Australian Women Writers Challenge discussion

Good luck Nancy! Looks like you're well into the swing of things already :)

That's a great goal! Good for you :)

by Thea Astley
Finished: 06.02.2017
Score: A
Title: The Well-dressed Explorer (1962)
Genre: fiction [Australian classic]
Review:
This book was Thea Astley's 'first big break' and was awarded the prestigious Australian literature Miles Franklin Prize 1962.
Astley's own 15 year marriage began to drift and entered a cold spell.
She watched while other friend's marriages fell apart.
With her characters of George and Alice
Astley contemplates the myth of fidelity in marriage.
Is discretion really secrecy?
Our explorer George crisis-crosses the female
landscape while Alice accepts his indiscretions.
Conclusion:
Not only a satire about a very selfish philandering man but also
a scarifying portrait of a couple's marriage (..like Thea and her husband Jack).
Long marriage is about more than years.
Buried within it is the accumulated understanding
...of the unsaid that keeps people together.
#MustRead....coup de coeur!

Starting by Thea Astley
today!
The Slow Natives is the first of Astley's record number of four Miles Franklin Award winning novels.
Astley used a place with a strong connection to her own life as the setting: Condamine.

If you have ever been taught by those self-effacing Catholic nuns
you will appreciate Astley's imagery. This brings back memories:

'...(Sister Matthew with pupil Eva) gently touching her arm with a force that was not at all physical, but held the compulsion that brings mountains to Mahomet." (pg 52)

by Thea Astley

The Slow Natives update:
Poor Iris....her adultery had not been a success.
Husband Bernard did not care and the other one (Gerald) was not tortured.
"Let someone, anyone, love me, she prayed, burning the toast."
Astley is in top-form ....social satire about Condamine Australia!

by Thea Astley

by Thea Astley
Finished: 18 September 2017
Title: The Slow Natives
Genre: fiction; social satire
Score: A
Review
#MustRead

by Julie Koh
Finished: 28 October 2017
Title: Portable Curiosities
Genre: short stories
Score: C
Review: The short story is flexible and more open to experiment.
I found the stories in Julie Koh's collection...
Creative? Yes.
Challenging? Yes
Biting satire? Yes
But Koh's freewheeling, playfulness involving
form and subject matter....
I just prefer a more traditional short story with
clever metaphors....and a message that
touches my funnybone or heart.

by Jane Harper
Finished: 28 October 2017
Title: The Dry
Genre: crime fiction
Score: A+++
Review: Almost everyone has something to hide in The Dry,
Jane Harper’s Australian-set humdinger of a debut.
Gripping CF novel that kept me guessing 'who dunnit?
Winner of @the_CWA Golden Dagger 2017! #MustRead
#AusReadingMonth2017

by Cathy McLennan(no photo)
Finished: 01 November 2017
Title: Salt Water
Genre: memoir
Score: C
Review: This book is based on Mclennan's recollection of the facts about several court cases, her personal diaries, newspaper articles and judicial sentencing remarks.
Theme: McLennan highlights indigenous issues to give us a better understanding of the problems. McLennan reflected on her experience in the Australian justice system.
Salt Water won University of Queensland
Non-Fiction Book Award 2017.
I read the book based on this recommendation.
I admit that I was expecting something else.
As I read the book I kept waiting for it to develop. It didn’t.
I was looking for items often in memoirs:
turning point in the author’s life
role-models or mentors who inspired the author
world event that changed the author’s view on life.
This was just a different sort of memoir.
It did not leave a lasting impression on me.
It was just not my cup of tea, but others may enjoy the book!

by Eileen Ormsby(no photo)
Finished: 10 November 2017
Title: Silk Road
Genre: non-fiction
Score: C
Review: This was a quick read....but a real eye-opener! It tells the true story of Ross Ulbricht. He was the founder of notorious online drug market place Silk Road which rapidly grew to become the internet’s hidden one-stop-shop for all things illegal. The author fills in several chapters with stories about several bumbling traders who grew into slick professional business forces. Ultimate bad-boy and scam artist was not Ross Ulbricht -- aka Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR) -- but Tony76!
If you feel like reading something different....try this book about “the internet’s Pablo Escobar”
#AusReadingMonth

by Kaaron Warren
Finished: 11 November 2017
Title: The Grief Hole
Genre: speculative fiction
Score: B
Review: I am not going to write more about this book
….you must discover it yourself. What I can say is…this book is very good and the ‘bloody horror’ is NOT…over emphasized.
Thank goodness from this faint-at-heart reader!
The book is good enough to convince me to read more paranormal/horror fiction! That in itself is an achievement!

GR Review

by Rebe Taylor(no photo)
Finish date: 15 November 2017
Genre: history
Rating: B

R - Into the Heart of Tasmania: A Search For Human Antiquity by Rebe Taylor

GR Review

by Sally Morgan
Finish date: 17 November
Genre: memoir
Rating: B

GR Review

by Thea Astley

Finish date: 22 November 2017
Genre: fiction (Australian classic)
Rating: A+++
Review: The book recounts the effect of a hurricane on a group of Australians are stranded on a Coral Island in the Pacific. Love, infidelity, passion and prejudice all come together in the ‘eye of a hurricane’.
Plot: is cleverly set within the saying of the Mass by a local Catholic Bishop.
Characters: are overwhelmed by their sinful unworthiness.
“Domine, non sum dignus…” (Lord, I am not worthy…).
Trivia: Astley left the Catholic Church…..but she is not without God. She show us how her characters (…as well as Astley) found God outside of Christian practice.
Strong point: Thea Astley is blessed with a ‘nose for the lurking detail’.
That is what makes her writing so exceptional in my opinion.
#AusReadingMonth
#MustRead
GR Review

by Kim Mahood (no photo)
Finish date: 29 November 2017
Genre: autobiography/memoir
Rating: A
Review: Title: The book is named after a term Mahood came across…in her father’s account of his expedition across the Tanami Desert in 1962. He observed that the only landmark marked anywhere near his route…was marked Position Doubtful.
In this book Mahood takes us with her as she returned for
20 years to a remote pocket of inland Australia that extends across the Tanami Desert to the edge of East Kimberley. A one time pilgrimage to the country of her late childhood has morphed into yearly field trips with her artist friend Pam Lofts. “We were like migratory birds, driven to return year after year.” (pg 290)
Excellent book....Mahood is a skilled artist and creative writer!
Winner of Australia's National Biography Award 2017
GR Review

by Louise Milligan (no photo)
Finish date: 01 December 2017
Genre: non-fiction
Rating: A++++
Review: I'm stunned and speechless.
#MustRead

GR Review