"The Overstory" by Richard Powers

 "The Overstory" by Richard Powers

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2019, recommended to me by my friend Hannah. 

Found/bought a copy at the Orchard Bookshop / Formerly the Adelaide Pop-up Bookshop.

Started reading: 16th October 2020

Finished: 28th December 2020

My score: 8/10

 

 

"The Dictionary of Lost Words" by Pip Williams

 "The Dictionary of Lost Words" by Pip Williams

 

Started reading: 20th October 2020

Finished: 26th October 2020

My score: 9.5/10 - way more engaging and interesting than the "Professor and the Madman" and with a lot more details about how the Oxford English Dictionary was actually made, but with a strong feminist slant, looking at which words were included and which were not and why, combined with influences from the suffragette's movement and WW1. It was an 'easy read' 9.5/10, rather than the mind-blowing or deeply intense books I would normally score so high, but it was really enjoyable, covered multiple angles I think were really missed in the "Professor and the Madman". I was keen to read this book anyway as it ticked a lot of boxes for me, Historical fiction, feminist angle, linguistics/etymology, but it also by chance fits into my Aussie Author Challenge for 2020.  

Aussie Author Challenge stats: Historical fiction, feminist literature, female author, strong female characters, Australian author,

 

"Love and Other Thought Experiments" by Sophie Ward

 "Love and Other Thought Experiments" by Sophie Ward

 

What an excellent, surprising and unique collection of interconnected stories and parallel universes! I interpreted the stories to be thought experiments about consciousness, memory and what it means to be human compared to AI, rather than really about love, although various different relationships are woven throughout the book too. I didn’t know what to expect from this book, although it was long-listed for the Booker prize which suggested it might be good, it surprised me and I really enjoyed it and the philosophical questions embedded in it, even though I'm not generally a big fan of short stories.

Started reading on my Kindle: 17th October 2020

Finished: 19th October 2020

My score: 9.5/10 

 

 

"The Professor and the Madman" by Simon Winchester

"The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary" by Simon Winchester.

Also published as "The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words" outside of the US, and so it took me a while to track it down after it was recommended to me, and then took me a while to realise it was actually the same book that someone else had recommended to me by the other name! 

My score: 6.5/10 Really fascinating story and loved hearing how the dictionary came to be made, seems like an impressively large and wonderful example of "citizen science" or linguistic scholarship. There was a fair bit of repetition in the telling, and took a while to really get to the making of the dictionary, as a lot of the book dwelled on the mental state of the Surgeon (William Minor), his sexual fantasies and paranoid delusions and speculations on the causes of these. I was often unsure if this was 'non fiction' or 'historical fiction' as so much of the book seemed to be speculation based on historical notes and focusing on the peculiarities of the Surgeon, rather than the making of the dictionary and his contributions to it. The most interesting part of the story for me was the role William Minor played contributing to finding definitions and quotes for the development of the Oxford English Dictionary while being a long-term inmate of a mental asylum, and the relationship between James Murray who edited/compiled/orchestrated the OED. 

I have also heard good reviews about a recent historical fiction book called "A Dictionary of Lost Words" by Pip Williams, which looks at the making of the Oxford English Dictionary from a more feminist perspective, and I am very keen to read that.

Genre: Non fiction? Historical fiction? 

"Leap in: A Woman, Some Waves, and the Will to Swim" by Alexandra Heminsley

"Leap in: A Woman, Some Waves, and the Will to Swim" by Alexandra Heminsley

I listened to this as an audiobook with the audible add-on when I purchased this as a Kindle ebook. The audio is read by the author.

I really enjoyed Alexandra Heminsley's first book, "Running Like a Girl", but didn't really connect in the same way with this book. Not sure if that is mostly to do with the fact that I am a runner, and not a swimmer, and so maybe if I had been someone into swimming or newly discovering the joys and challenges of swimming, it might have appealed more. I do admire swimmers, especially ocean swimmers, but have yet to admire it enough that I have tried it myself...I must admit the in-built fear of sharks plays in my mind when swimming, even though I campaign to protect sharks and protest their culling. I also found "Running Like a Girl" was quite humorous, and didn't find the same with "Leap in". 

Started listening: 4th August 2020

Finished: 27th September 2020

My score: 5/10

“The Beekeeper of Aleppo” by Christy Lefteri

Started reading: 3rd October 2020
Finished: 10th October 2020
My thoughts: 9/10. 

Beautifully written, obviously heart breaking in many places as it is a story following the journey of a couple fleeing Syria and attempting to travel to the UK as asylum seekers. Wish some of the politicians making rules about detaining asylum seekers in off shore detention centres would read this and absorb some humanity from it.

"Dare to do" by Sarah Outen

Bought this kindle book (plus audible add on read by the author which is excellent!) after watching the film doco of Sarah’s journey last night (The film is called "Home" you can see a trailer HERE). The film was inspiring yet honest and raw so I think the book will make an impression too.
Started reading: 2nd October 2020
Finished: 16th October 2020

My thoughts: 10/10

Listened to the audio version, and it was awesome. Inspiring, honest, raw, fun in parts, challenging in others. I also appreciated reading/listening to an adventure like this by a woman, especially a queer woman, and found it very refreshing and powerful and I could really connect with the story in ways that I often struggle to with most adventure stories that more often than not seem to be from straight white men.

 Book stats: Genre: non-fiction, adventure, memoir. Female author. LGBTIQ+. 10/10

 

“The Godmother” by Hannelore Cayre

 “The Godmother” by Hannelore Cayre (“La Daronne” translated from French by Stephanie Smee).

 

 

Started reading on my kindle: 24th September 2020
Finished: 2nd October 2020
My score: 6/10

“Danger Music” by Eddie Ayres

 

Started reading this immediately after finishing his first book “Cadence” which was one of the best memoirs I’ve read in a long time. Such an intelligent, insightful and compassionate person, I connected right away with his writing.

Started reading: 16th September 2020
Finished: 24th September 2020
My review: 8/10

Aussie author stats: Although born in the UK, I think Eddie has dual nationality with Australia so I think this book counts as a book by an Aussie author. Genre: Memoir.

Like “Cadence” this book is such a beautifully written and moving memoir. “Danger music” covers the period of Eddie’s life where he quit ABC radio and moved to Afghanistan to teach music to children in Kabul, which also coincided with his decision to transition from female to male in his late 40s. The insights into his time in Kabul and the lives and challenges of the kids he teaches is a roller coaster of beauty and heartbreak, and the way he describes his gender dysphoria and relief at transitioning alongside these experiences is really moving and hopefully normalising for many cis gendered people who read this who otherwise might not have knowingly encountered anyone experiencing this. I did prefer “Cadence” over “Danger music” maybe because of the travel angle but I highly recommend both books and that you start with “Cadence”.

 

“Cadence - travels with music” by Emma/Eddie Ayres

Started reading on my kindle: 10th Sept 2020.
Finished: 15th Sept 2020
My score/review: 10/10 - One of the best, or even the best, memoir I’ve ever read. Beautifully written, inspiring story, and interesting intelligent and compassionate writer that I felt an instant connection with, easy to read, even made me wish I could read music and play an instrument. Impressive for one book.

Aussie author stats: Although born in the UK, Eddie has dual nationality from what I read online, so I think this counts as a book by an Aussie Author for the Aussie Author Challenge. 

“On earth we’re briefly gorgeous” by Ocean Vuong

Started reading on my kindle: 6th August 2020
Finished: 8th September 2020
My score/thoughts: 7/10 

I feel conflicted in my review. This book is so beautifully written in many parts, the language is wonderful, the author is very talented, but the content/themes were often so hard to read and distressing for me that I find it hard to recommend it as although I felt moved by the writing I felt so upset by the book and did not enjoy it because of this. I will look forward to other books by this author though, hopefully with less traumatic themes. I feel this book needs trigger warnings, including animal cruelty, PTSD, intergenerational trauma, suicide, domestic abuse, war. Still having nightmares months after reading the book, yet still thought the writing itself was beautiful and powerful.

"Fauna" by Donna Mazza

I read “ghost species” by James Bradley a few weeks ago which was speculative fiction looking into de-extinction and bringing back Neanderthals through ancient DNA and IVF techniques and some of the story was told through the eyes of the resulting child. I was intrigued to find out that another author, Donna Mazza, had also chosen this somewhat niche topic to write a novel on recently. So I decided to start reading this one soon after finishing “ghost species” so I can compare the two while “ghost species” is still fairly fresh in my mind.

Started reading: 31 July 2020
Finished: 5th August 2020
My score/thoughts: 6/10
If you are going to read one of these two books, choose "Ghost Species", as "Fauna" spent so much time in the minutae of IVF). Plus I also found the ethics of why this family chose to have a Neanderthal baby problematic, and didnt really ever warm to the mother/main character.

Aussie Author Stats: Female author, New author to me, Genre: Speculative Fiction.

"Rivers of London" by Ben Aaronovitch

Started reading: 14th July 2020
Finished: 30th July 2020

My score: 7.5/10 

Quirky, fun read - as it says on the tin “perfect blend of CSI and Harry Potter”. It is the first book in a series, I think it will be the perfect palate cleanser in between other more intense styles of books that I generally like to read.

 

 

"Bruny" by Heather Rose

Started reading: 24th June 2020

Finished: 14th July 2020

My score: 5-6/10.

Aussie author stats: Female author, new author to me, contemporary/general fiction, drama

My review: I read this as part of the Aussie Author Challenge 2020, new author to me, female author, general fiction. It was recommended a lot in the Chat10Looks3 podcast group, so maybe I had higher expectations than the book deserved going in to it, but I was pretty underwhelmed. It was ok, nice to read a book set in Tassie, but half the book was a thinly veiled coating on current politics - think “First Nation” as standing in for “One Nation” or “Family First” party (without seeming to notice that "First Nations" sounds like it should be an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander party (which it isn't in this book), “Barnaby Viper” as one of the Liberal Ministers etc. and then finally when the book looked like it was going to get interesting it took a dive into so many far fetched ideas it became kind of a comedy.

 

 

"Fingersmith" by Sarah Waters

 

Started reading: 7th June 2020

Finished: 23rd June 2020

My score: 10/10. Loved this book. 

Genre: Historical Fiction, LGBTIQ+

"Ghost Species" by James Bradley

Started reading as part of the Aussie Author Challenge 2020, although, let's face it, it's about ancient DNA and de-extinction so of course it is right up my alley and even without a reading 'challenge' to motivate me I would read this book. I have been impatiently waiting for it to come out for a few months since I saw Lucy Treloar tweet about reading a pre-release copy of it!

Compared to "Fauna" which is another novel that came out recently on a very similar topic, I much preferred "Ghost Species". The science was believable (as a molecular biologist with a PhD in ancient DNA), I liked a lot of the story, but felt a bit dissatisfied with the ending I guess. Sorry my review is not more detailed, the COVID pandemic was taking up a bit of my headspace.

Started reading: 9th May 2020
Finished: May 2020
My score: 7.5/10
Aussie author stats: Male author, Contemporary Fiction, Speculative Fiction.

"Warlight" by Michael Ondaatje

This book was recommended to me by a friend and I found a copy second-hand at the Mockingbird Lounge in Glenelg.

Started reading: 27th April 2020
Finished: 6th June 2020
My score: 7/10

"There Was Still Love" by Favel Parrett

Read this book cover to cover in less than a day, then burst into tears at the end! It has been a long time since I read a book that was so deceptively simple yet beautifully written and heartbreaking like this one..and while I have been struggling to focus on the last couple of novels I started reading since the COVID-19 situation hit South Australia, this book brought back my reading mojo with a bang! The complete escape from thinking about COVID-19 for 4-5 hours today while I devoured this book was so welcome, and the tears at the end so cathartic. 

This is the story of two Czech sisters, Mana (and her husband Bill) living in Melbourne and Eva, living in Prague, often written from the perspective of their young grandchildren whom they are caring for in the 1980s. The story also frequently goes back in time to 1930s-70s in Prague and gives you snapshots from other family members perspectives. The simple tiny everyday moments, some joyful, some mundane, some heartbreaking,... the similarities and differences between these two women and their lives, are all beautifully captured and also made me thankful for so much that I have in life, while also forcing me to contemplate the roles of luck and resilience. The story also reinforces the importance of kindness and sacrifices, little or big, and the impact it makes.

Favel Parrett's writing is so beautiful and moving. I have enjoyed 2 other novels by this author over the years, "Past the Shallows" and "When the night comes", but "There was still love" is my favourite to date. I thoroughly recommend this author's work generally, and this book in particular.

Started reading: 26th April 2020
Finished: 26th April 2020
My score: 10/10
Aussie author stats: Female author, historical fiction.

"Mullumbimby" by Melissa Lucashenko

This is a novel set around the QLD and NSW border, and is a contemporary romance story interwoven with harder-hitting themes such as raising awareness of issues facing Aboriginal families when seeking to claim Native Title, and other inequalities and issues between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Australia.

I really didn't connect with this book nearly as much as with the author's other book "Too much lip" which I read last year and loved. Although to be honest, with the covid-19 situation I haven't felt like I have had much concentration for reading a novel on top of work and dealing with adjusting to the pandemic, and a lot of my reading time in the past was done on public transport commuting to and from work, which obviously hasn't been happening lately, so perhaps in other circumstances I would have read the book quicker, connected more with the story, and given a higher score. Given that this book was long and short listed for a variety of awards back in 2013, my review doesn't give it justice and I am sure if I had read it at another time I would have appreciated it more.

One thing I did really enjoy about the book was the inclusion of the author's local Aboriginal language from the Bundjalung Nation, including the glossary at the end.

Started reading: 15th March 2020
Finished: 23rd April 2020
My score: 6/10
Aussie Author Challenge stats: Female author, Indigenous author. Genre: Romance, Contemporary fiction.

"Fight Like a Girl" by Clementine Ford

I'll include my review when I finish reading it.

Started reading: 12th March 2020
Finished:
My score:
Aussie Author Challenge Stats: Female author, new author to me, non-fiction.

"Minotaur" by Peter Goldsworthy

I find Peter Goldsworthy a really clever and interesting writer, yet my enjoyment of his books is very hit and miss. For instance, I really loved "Honk if you are Jesus" that I read about 15 years ago, and also found "Wish" to be a fascinating and unique story. But some of his other books I really didn't connect with at all, for example "Three Dog Night" and "Everything I knew".

In Minotaur there were lots of clever and interesting elements that I enjoyed, especially in the first half of the book when the concepts were introduced, for instance the main character, Detective Sergeant Richard Zadrow, is blind due to an injury sustained in the police force, and so throughout the book are interesting insights into not only the way technology can be used to help navigate the world (Siri is almost a character in her own right in this story), but also how critical sight is even in our language to describe everyday things e.g. reading expressions, face-value, reading my intentions, reading his mind etc.

I also really enjoy reading a book that is set in a place that I have lived in, where you can clearly picture the locations in your mind as the story unfolds. This book was set in Adelaide, where I have lived for about the last 15 years, and I really enjoyed how the descriptions of Zadrow tapping along the city streets could conjure up not just visual pictures but sometimes even the familiar smells and sounds, and give wider context to scenes as I have walked those same streets myself many times.  

However, as with other Goldsworthy characters, I did not particularly like the main character and did not warm to him as the book progressed, in fact I grew less tolerant and more frustrated with his selfish, destructive and sometimes ludicrous thoughts and actions. E.g. there is a scene where the drunk blind ex-cop is driving his car being directed by another drunken passenger, he smashes into a parked car, they keep driving, they get pulled over and breath-tested by another cop who doesn't seem to notice the driver is blind and lets them continue driving down the street...the passenger passes out, then the blind man manages to continue to drive the car all the way home without further incident...the scene is described in a way that makes this sound like a great prank, but I have zero respect for people who think it's ok to drink drive and the idea that someone blind and drunk could drive seems quite over the top.

There is also another almost random section in the book where the author has his normally intelligent walking encyclopedic character, Willopedia, ranting and scoffing at a documentary on the effects of climate change on the low lying pacific reefs and islands. This really surprised me, partially as it seemed to come out of no where and not be relevant to the story, but also because Goldsworthy is a medical doctor, and even the Australian Medical Association and the World Health Organization recognise the significant challenges we face due to global warming.

There is also one scene later toward the end of the book that is very violent and seems to go on and on, I kept turning the page and thinking "oh come on how much longer does this have to go on for? Just someone die already or have the police or ambulance rock up and have done with it!" By this stage I almost didn't care whether the main character or his nemesis would be the one to die I was so over them both.

Clever, unique story, well-written, but unlikable characters and themes meant overall it was not my kind of book.

Started reading on my kindle: 13th March 2020
Finished: 14th March 2020
My score: 6/10
Aussie Author Stats: Male author, contemporary fiction, police thriller

"Harbour" by Kate Llewellyn

My friend Kate gave me this most recent book of her poetry. I was very touched, I haven't read much poetry, and I think this is the first book of poetry I have been given in my life. As I don't know a lot about poetry it is hard to review it as I would a novel. I like some of the poems of Wilfred Owen that I first read at school...and I love some of the poems in The Lord of the Rings, like "The Road goes ever on and on....". The poems in "Harbour" are like little glimpses into Kate's mind and how she sees people and experiences and how she reflects back at her long and interesting life. My favourite poem in this collection is entitled "The Song". It is only 15 lines long, but it is beautiful. I also really liked "what they said", although for completely different reasons - not because it was beautiful, but because it captures how particular phrases, advice, sayings that people in your life say to you can really stick in your memory your whole life, sometimes these words tell a lot about the person saying it, but it can also say something about the person who remembers those particular words rather than others.

I also really liked the cover art on this book. I have always loved the Dutch Masters paintings and still life paintings by others of that same era that included these beautiful tulips, especially these 'split' colour tulips which I believe were the result of a mosaic virus but yielded these stunning flowers that were worth a lot of money in the so-called "Tulip Fever".

Started reading: 5th March 2020
Finished: 9th March 2020
Aussie author stats: Female author, Poetry,

"Clade" by James Bradley

About a week ago I saw Lucy Treloar tweet about another book by James Bradley called "Ghost Species" that sounded right up my alley. Unfortunately when I looked it up to purchase it I discovered it appears she must have read a pre-release copy as it's not due to be published for a couple of months. Then I was at my local bookshop buying a book for a birthday present for a friend and stumbled across another book by the same author and thought I'd give it a go in the meantime. Plus I loved the cover art, and it mentioned bees so I thought if it's a good book my parents might enjoy it too as they keep bees.

I was really impressed by the scientific details and predictions brought to life in this story coupled with the way the author manages to capture human reactions to our changing world. It seems scarily prescient of the direction the world is travelling in, particularly if you read things like the 2019 IPCC Climate Report or follow respected independent climate organisations like Australia's Climate Council. While the catastrophic 'natural' events unfolding in this book at times may seem a little unreal and over the top, mostly they are along the lines of what is predicted by even moderate/conservative climate scientists and environmentalists today. What really brought the reality home was how many of these almost over the top scenarios are also normalised by the characters reactions to them, the way they acknowledge it's too late to fix things now the warnings were ignored and that these crazy extreme disasters really are "the new normal". When one of the characters is at a tropical rave party with futuristic glasses "overlays" that allow the user to see "dragons swoop and turn, their paths criss-crossed by birds and other magical creatures" it made my soul cry.

The book is broken down into different chapters, each one told from a different characters point of view. The characters are all mostly connected to each other in some way, but it's not always evident immediately what the connection is. Characters voices are children, teenagers, adults, grandparents. All dealing with the chaos and trying to live their lives with different levels of experience and perspective. It's a great way of telling the story from different points of view.

Probably the most unexpectedly eerie part of the book for me was when I reached the chapter  narrated by a Sydney-based teenager, Li Lijuan, which is written in diary format. Her Mum has gone to China to look after Li's sick aunt and while her Mum is over in China a sudden and apparently  isolated outbreak of a novel respiratory disease arises. There are reports of a cover up by authorities, then external contact with people in China is shut down. Suddenly cases of the disease - Acute Viral Respiratory Syndrome (AVRS) - are popping up in other countries, everyone is glued to ther social media following maps and counters showing the spread... then "October 26. It's here. Two cases in Melbourne, three in Sydney"...it becomes apparent that transmission is possible in the days before symptoms develop... people start trying to isolate themselves, scientists are working on a cure but that could be months or years away...there's speculation about if the disease crossed the species barrier in China or was engineered by pharma as people start to panic and invent conspiracy theories. Looting and hoarding is going on. Watching this chapter unfold in Li's diaries is so similar to how the current Coronavirus COVID19 situation is unfolding it was quite eerie but also mesmerising. Just one example of how this author is great at reading not only the science but also human behaviour and weaving the two into a very believable story. 

This author was new to me...but I will definitely be reading more of his books and am eagerly awaiting the upcoming "Ghost Species". 

Started reading: 8th March 2020
Finished: 10th March 2020
My score: 8/10
Aussie author challenge stats: Male author, new author to me, speculative fiction, contemporary fiction, climate change.

"Diving into Glass" by Caro Llewellyn

Caro Llewellyn recently spoke at Adelaide's Writers Week, her book has been short-listed for the Stella prize in 2020. I read this book as part of the Aussie Author Challenge.

I found this book hard to read yet also mesmerising at the same time - what an interesting eccentric character and life on one (surface) level, but it also seems such a destructive book for someone to write about a family member who is still alive and is well-known and respected in literary circles. It is interesting how different people see and experience and interpret life through different lenses. If this had been written about people I had never met or it was pitched as fiction then I would have been more able to enjoy this book, but as I am friends with one of the people portrayed often in a negative light in this book I feel guilty and conflicted about reading this book.  

Started reading on my kindle: 6th March 2020

Finished: 8th March 2020

No score - I feel too conflicted abut the book to score it publicly.

Aussie Author Challenge Stats: Female author, new author to me, memoir/autobiography

Books that I have previously read that I have re-visited as Audiobooks in 2020.

I don't really know whether I am counting these towards the number of books I have read this year or not, but I wanted to keep track of them somehow. These are not new books for me, but are ones I have read as actual books previously, sometimes many years ago in my childhood, and some more recently. As I have recently discovered the range of e-audiobooks available to borrow for free via BorrowBox or Libby apps through public libraries, I have been listening to audiobooks while doing other things about the house or on walks etc. As I have read these books previously I already know what is going to happen so it's not so critical if I intermittently zone out while concentrating on something else at hand. But it is nice to revisit some old books and to experience them as audiobooks.

January 2020

The Rosie Project - by Graeme Simsion - Bolinda audiobook read by Dan O'Grady. (Borrowbox)

February 2020

Burial Rites - by Hannah Kent - Bolinda audiobook read by Morven Christie. (Borrowbox)
Obernewtyn - by Isobelle Carmody - Bolinda audiobook read by the author.(Borrowbox)
Charlotte's Web - by E.B. White - Bolinda audiobook read by the author.(Borrowbox)

March 2020
Any Ordinary Day - by Leigh Sales, Bolinda audiobook read by the author. (Borrowbox)

Harry Potter et la Coupe de Feu - by J.K. Rowling, read in French by Bernard Giraudeau. (Libby)

"Pachinko" by Min Jin Lee

I don’t know a lot about Korean or Japanese history, so I learnt quite a lot from reading this inter-generational family drama set in Korea and Japan from the 1930s to the 1990s. It is fascinating to read all sorts of little details about what life would have been like, the similarities and the differences of life experienced by each generation. This novel deals a lot with the struggles of families who find themselves living in poverty (in contrast to the more effortless lives of rich characters), who seem to have been dealt so much bad luck, and how different people’s personalities and their life experiences, not to mention their gender, shape their fortunes within the confines of what circumstances they find themselves in. How hard some people work, just to get by, yet live with such kindness, generosity and strength. How each generation dreams and projects their dreams on each subsequent generation, hoping for them to have a better life with more opportunities than they themselves did, and yet how this can be at odds with what the next generation’s personalities and desires and experiences are. It also shows intergenerational effects of poverty, suffering and war, and how decisions and mistakes of one generation can still have serious consequences for future generations.

I enjoyed this book, although I definitely was more drawn in by the first half than the second, as I found myself more interested in the lives of the older generations and history of the earlier eras in Japan and Korea rather than the ones of the more recent generations in more modern times. Reading this book in the lead up to International Women’s Day also made me thankful that I am born as a woman in current times, even though there is still much to be done in search of gender equity especially when considering the opportunities for non-white, non-cis-het women, we have still come a long way in the last 100 years.


Started reading on my Kindle: 20th February 2020
Finished: 6th March 2020
My score: 8/10
Stats: Historical novel, Female author, American-Korean author.