keen to followup on. There was a focus on the impact of Chinese film. JPG was fascinated by a film called In the Mood for Love, he watched it over and over again and a year later produced his chinese inspired <a href="https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2001-couture/jean-paul-gaultier/slideshow/collection#7" target="_blank">Autumn/Winter 2001 Couture Collection</a>. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnFjSHQFVkA" target="_blank">trailer</a> for In the Mood for Love makes it look creepy, we will see. It seems to be available on <a href="https://www.kanopy.com/product/mood-love" target="_blank">Kanopy</a>. I haven't used that platform yet, this seems to be a good excuse. </span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">Most of the designers featured were big names and I was quite familiar with them. I hadn't heard of Chinese designer </span><a href="http://www.guo-pei.fr/" style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;" target="_blank">Guo Pei</a><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">, but am intrigued, and will be checking her out. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A similar amount of work went into the production of the Met Gala. Anna Wintour is extremley impressive to see in action. The amount of thought that goes into the seating plan is phenomenal. So many egos to be massaged. "We should bury this table." And celebrities are "great carpet material". Whilst the little people, we the general public "will just come back next week" according to Wintour when she needs to close a gallery a day early for preparation for the Gala. Some of those people have travelled from around the world, and will be there for one day only, they can't come back next week. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Anna Wintour was a walking ad for Starbucks. Someone needs to buy that woman a keep cup. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The First Monday in May is highly recommended. </span></div>
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Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-50171672275872256732019-08-08T01:20:00.000+10:002019-08-08T01:20:41.663+10:00Black Cockatoo<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Black Cockatoo was an immediate cover buy for me as soon as I saw it long listed for the CBCA Awards earlier in the year. I'm not having my best reading year and I think that this is the only book I've read from the longlist, and I didn't even make my usual post about all the long listed books. Now it's Book Week and the winners will be announced tomorrow.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Black Cockatoo tells the story of Mia, a thirteen year old girl living with her extended family in a remote Kimberley town. I really wasn't expecting the brutal start. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The hit came hard, sending the young <i>dirrarn</i> black cockatoo reeling from his roost in the large gum tree. The boy approached cautiously, shanghai dangling from his hand, to inspect his catch. The dirrarn lay sprawled amongst the smaller birds he'd been using as target practice. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The boy is Mia's older brother. Jy is 15, and loosing his way as many teenage boys do, he's not respecting his elders, or his country. He's killing birds for fun, not going to school. Mia rescues the bird and looks after it in her room. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Mia let her mind wander to all the places she had dreamt of seeing. No one in her family had ever left the west coast, let alone travelled over oceans. In days past there was no need to, the family had everything they needed on their country. She imagined soaring high above the coastline, red cliffs below, as the waves crashed onto golden shores- even in her imagination she could not fly out over the waves. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I don't think that I've ever read a book set in a remote Western Australian town like this one. I really enjoyed that aspect of the book. I've never even travelled to that area, these are stories and lives I've never encountered. I enjoyed learning more about Aboriginal family constructs. I knew that elder women would be called aunty, and men uncle, and that family is a very inclusive term. But I'd never heard of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Aboriginal_kinship" target="_blank">cousin-sisters</a> and cousin-brothers before. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I enjoyed the themes of family, country, tradition and freedom. Of course with any story like this the Stolen Generation is never far away. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Jawiji had met Mia's jaja on the station when they were teenagers. Her family had been rounded up and forced to live there. Jaja rarely talked about the little sister her family had lost when the government and police rounded up the lighter-skinned kids. One the rare occasion she did, the pain was raw in her words and plain across her face. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Black Cockatoo is as beautiful inside as it is out. Each chapter has a stunning full page illustration by <a href="http://www.kids-bookreview.com/2011/11/interview-authorilustrator-dub-leffler.html" target="_blank">Dub Leffler</a>- an illustrator that I need to see more from. There is a sprinkling of Jaru and Aboriginal English/Kriol words throughout the text as you can see in my quotes, and they have supplied a glossary at the end (although I aways think these should be at the front). I've read a couple of books from <a href="https://www.magabala.com/" target="_blank">Magabala Books </a> now, they're always impressive, and well worth seeking out.</span><br />
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Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-45226411578459993732019-08-07T01:53:00.000+10:002019-08-07T01:53:11.308+10:00Plastic Free July 2019<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXymgH90oBBXzr85uV1yZFzpbbXQSHIQeHmrVvGLwPLtlk-6aPWoQXdkA-hILvrAbhsUbzVt3O-6vvT3YfcXVe3ALzoorkgXdHZ1jgHtqiWmFzTgKm7UHBrF3eYJDlA47YvE0OTM_-V6uB/s1600/Unknown-31.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="163" data-original-width="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXymgH90oBBXzr85uV1yZFzpbbXQSHIQeHmrVvGLwPLtlk-6aPWoQXdkA-hILvrAbhsUbzVt3O-6vvT3YfcXVe3ALzoorkgXdHZ1jgHtqiWmFzTgKm7UHBrF3eYJDlA47YvE0OTM_-V6uB/s1600/Unknown-31.jpeg" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> 230 million people participated in <a href="https://www.plasticfreejuly.org/" target="_blank">Plastic Free July</a> world wide in 2019! This year I was one of them. I've been working towards being plastic free and reducing waste for a while. I've used reusable grocery bags for ages, long before the changes last year. I've pretty much sorted out the big four. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I don't drink coffee, so avoiding takeaway coffee cups is easy. I carry my own straw and water bottle. Indeed I have a zero waste kit in my handbag. I've started using cloth serviettes, I love having one in my handbag for when I'm out and about. I even have a couple of those little plastic gelato spoons in there- you never know when you might come across gelato that needs eating. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Like at <a href="https://www.cowandthemoon.com.au/gelato" target="_blank">Cow and the Moon</a></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've started buying staples like oats, hemp seeds, chia seeds, dried fruits, nuts etc from my local bulk store. I've bought meat straight into containers from local suppliers. Not that I buy meat very often. So I decided to extend myself for Plastic Free July and look at some things that I was using and try to change things. I've been using more milk recently (something to do with the amazing milk frother that I got for my birthday in June). Milk and dairy products generally come in plastic. You can still buy sour cream in cardboard, and while I like that, I don't buy it all that often. I've stopped buying yoghurt for some time because of the plastic packaging. But I enjoy milk, and cream. I have a couple of local options for both in glass. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.littlebigdairy.co/" target="_blank">The Little Big Dairy Company</a> are local to me in NSW, and they have most of their products in plastic. But some are also available in glass. The Double Cream is amazing! Expensive, but well worth it, a little goes a long way, and it lasts pretty well. I've taken to having some in the fridge at all times. I've also taken to Non-Homogenised milk in the past few years. They have a small 750ml bottle in glass. It's more than $5 though, so not feasible for families, but ok for me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">A cheaper option, but one that takes a bit more work is the <a href="https://www.harrisfarm.com.au/blogs/campaigns/introducing-single-herd-milk-on-tap" target="_blank">Single Herd Milk On Tap at Harris Farm</a>. I'd wanted to try this for a while, but was hesitant wondering if it was too fiddly, or if I'd poison myself. I used Plastic Free July to give me the push to give it a go. It isn't too fiddly at all, and I haven't had any troubles with it so far. The shelf life of the milk is shorter (4 days), and it's $3 a litre. I have to organise myself to go early in the day, because they clean the machine in the evening- which is when I tend to do my shopping. So, like much of the plastic free shopping it takes a little bit more organisation, but it's certainly very doable. And I've basically eliminated plastic milk bottles from my house. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Other products I've tried recently have been compostable dog poo bags from <a href="https://www.onyalife.com/product/disposal/" target="_blank">Onya</a>. They hold dog poo very well. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've also been using cellulose sponges in the kitchen and am totally in love with Safix Coconut Fibre Scourers and have been giving them to friends and family who love them too. I've been using mine for months, it still looks great, doesn't smell, and I can just put it in the green bin when it finally does wear out. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've been trying to make other changes too. I've made suggestions to the cafes at my work on how to reduce plastic packaging. It worked with one, but not the other yet. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">So, all in all I had a pretty good month and great progress was made. I'm not perfect at it, but anyone can decrease their plastic waste with rather little effort. I was devastated to receive a smoothie in a plastic takeaway cup when dining in at a local cafe, and the response of the owner was awful when I pointed this out. I won't be going back until they change. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">You don't need to wait til Plastic Free July to make some changes. Do it today. </span></div>
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Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-57314056774231852852019-08-05T00:27:00.003+10:002019-08-05T00:27:58.964+10:00Captain Rosalie<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've been meaning to read Timothée de Fombelle for some time. He's probably most famous for his Toby Alone series, about little folk living in trees, which I have in the house somewhere, but it's a big chunky book and I knew I wouldn't get it finished for Paris in July. Captain Rosalie is a delightful little morsel, and I easily read it in July, but then dragged the chain with blogging about it. An illustrated story for older readers, Captain Rosalie is not a picture book in the traditional sense.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Captain Rosalie is a young French girl, 5 and a half years old. Her father is away fighting in the trenches of the First World War. Her mother works at the munitions factory. Rosalie is not yet old enough for school, but her mother has nowhere else to take her, so Rosalie spends her days sitting at the back of the school room drawing pictures in her notebook. Or so it seems. Rosalie has other plans. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">.... I am a soldier on a mission. I am spying on the enemy. I am preparing my plan. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is 1917, and every morning the schoolmaster reads aloud progress of the war from the front page of the newspaper. "The master always gives us good news, never bad."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">He tells them that they must think of our soldiers who are giving up their youth, their lives. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">At night Rosalie's mother reads her the letters her father has written home from the front line. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Delightfully illustrated by French Canadian <a href="http://www.isabellearsenault.com/" target="_blank">Isabelle Arsenault</a>, who makes the most of Rosalie's flame red hair. It was initially published in French in 2014, and in English in 2018. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Timothée de Fombelle talking about Captain Rosalie</span></div>
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Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-12900650636574491292019-07-20T10:40:00.000+10:002019-07-20T10:40:08.538+10:00French Film Festival<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I live in a small town in rural Australia. We don't get a lot of foreign films here. The local film society screens one film a month at the local cinema. I can't always go though.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Of course all of Australia can watch foreign language films on the joy that is <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/" target="_blank">SBS</a>. They've just started their SBS World Movies as free to air, which is fantastic. Well I'm sure it would be if I could access the channel. I haven't quite managed that yet.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Each year though there is the <a href="https://www.affrenchfilmfestival.org/films/sydney" target="_blank">Alliance Francaise French Film Festival</a>. And one weekend in winter we get 4 of those French films screened over two days as part of the travelling film festival.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I made it to two of them this year. I hadn't heard of either of them before this event.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiejZeyqNyI7796BPxFLbuq8Y1rvU4gt7cOmSE2Uq07iW_DgcnOCBePaEM3blRj3XzRtSs4GW1oLEZglsSQUf1Vda9TuKx8wyR7z_p1DmVbz6q2MIMiOICvA3HHOB9_ijPwZx_bUbHSQYsw/s1600/Medium-ec7e8552-5ff4-4a10-8ef3-f780024a4fc1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiejZeyqNyI7796BPxFLbuq8Y1rvU4gt7cOmSE2Uq07iW_DgcnOCBePaEM3blRj3XzRtSs4GW1oLEZglsSQUf1Vda9TuKx8wyR7z_p1DmVbz6q2MIMiOICvA3HHOB9_ijPwZx_bUbHSQYsw/s320/Medium-ec7e8552-5ff4-4a10-8ef3-f780024a4fc1.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Trouble With You</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I enjoyed Family Photo much more than The Trouble With You. Family Photo is an engaging family drama, covering 4 generations, a dementing nana, separated parents, three adult siblings with the daily problems of adult life, and at time tricky interactions with their own children. It was touching and funny, and set in Paris. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Trouble With You was a rather bizarre French farce. It was apparently the standout hit of Cannes 2018. Set in Marseilles, it tells a strange story of Yvonne, recently bereaved, and bringing up her young son. She is a policewoman, and her police captain husband died a hero. But all is not what it seems. There were definitely laugh out loud moments and situations, and I really liked our two leading ladies, Adèle Haenel and Audrey Tatou, but the action scenes were too violent for me, and there was a lot of cringing and squinting. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I missed out on two films. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir8SOWfpID18X3vhwR_oRpC15jDiW9XALQQDY7xgakr7iO-3mondB-54P4DzQL9yXqTMagRMOvkfW7nAah9eUFLF-7E0Fy0tVVUYwSwe_oynBrvmqWFFWt0MM4KSKsN3iVKg14EvjvNz9a/s1600/Medium-4e101a42-4215-4f02-8cea-d0e49d6cd508.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir8SOWfpID18X3vhwR_oRpC15jDiW9XALQQDY7xgakr7iO-3mondB-54P4DzQL9yXqTMagRMOvkfW7nAah9eUFLF-7E0Fy0tVVUYwSwe_oynBrvmqWFFWt0MM4KSKsN3iVKg14EvjvNz9a/s320/Medium-4e101a42-4215-4f02-8cea-d0e49d6cd508.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Clare Darling</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Girl</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'd really like to catch up on both of those, but Clare Darling appealed more. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Finding those trailers on Youtube I just discovered that there's already a movie of Heal the Living. Another book in my TBR that is already a movie.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The struggle is real. It's never ending...</span></div>
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Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-91004044202427541532019-07-19T00:08:00.000+10:002019-07-19T00:08:08.323+10:00Lullaby<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidEH7od6W0imqnUmY4j6wiEbO953X0O_Ku8-7icNPOFyj9Wqvu3DMLh6wisw8qTv_daZDv-AMaXBCXh4j0KuD9D23xIu_-E8JbXIerU4t8c9F4805GafaiDFMS1KDXLAcj248h6m8dYn15/s1600/34888018._SY475_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="299" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidEH7od6W0imqnUmY4j6wiEbO953X0O_Ku8-7icNPOFyj9Wqvu3DMLh6wisw8qTv_daZDv-AMaXBCXh4j0KuD9D23xIu_-E8JbXIerU4t8c9F4805GafaiDFMS1KDXLAcj248h6m8dYn15/s320/34888018._SY475_.jpg" width="201" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I was so looking forward to reading this book. I'd bought the book, and I'd bought into the hype back when it was newly released. We all know what happens next don't we? Yes, of course I ultimately found this a disappointing read.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Lullaby was never going to be an easy read. The cover gives us a major clue with the first two sentences of the text.</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The baby is dead. It took only a few seconds. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">But it gets off to a sizzling start.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The baby is dead. It took only a few seconds. The doctor said he didn't suffer. The broken body, surrounded by toys, was put inside a grey bag, which they zipped shut. The little girl was still alive when the ambulance arrived. She'd fought like a wild animal. They found signs of a struggle, bits of skin under her soft fingernails. On the way to hospital she was agitated, her body shaken by convulsions. Eyes bulging, she seemed to be gasping for air. Her throat was filled with blood. Her lungs had been punctured, her head smashed violently against the blue chest of drawers. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And that's certainly a first paragraph to make you sit up and pay attention. Even if you don't recognise how terribly she is being managed in the back of that ambulance. Like my recent read Scrublands (<a href="http://astrongbeliefinwicker.blogspot.com/2019/07/scrublands.html" target="_blank">see my review</a>) this is another whydunit. The crime is once again graphically portrayed in the first few pages. There is no mistaking what has happened, only why. But I never got to why.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">After that arresting, short first chapter we go back to fill in the story of how these two young children came to be dead. It starts with Myriam and Paul, their parents selecting a nanny.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">'No illegal immigrants, agreed? For a cleaning lady or a decorator, it doesn't bother me. Those people have to work, after all. But to look after the little ones, it's too dangerous. I don't want someone who'd be afraid to call the police or go to the hospital if there was a problem. Apart from that ... not too old, no veils and no smokers. The important thing is that she's energetic and available. That she works so we can work.'</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Soon Louise is hired with glowing references. Yes the murderous nanny is called Louise which makes Lullaby the second book in a row for me with a main character, the baddie, called Louise. See my recent post on <a href="https://astrongbeliefinwicker.blogspot.com/2019/07/state-of-union.html" target="_blank">State of the Union</a>. Louise has smooth features, an open smile, and lips that do not tremble. "She appears imperturbable. She looks like a woman able to understand and forgive everything."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Soon Louise has become invaluable to the household.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">'My nanny is a miracle-worker.' That is what Myriam says when she describes Louise's sudden entrance into their lives. She must have magical powers to have transformed this stifling, cramped apartment into a calm, light-filled place. Louise has pushed back the walls. She has made the cupboards deeper, the drawers wider. She has let the sun in. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Of course no honeymoon can last, and it is the same with this one. Cracks appear, and the relationship between the family and the nanny deteriorates. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I found Lullaby ultimately disappointing as a psychological crime novel. I didn't understand Louise, or her motivations, how she came to do what she did. </span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Yes, Louise has a sad backstory and a sad current reality, and she comes under new pressures, but still, horrificly killing the kids is where that takes her? </span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">I did enjoy the Parisian slice of life aspect of it. The glimpse into the life of a nanny in Paris. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Around the children- who all look alike, often wearing the same clothes bought in the same shops, with their names written on the labels by their mothers to avoid any confusion - buzzes this swarm of women. There are young black women in veils, who have to be even gentler, cleaner and more punctual than the others. There are the ones who change wigs every week. </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Louise keeps to herself even here, and they wonder about her like we do. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">About Louise, the nannies know very little..... The white nanny intrigues them .... They wonder who she is this fragile, perfect woman...</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Lullaby won the Prix Goncourt in 2016. The <a href="https://www.academiegoncourt.com/home" target="_blank">Prix Goncourt</a> is the most prestigious and well known of the French literary prizes. I have to wonder about that. I doesn't seem literary enough to be a literary prize winner in English. Lullaby was inspired by a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Krim_siblings" target="_blank">real life American crime</a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>The <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/01/the-killer-nanny-novel-that-conquered-france" target="_blank">New Yorker</a> did a big profile piece on Leïla Slimani in 2018. I read two American articles about her, both made the point that she was "laying claim" to an American story, or "<a href="https://nypost.com/2018/01/13/should-this-author-be-cashing-in-on-nycs-killer-nanny/" target="_blank">cashing in</a>" on it. Yes, I realise that second one is from the New York Post but it's an interesting view that they take on it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Lullaby was my first read for <a href="https://thyme-for-tea.blogspot.com/2019/07/paris-in-july-week-3.html" target="_blank">Paris in July 2019</a>.</span><br />
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Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-49483828902393256982019-07-06T11:27:00.001+10:002019-07-06T11:27:37.432+10:00State of the Union<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVAKc48XWrB_brj96hTsf6DVIyXmURLV_nn6uD7Nq_aNba_NWvOiGEW39_4Lhfi5o0ES7cWAepYJcCCUJ3fNNuqLi1ntB_EWnBzk3D17p85lYqDKRWRVvgR1c6Ax0t0JucyQSIeVrOIUHR/s1600/45701328._SY475_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="310" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVAKc48XWrB_brj96hTsf6DVIyXmURLV_nn6uD7Nq_aNba_NWvOiGEW39_4Lhfi5o0ES7cWAepYJcCCUJ3fNNuqLi1ntB_EWnBzk3D17p85lYqDKRWRVvgR1c6Ax0t0JucyQSIeVrOIUHR/s320/45701328._SY475_.jpg" width="208" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I love walking into your bookshop and picking up a book you've never heard of. Even better is when you take it home and read it very soon, and really quickly. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">So it was with Nick Hornby's latest, State of the Union. Especially when I saw that yellow cover. It's clearly about a marriage not going so well. A topic I've been quite familiar with in recent times. And then I read the back cover. Tom and Louise meet up in the pub across the road from their marriage counsellor just before they go to their weekly session. And have a drink. Sometimes more than one. An idea which is GENIUS. I wish I'd thought of that. My marriage would probably have ended up in the same place, but at least we'd have had a drink before the sessions. Might have taken the edge off some of the agony. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">State of the Union documents ten of these weekly meetings. We only see Tom and Louise at the pub, we don't see them in their sessions or at home or anywhere else. Tom and Louise talk A LOT for people going to marriage counselling. The book is essentially all dialogue. Some of it was uncanny, like a distant echo, words that I felt that I might have said, or have heard. There were even more parallels, Louise is a geriatrician, and her husband Tom a music critic. Not direct parallels, but close enough. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">As you'd expect from Nick Hornby there are insights into life and marriage, it's clever and witty, but true to life with moments of tragedy and quite a bit of humour.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">"He doesn't have to watch it. He just has to not go on about how much he hates it."</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">"I had to watch it."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">"Once. And only because you kept slagging it off without having seen it."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">"So he's got to watch it once."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">"And I'm sure if he does he'll respect my enjoyment and not make puking noises all the way through."</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And no book can come out of the UK these days without mentioning Brexit. Anyone who has been married, or in a long term relationship, happily or not, will get something from State of the Union.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">" ... We're married. It's different. We have created a whole life together despite everything. A language. A family. Some kind of understanding..."</span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I hadn't heard of the book or the tv adaptation (complete series already on <a href="https://iview.abc.net.au/show/state-of-the-union" target="_blank">ABC iView</a> for those of us in Australia) before I found the book a few days ago. The series is pretty much the book word for word. Odd that the series is already out just as the book is released. Maybe the series came first? Nick Hornby does a bit of work with screenplays these days. Anyway, of course I've also now watched the series. It's delightful. Starring Rosamund Pike and Chris O'Dowd. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://www.tribecafilm.com/filmguide/state-of-the-union-2019" target="_blank">State of the Union trailer</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I read quite a lot of Nick Hornby's early work back in the day but for some reason lost the habit of reading him somewhere along the track. I know I have at least some of his books still in the house, I think I'll revisit some of them, and seek out the others.</span>Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6261834677579395686.post-5304521921006658472019-07-04T10:53:00.000+10:002019-07-04T10:53:16.068+10:00Paris in July 2019<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy0uDdGv3ZTUnbdR8OSXpM3BdDomdFCdSItSpz8WpdNA2OtgWZC5-k4UqgECDSowMla-iPfDF4ebx_mmrVR0P3qJ8MBuwdp7dlK6CsN4ElEFUrfG1dsVo443ot_HC_F39cmulW0GwXouo-/s1600/paris-sketchbook-i_u-l-q1bl6xl0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="301" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy0uDdGv3ZTUnbdR8OSXpM3BdDomdFCdSItSpz8WpdNA2OtgWZC5-k4UqgECDSowMla-iPfDF4ebx_mmrVR0P3qJ8MBuwdp7dlK6CsN4ElEFUrfG1dsVo443ot_HC_F39cmulW0GwXouo-/s320/paris-sketchbook-i_u-l-q1bl6xl0.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Can it really be time for Paris in July again? Seems so. It's certainly snuck up on me this year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://thyme-for-tea.blogspot.com/p/paris-in-july.html" target="_blank">Paris in July</a> is a month long celebration of all things Parisian (or French really) hosted by Tamara at <a href="https://thyme-for-tea.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Thyme for Tea</a>. Her sign up post is <a href="https://thyme-for-tea.blogspot.com/2019/06/paris-in-july-2019-sign-up.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I had a momentary panic when I realised it was time for Paris in July. I hadn't made any plans for it. What would I read/watch/blog? I'm sure I can find something.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">As with every July I will spend 3 weeks staying up late into the night watching the <a href="https://www.letour.fr/en/" target="_blank">Tour de France</a>. I'm sure there's lots of other French things I could watch on SBS. They even have a new free-to-air World Movies channel with lots of French content (but it seems I'm having trouble accessing it, I need to fix it).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I can go to any of my bookshelves/bookstacks and find some Parisian inspiration, so I quickly bundled some together for this month ....</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6GjRbWkxoRU6OXIn7q44cFgsuWuiCKZxqrRn6dIz2MPqmvZ4sp0lcYP3-kjroHuFPlZBKBCTHmhdaZnT7D_wjpKeuFHK0DKmh65ZsZUroW88VNv763vFk96TLmyn7FB3vPkPx5_mlCJQ3/s1600/fullsizeoutput_96b7.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1408" data-original-width="1600" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6GjRbWkxoRU6OXIn7q44cFgsuWuiCKZxqrRn6dIz2MPqmvZ4sp0lcYP3-kjroHuFPlZBKBCTHmhdaZnT7D_wjpKeuFHK0DKmh65ZsZUroW88VNv763vFk96TLmyn7FB3vPkPx5_mlCJQ3/s320/fullsizeoutput_96b7.jpeg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">There is more, a lot more</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">But the number one thing that I should try and finish reading is Les Mis! To my great shame I never finished it last year with the marvellous <a href="http://nicksenger.com/onecatholiclife/les-miserables-chapter-a-day-read-along-the-wrap-up" target="_blank">Les Mis Readalong</a>. I got 900 pages or so into it. Then I haven't touched it since Dec 31 2018. Quite a while ago now. I need to crack on and finish it. I'm hoping that Paris in July will be the perfect push in the right direction. Even James Corden is pushing me in the right direction...</span><br />
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Louisehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13187730620736345378noreply@blogger.com6