"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