The Household Guide to Dying

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. 

Only to have the first chapter be all about dying in spring. Oh dear. This was flying rather close to reality. 

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. 

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. 

Delia is a copyeditor, proofreader and writer and  has had an "accidental" career as an author to various Household Guides. 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). Now Delia wants to write The Household Guide to Dying.

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. 

The Household Guide to Dying is filled with literary references, whether discussing dying mothers

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. 

or dying readers. There is a whole chapter on what to read when you're actually, actively dying. 

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. 

How practicalities interfered.

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. 

But it's more than a book about illness and dying, it's also mediation on the lives of modern women and mothers.

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. 

The burden of choice, one of the late twentieth century's most insidious was lifted. 

One of the literary references really spoke to me. The Metaphysical Poets 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. 

It was if one person in the world had decided that school-kids should eternally read Hamlet, To Kill a Mockingbird, Herodotus's Histories, The Catcher in the Rye, and something called The Metaphysical Poets.

Of those I only had to suffer through Histories. 

There was a lot of beautiful writing about the mundane, the every day.  About back yards, lawns and chook sheds. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

I loved Heather Bolton's narration of the audiobook. She had me in from the start. 


Read in 2019, blogged in 2020.

http://australianwomenwriters.com

http://australianwomenwriters.com

The Yellow House

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. 

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 Newcastle Writers Festival 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 ANZLitlovers is blurbed! How fabulous. 

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

I didn't particularly like the very end of the book. I wanted something else, more perhaps. 

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?

Read in 2019, blogged in 2020. Yes I'm trying to catch up a bit, clear the backlog.

http://australianwomenwriters.com

http://australianwomenwriters.com

The Joyful Frugalista

Serina Bird wants to reclaim frugality. "Once upon a time, thrift and frugality were celebrated as virtues."

Instead of being equated with negative words such as poor, meagre, paltry, cheap, insufficient or even skimpy, I want frugality to be associated with concepts such as creativity, appreciation, abundance, choice, empowerment and being enterprising and environmentally sound. 

For her the frugalista lifestyle is about financial empowerment. Don't live a life of FOMO and debt. 

There is a better way. And that way is to take control of your finances, to learn to live within your means, to aim to create more wealth and to develop a savings plan. 

Her underlying themes of self-worth, abidance and gratitude 

It is about being authentic and true to myself, and striving (in small, everyday ways) to make the world a better place. 

And our lives a better place too. Serina provides us with lots of inventive ways to find cheap or free goods and services. And to not be ashamed about that. 

It is ok to accept with gratitude the abundance that the universe provides. Something free is not automatically substandard, nor is it wrong (unless, of course, you stole it).

Naturally, Serina takes all of this very seriously. She has recorded every dollar she has spent for over 10 years! I couldn't tell you what I spent yesterday, or last week. She even makes a monthly income/expenses report. Like she is a business. While I can see how that makes sense to do that, I can't ever see me doing it. She juggles multiple investment properties, and has for many years, through her first marriage, and then divorce, and now into her second marriage. 

I particularly liked the section on The Power of Little Savings, teaching us that every dollar counts. I've been doing something similar for a while. I make lots of small extra payments to my mortgage and superannuation whenever I buy something and make a saving. A trick I learned from the $1000 Project. Serina talks the talk, and walks the walk. She buys second hand clothes and goes urban foraging. She maintained a $50 weekly food budget for herself and her two sons for over a year! I pretty much drop 50 bucks every time I go to the supermarket. Well, not every time, but often. 

I also liked the more personal chapters where she recounted her own story. Her marriages. Her habits. Her goals- she wants to be a billionaire! And yet doesn't like FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early). It's a sad day when you realise you're already too old to set FIRE to your life...

Serina lives in Canberra, a city that has four distinct season, with a real winter. Well, as real as it gets in Australia. My town does too. She likes embracing the seasons and suggests that we think of our homes as a chalet. She uses the German word gemütlich to convert this sense of wintery cosiness, I'm more used to the Danish term hygge. 

But I've been interested in making my life more hygge for a while now. I turn on a sparkly light, day or night, just because it gives me joy. I've bought (and actually use) scented candles. I'm using a furry, soft fake fur blanket (the dog likes that too, dogs have an innate sense of hygge, though perhaps not so much as cats).

Each chapter ends with a Frugalista Challenge. Some of them would be easy peasy. Don't buy any new clothes or shoes for a month. Done. Try to reduce your grocery expenditure to $25 per person per week. I just broke out in a cold sweat. I am going to try and record every dollar that I spend. For a month! I've tried doing this sort of thing before, but have rarely gone beyond a day. We'll see how it goes. I think I might try it as a project for July. 

While I'll never be a Frugalista anywhere near Serina Bird level we can always learn things from such books. 

You can afford anything, but you can't afford everything.

I borrowed The Joyful Frugalista from my library. And so I've just transferred $29.99 into my super. The lessons from this book will take me into retirement. I hope Serina would be proud. 

Serina Bird blogs at Joyful Frugalista. 

Speaking Up

I really have been straying out of my comfort zone lately. So much nonfiction! I saw Gillian Triggs speak at Newcastle Writers Festival recently, she was very impressive, and so when her audiobook Speaking Up popped on my BorrowBox I was there.

Because of my general head in the sand approach to life I only heard of Gillian and her work last year. She gave a keynote at a conference I attended, unfortunately I missed that session, but everyone there raved about it. Then I saw her in Newcastle April. Speaking Up was the overall best seller at the festival bookshop. Which is intriguing, as it's not a super easy read.

Gillian has had an extraordinary life and career. Born in the UK, her family migrated to Melbourne in 1958. Gillian remembers seeing refugees on the streets of London after the war, and feels her sense of social justice was forged by the war and her parents visions of freedom, non-discrimination and racial equality, "the values for which their war had been fought". She studied law at Melbourne Uni in the 60s and went on to have an international career specialising in International Maritime Law. She worked and lived in Texas, Singapore, Paris, London and Sydney. She has had two marriages, the first to the Dean of her law school, and with the second she became a diplomatic wife to the Australian Ambassador in Singapore then Paris. Yes I got a little bit jealous around that part. She had three children, the third of whom was profoundly disabled by Edwards Syndrome.

In 2012 Gillian Triggs became President of the Australian Human Rights Commission and "discovered her public voice and that she had something useful to say." She certainly has a lot of useful things to say. 

Human rights apply to everyone, all the time. Those whose human rights need protecting are not always socially worthy citizens. Human rights defenders do not pick and chose whom to protect and this is the point. Vulnerable people, usually minorities, and sometimes unpopular people all have the right to enjoy fundamental freedoms and respect as human beings. 

I really enjoyed these early, more biographical chapters, but the majority of the book is much more academic and scholarly. Law for the nonlawyer is quite often dry and boring. And how long can anyone really think about Senate Estimates? Gillian Triggs does her best to make this accessible for the average reader, but still my eyes and consciousness glazed over at times. Quite literally one day on a long distance drive.

Yet the subjects that Gillian Triggs addresses are interesting, and clearly important. Family violence, economic empowerment of women, constitutional recognition of indigenous Australians, Aboriginal deaths in custody, refugees, mandatory detention, racism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, youth suicide, metadata, marriage equality. Gillian wants nothing more than for us to join her in speaking up for human rights. 

Australia is the only democratic nation in the world and the only common law country that does not have a bill or charter of rights to ensure the freedom of its citizens and residents. Australia is also the only Commonwealth country not to have a treaty with its indigenous people...

Gillian Triggs dates the decline of human rights in Australia from 2001. A lot of things changed around the world that year of course, but she sites particularly Tampa, Children Overboard and September 11 as causing Australia to change course. 

How is it that the sovereign nation of Australia, one of the architects of international human rights agreements following World War II and a globally recognised good international citizen has regressed so far in failing to respect human rights in the 21st century?

It is shocking that Gillian finds human rights to have regressed further over her five years at the Commission. 

It's fair to say that most Australians (myself included) know next to nothing about our Constitution, and indeed we would hardly ever consider it, unless wishing to quote The Castle. 

The Australian Constitution does not prohibit torture, slavery or racial or sexual discrimination. The rights of children, the disabled or aged are not mentioned.

I guess none of this is too surprising given that it was set out in the dying years of the 19th century. Our Constitution does not even grant us the right to vote! Which is interesting given we have compulsory voting. Oh dear, perhaps I'm going to have to read that book too... (From Secret Ballot to Democracy Sausage)

I was especially interested in the sections on Aboriginal deaths in custody, on the Northern Territory Intervention, and other factors affecting Australia's Aboriginal people. Gillian recommends Ali Cobby Eckerman's poem Intervention Payback.

Juxtaposing human rights with child protection is a false binary. Australia can both protect its vulnerable children and respect the fundamental rights of our First Nations peoples to dignity and to consent to laws that affect their lives. 

Sadly, Australia can't always protect our vulnerable children though. I am glad to have learnt about the Uluru Statement from the Heart. What apart from politics can stand in the way of a First Nations Voice to be enshrined in the Constitution?

Indigenous deaths in custody are reported to have increased 150% since 1991 numbering 340 in 2017.

While this number is still shocking, this sentence is badly worded. I initially thought it suggested that 340 Aboriginal people died in custody in the year 2017 which stopped me in my tracks. What she means is that 340 Aboriginal people died in the 25 years since the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991. An appalling number. 

Similarly, the section on refugees were enlightening, and damning. 

Road signs warned that the (Christmas) islands giant robber crabs had protected status, asylum seekers are not similarly cared for here. 

Currently there are 65 million displaced people in the world, 1/3 of whom are refugees.

Australia's responses to this global tragedy have been exceptionally harsh, illegal and inhumane attracting international condemnation. 

I was reminded that Mandatory Detention was started in 1992 by the Keating government. It is interesting that in 2016 the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea found that detention of adult male refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island is in violation of its (relatively new) constitution. 

Naturally, Speaking Up gives us an idea of the work of the Human Rights Commission. I was most surprised that "Overwhelming people come to the Commission alleging employment discrimination." I had thought the day to day workings would be on more general social concerns, not specific complaints by individuals. But they do a lot of conciliation work. 

The protection of minorities is fundamental to our democracy. 

In the end Speaking Up is quite a lengthy argument for an Australian Charter of Rights. Gillian Triggs makes no secret of her opinion, she argues for it many times due the text and her final chapter is entitled The Time is Now, A Charter of Rights for Australia. Apparently it will help counter our "dysfunctional parliament and disempowered courts".

The real value of human rights acts lies in their symbolic, educative and informative roles restraining parliaments from passing laws that infringe fundamental rights and ensuring administrators do not impose policies that do so. When protections for human rights get legislative expression they form the scaffolding for a social structure that respects rights for communities and individuals. 

As a random fact I was fascinated to hear Gillian say that the UK had television soon after the war. I took that to mean that television started broadcasting there after the war, but the BBC actually started broadcasting regularly in 1936, and then British TV was shut down in 1939 at the start of WWII. Broadcasting then resumed in 1946. Television came to Australia in 1956 for the Melbourne Olympic Games. Not that I was there for that, but I didn't realise Australia at that time was a full 20 years behind.

Still young Gillian watched BBC documentaries on the liberation of concentration camps and recounts that her sense of social justice had its origins in her parents commitment to the values of freedom, non-discrimination and racial equality. "A choice is not binary in favour of one right or the other, rather as shown by amendments to the marriage act it is possible both to achieve marriage equality and to provide protection to those religious views that would condemn it."

There is no hierarchy of rights. One freedom does not trump another.

I had to rush towards the end to read this book. Borrowing e-audiobooks is a rigid process. You can't hang onto it for a day or so if you haven't finished with it. An e-audibook just vanishes from your phone (or device) at the allocated time. So I had to find 6 hours in a few days. I wasn't sure that I'd make it- especially when I have many other draws on my time (as we all do). I'm also halfway through the Aussie Noir thriller Scrublands, and trying to watch Season 2 of The Handmaid's Tale before June 6 when Series 3 starts. Plus living a life from time to time. I tried speeding it up to 1.25 but Speaking Up is dense, and you need to concentrate properly so that didn't work for me at all. I made my deadline with a few hours to spare. 

http://australianwomenwriters.com

Wundersmith

Wundersmith is the second book in a series, spoilers to the first book will inevitably follow.

Quite recently I finished the audiobook of Nevermoor (see my review). I loved it so much that very soon after when I was tucking earphones into my ears to go out with the dog I found I was listening to the sequel Wundersmith. Very soon after that, I was turning to it when doing the dishes, or the ironing, or when out tending the garden... you get the idea. My listening pace accelerated rapidly throughout the book. Today, I listened to some in the car, and then realised I was very close to the end, only had a few chapters more to go really ... so I listened some more whilst doing more menial household tasks, and then was only two chapters from the end, so I plonked myself on the bed to finish it off. 

Wundersmith tells the story of Morrigan Crow's first year at the Wundrous Society. Morrigan and her eight fellow classmates form Unit 919 of Wunsoc. They are the most junior scholars, split into students of either the Mundane or Arcane Arts. Starting at a new school is full of much excitement, and many details,  how to get there, the buildings, the classes you'll take, and this is all brilliantly set up in Wundersmith. 

Morrigan didn’t like the sound of the Goal-Setting and Achieving Club for Highly Ambitious Youth, which met on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings, and all day Sunday. But she thought she could probably get on board with Introverts Utterly Anonymous, which promised no meetings or gatherings of any sort, ever.

I get that a magical school story will draw comparisons with Harry Potter, but school novels were written well before Harry Potter, and well before Enid Blyton even. Some sections of this book reminded me much more of Roald Dahl's Matilda, but naturally I won't point out why. You'll know if you've read them both. 

Amongst all this action are great themes of friendship, loyalty, treachery, suspicion, doubt and evil. How do you know who to trust really? There are mysterious disappearances and secrets abound. There are once again bigger themes that are so important in the real world - slavery, death, dying and compassion. There are great twists and turns and glimpses of the stories still to come.

And just so many wondrous fantastical elements. Jessica Townsend has an extraordinary imagination.  There are so many delicious, delightful details. It's all so imaginative. I particularly loved the building made of water. The Museum of Stolen Moments. Genius. And the Skeletal Legion- skeletons cobbled together from body parts! Wow. 

The “Skeletal Legion”, they’re also called.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Proper bogeyman stuff. Supposedly they used to emerge from dark, lonelyplaces where carcasses were plentiful – graveyards, battlefields, you know – spontaneously assembling themselves from the jumbled leftovers of the dead.’

I think Wundersmith has even more plot and action than Nevermoor. I've never been much of a series reader, but maybe Nevermoor will change that? 

Now that I've listened to Wundersmith I'm in a rather unusual position. I'm up to date with a series, and so now I'm waiting with bated breath for the publication of the third book in the Nevermoor series! I think it's coming in October 2019, but there's very few clues about it online at this stage. Bookdepository says it's due October 29. I'll hope that's true for  now.

Once again I listened to the brilliant audiobook narrated by Gemma Whelan. I do hope that she's doing the narration for the whole series, I can't imagine it without her considerable vocal talents. 

Teacher's Resources

http://australianwomenwriters.com

Pulse Points

I'm not much of a short story reader. I don't know how best to read them. I don't know how best to think about them, and I don't know how best to blog about them. But I want all of that to change. I'd like to become an experienced, accomplished short story reader. My interest in the short story emerged in 2017 when I accidentally came across Ryan O'Neill's amazing The Weight of a Human Heart (see my review). Since then I've bought quite a number of short story collections- some anthologies, some single author collections. It's time I start actually reading them. Naturally enough then I borrowed Pulse Points from my library, it's not from my shelves. 

I quite enjoy reading an actual short story, but I really don't really know how to read a collection of them. I find that I can't read one after the other, they all just become a blur, and my brain becomes confused. I find reading one or two, depending on length, between other reads seems to be a better way to go about it, although I'm hoping I will refine this process as I rack up a few more short story collections.  

The fourteen stories contained within Pulse Points really have a global reach, with a range of settings - Australia naturally enough, but also America, England, Paris. I was annoyed initially when I realised that quite a number of them were set in America, noting American vocabulary and terms (one of the largest and noisiest bees in my bonnet) before I noticed the setting.  Although of course I loved that Convalescence is set in Paris... and while I delighted at the mention of the string section that plays in the labyrinthine tunnels of  Châtelet as I've seen them several times, I wondered why was that story set in Paris, and not in Melbourne?

Oddly enough it was probably the stories set in America that ended up being my favourites! Vox Clamantis - a West Coast road trip to see a dying mother. Coarsegold - the last and longest story which is hard to sum up really - a lesbian couple move to central California and events ensue. 

It was the saddest sound I ever heard in my life. There were no words, just him with the pain in his lungs, bellowing out smoke from the grief in there. It seemed to me as if all the world, the redwoods and the cliffs and the ocean and whatever birds were out there, was recoiling from him. (Vox Clamantis)

The first, titular story Pulse Points is set in Australia and has such a dichotomous plot, I wasn't sure what to make of it- or what would be coming after it. Many of the stories deal with illness and death- dementia, cancer, unwanted pregnancy, miscarriage, addiction, domestic violence - but I often found humour in the details. 

A sturdy nurse pushed through the door. An acrid puff of shit and vegetables followed her. (Pulse Points)

I've seen Jennifer Down speak twice. First at Melbourne Writers Festival when she did an electrifying reading of a short story. I thought I'd recognise it when I got to it. I think it was Dogs, but can't be sure now. Last year I saw her at Sydney Writers Festival and she gave a fabulous talk On How to Disappear, a subject I'd never given any particular thought too. Some of it was similar to this article from The Lifted Brow. 

You can listen to a conversation with Jennifer Down talking about Pulse Points on the Readings Podcast.

I'm going to try and have a book of short stories always on the go from now on. We'll see how that goes. 

http://australianwomenwriters.com

Nevermoor

Oh, isn't it just so great when a really hyped book lives up to that hype? And Nevermoor certainly does. Nevermoor made a huge splash when it was released in late 2017. I was a bit interested at the time. I liked the cover initially, but shrank away a bit from the Harry Potter-esque buzz. I've only ever read the first Harry Potter, way back when- gasp! about 20 years ago I guess, but never continued on with the series (and I'm a really, really bad series reader). But then recently I came across the audiobook of Nevermoor narrated beautifully by Gemma Whelan, and on a bit of a whim I picked it up for #MiddleGradeMarch. I didn't finish in March, but I did manage to finish it in April, and so can call it an #AussieApril read. Although now of course I'm blogging about it in May....

Nevermoor is the story of Morrigan Crow. Morrigan is a cursed child, born on Eventide, and due to die on her 11th birthday. I was in from the very first words of the prologue. 

The journalists arrived before the coffin did. They gathered at the gate overnight and by dawn they were a crowd. By nine o'clock they were a swarm.

Morrigan's father Corvus Crow is the Chancellor of Great Wolfacre, and as such her death is big news. The main story then starts three days earlier in the final days of Morrigan's doomed life. As a cursed child Morrigan has been blamed for every unfortunate incident, near and far, over her lifetime. 

Morrigan hurried into the house, hovering for a moment near the door from the kitchen to the hallway. She watched Cook take a piece of chalk and write KICHIN CAT - DEAD on the blackboard, at the end of a long list that most recently included SPOYLED FISH, OLD TOM'S HEART ATTACK, FLOODS IN NORTH PROSPER and GRAVY STAYNES ON BEST TABLECLOTH. 

Morrigan has been seen as a burden by her family, brought out for photo opportunities to aid her father's career, an only child unloved within her own family. The cursed child is not quite the classic orphan of children's literature but Morrigan feels alone, and her fate is sealed. Her mother is dead, and her pregnant stepmother Ivy is already growing her replacement sibling.

Morrigan sat up straight. This should be good. Maybe Ivy was going to apologise for making her wear that frilly, itchy chiffon dress to the wedding. Or maybe she was going to confess that although she'd scarcely spoken a dozen words to Morrigan since moving in, truly she loved her like a daughter, and she only wished they could have more time together, and she would miss Morrigan terribly and would probably cry buckets at the funeral and ruin her makeup, which would streak ugly black rivers all down her pretty face - but she wouldn't even care how ugly she looked because she would just be thinking about lovely, lovely Morrigan. 

Morrigan manages to cheat The Hunt of Smoke and Shadow on the date of her scheduled death (this bit is actually quite scary!) and escapes from Jackalfax to Nevermoor, the city. Nevermoor is somewhat based on London, as Jessica Townsend was living in London when she wrote a lot of this story in her early 20s. Morrigan makes a new home at the Hotel Deucalion, a fantastical residence complete with a talking cat who just happens to be the Housekeeper, and a Smoking Parlour- not a Victorian style saloon with old men smoking on overstuffed lounges, but a room that generates different coloured, scented smokes to evoke different moods and atmospheres. 

While Nevermoor is aimed at middle grade readers there is much here for adult and teenage readers. Nevermoor is such a generous, warm and beautiful story, told with delightful humour. You have to love an author who describes Santa as "a morbidly obese home invader and enslaver of elves"! As an adult reader you can see Jessica Townsend taking shots at the world of politics and commerce. There are some great Mean Girls vibes but also obvious references to more serious current world problems. 

' ..... The Free State has strict border laws, and if you're harbouring an illegal refugee you're breaking about twenty-eight of them. You're in a lot of trouble here, sonny. Illegals are a plague, and it's my solemn duty to guard the borders of Nevermoor and protect its true citizens from Republic scum trying to weasel their way into the Free State.'

Jupiter turned serious. 'A noble and valiant cause, I'm sure,' he said quietly. 'Protecting the Free State from those most in need of its help.'

I don't like Adult Fantasy as a rule, but I'm quite content in the magical, fantastic worlds of middle grade fantasy. I'm not exactly sure why that should be, but it is. I know enough of Irish folklore to know that (the) Morrigan is a famous figure of Irish mythology. This can be no coincidence. I don't want to know more at this stage, and have resisted googling Morrigan, for fear of spoiling the story to come. Also, Corvus is the genus name for crows, ravens, rooks etc, so I'm attuned to the many references to black clothing and circling birds. 

I listened to the audiobook so masterfully narrated by Gemma Whelan, who I've never heard of before given my prodigious aversion to Game of Thrones. Gemma did such an incredible job with the voices and accents of Nevermoor that I found myself taking the dog on very long walks to keep listening to her reading. A beautiful experience. 

Nevermoor is Jessica Townsend's debut novel. The first of a series sold as a trilogy, Nevermoor had such a long incubation period that Jessica has the plot of nine Nevermoor stories up her sleeve. I'll definitely be continuing on with the audiobook series, and already have Wundersmith ready to go on my phone. Thankfully Gemma Whelan is again our narrator. I can't imagine anyone else doing it. 



Teacher's Notes

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George and the Great Bum Stampede

I've been reading and listening to quite a lot of fairly heavy duty nonfiction lately. The Power of Hope. Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race. All great, and interesting, and important books. But it's a somewhat unusual phase for me. So when I saw Cal Wilson's first kids book on the shelves I knew it was for me. Cal Wilson is a comedian, and she is very funny. I've enjoyed her on the tele, and seen her as part of the Sydney Comedy Festival Roadshow at some stage. 

George and the Great Bum Stampede is the first of what seems to be a series about the Pepperton family. They Peppertons are a zany and fun family. Mum is Professor Pippa Pepperton, a crazy scientist type who is always making wacky inventions. She has already shrunk George's brother Poco to the size of a lemon. His sisters are Pumpernickel, Paprika and Pilates. Pepperton Perfection. 

This book tells the tale of The Worst Week Ever. This involves ghastly new neighbours - the rich and super snobby Finleys - including their son Princely Farnsley Finley and an incident with one of Professor Pipperton's best inventions The Pepperton Replicator.  

Picture source

The whole book is chock full of bums, and when there are this many bums then the fart jokes can't be too far behind! I especially love the notion of the startle fart, or fartle, and every 8 year old in existence will too. I laughed out loud and chortled more than is seemly for the middle-aged.

There are great illustrations by Sarah Davis that really add to the humour. The layout is fabulous with interesting fonts and use of space. I thought I didn't know Sarah Davis's name, but she illustrated the delightful Violet Mackerel books by Anna Branford (see my review). 

I'm going to donate my copy to my favourite local Primary School to share the fun with the intended audience. I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of George and the Great Brain Swappery in July. 

Cal Wilson is of course a Kiwi, but has lived in Australia for a long time, so I'm going to claim her for AWW2019. I hope she doesn't mind. 

http://australianwomenwriters.com

(all) The Single Ladies of Jacaranda Retirement Village

I was immediately drawn to this book as soon as I saw the cover. It's a great cover. So pretty. It's a great title. I was keen. Then I found out that Joanna Nell is a Sydney GP. I was very keen (I do love a doctor/author). And then happily a good friend gave me a copy for Christmas. Even better, I was about to spend a week by the beach in Thailand. I figured that the single ladies of the Jacaranda Retirement Village would make excellent holiday companions- and they certainly did.

Peggy Smart is 79, she's widowed and now moved into a unit at the Jacaranda Retirement Village with her dog Basil. Peggy had a quiet kind of life and marriage. Married to the faithful Ted, Peggy has raised two children Jenny and David, she is a doting grandmother. She wears a bit too much beige, needs a toilet nearby, bakes a mean slice, and has her eye on Brian, the widower next door. 

Peggy did have her own identity, even if she didn't like it. Overweight, self-doubting. She was a nondescript person, an elasticated waistband of a human being. 

Then along comes Angie Valentine, an old friend that Peggy hasn't really seen in 50 years. Friends at school Angie and Peggy lost touch in their twenties and have lead very, very different lives. Angie has been married four times, she is flamboyant, a risk-taker, and hasn't outgrown all her wild girl days. Angie sets her sights on making Peggy over. Together Angie and Peggy make a kind of Patsy and Eddie of the Retirement Village set. 

"You have to stop thinking like an old person. If you behave like an old biddy, people are going to treat you like one. "

Angie starts doing her best to bring Peggy out of her widowed, beige life. 

"You have to accept that Ted's gone now. But you're still here, and there's a lot of life left to live. Start living it."

This overall theme is set before the book even starts with Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night as the epigraph. This is then echoed a few times within the text. 

In a Welsh accent.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

It's also a meditation on motherhood at times.

What was strange was that Peggy had so few memories of day-to-day motherhood with David and Jenny. It was as though she'd lived those days under a light anaesthetic. But the years were there, plain to see, in a series of grainy photographs. Peggy, Ted and the children, all smiles. Christmas trees and birthday cakes. Tight-skinned summer days with buckets and spades. Memories strung together like bunting with nothing in between. 

Also marriage and friendship, health, and everything else that's important in our lives. I'm at a time of life where I've been making lots of changes in my life, some of which I've wanted, some of which I haven't.  (All) The Single Ladies (sorry but I think of the song every time I think of the title) is a great reminder to take risks, to make changes. To be brave. 

'A ship is safe in harbour,' he would say, 'but that's not what ships are for.'

Peggy has a fall, and her well meaning children hover wanting to help her, to make sure that's she's safe in her harbour at the retirement village. Although Peggy comes to realise that that may not be exactly what she wants. 

It was a game of geriatric bingo. Take it easy. Elevate your legs. Drink more water. At your age.  

Joanna Nell strikes just the right balance of tone, lighthearted and funny at times, serious when it needs to be. Set in the Northern Beaches of Sydney not too far from Big Little Lies- Note to Self- I must rewatch Season 1 in preparation for Season 2 later this year-

A cloud of white birds erupted from a Norfolk Pine near the beach. A young family sat eating sandwiches on the sand across the road from the café. Everywhere, people moved at a Saturday pace, eating their smashed avocado on toast and smiling in the knowledge that the working week was still far in the future. In some ways, Peggy missed weekends. Retirement afforded the luxury of crowd-less weekdays but there was something about the respite from the nine-to-five that had always made Saturday and Sunday special. 

I'm not so sure about that. I'm ready to make the most of uncrowded weekdays. I already enjoy them now due to rotating rosters. Perhaps decades of shift work takes away the thrill of regular weekends?

I expected to do lots of poolside reading, but Thailand in February is pretty hot and after burning my lily white face on the first day (accidentally in the pool) I took to spending the heat of the day in our air-conditioned villa, and read in comfort. I always expect to read way more than I do on holidays. But there are always too many other distractions - naps, walks on the beach, trips to local markets and the delights of two hour breakfasts, and rather long dinners every day. The Single Ladies of the Jacaranda Retirement Village was the perfect length, they kept me company for my whole stay. 

Jean Whittle is a real life Peggy Smart. Retirement villages, and even  nursing homes are going to have to change the way they do things with the coming flood of Baby Boomers, and just the arrival of the twenty first century. 

Joanna Nell has her second book due out later this year. The Last Voyage of Mrs Henry Parker is due for release in September. I'll be there. 

http://australianwomenwriters.com