"The Best of Adam Sharp" by Graeme Simsion

"The best of Adam Sharp" by Graeme Simsion. This book is written by the same author as "The Rosie Project" so hopefully it is good too, although hard to live up to such an excellent first book.

Started reading on my kindle: 7th October 2016
Finished: 15th November 2016.
My score: 5-6/10. Definitely not in the same league as "The Rosie Project" in my opinion.

"Skylarking" by Kate Mildenhall

I heard of this book this morning when I was listening to an interview with the author on the ABC radio national, and decided to download it right away to read as part of the Aussie Author Challenge 2016. The story is set in Cape Jervis on the NSW south coast in the 1880s, and is an historical novel (my favourite genre), plus I have lots of great memories of camping and exploring that area with my best friend Georgie.
My review will appear shortly.

Started reading: 3rd October 2016
Finished: 6th October 2016
My score: 8/10
Genre: Australian historical novel, young adult

"Everyman's rules for scientific living" by Carrie Tiffany

The cover artwork of this book caught my attention at Adelaide's PopUp Bookshop at the Central Markets. I'm always keeping my eye open for interesting new books to read as part of the Aussie Author Challenge 2016, and it's always a struggle to go into a secondhand bookshop and not come out with at least one new treasure. I haven't read any books by this author before, but it was the winner of the Western Australian Premier's Award for Fiction in 2005, and also was short-listed for a number of other prizes e.g. Miles Franklin Literary Award so I didn't need any more convincing to buy it.

The book falls into the 'Literary fiction' genre but it also has some aspects of a historical novel too (one of my favourite categories of books). The story is set in the 1930s-40s in rural Australia. The first part of the book takes place on board the government "Better Farming Train" which seems to be a traveling small version of the Sydney Royal Easter Show - basically a train traveling through the countryside, stopping at townships where the various agricultural and domestic 'experts' give mini lectures to the locals on best farming practices and display prize examples of different breeds of livestock, along with cooking and sewing demonstrations etc. The main character, Jean, is a seamstress on the train, who falls in love with the soil scientist on board, Robert Pettergree, and in a matter of a few days they disembark the train, marry and set up life together on a wheat farm in Wycheproof, Victoria. It is an unlikely romance/relationship, Jean seems to be a lovely, curious young girl who forms friendships with all the characters on the train, and seems to approach life in a positive open way, while Robert is a bit of a mysterious strange character, yet very rigid in many ways. He treats life as a series of formal experiments, and when it comes to wheat farming seems convinced his scientific approach will result in abundant crops compared to all the locals who have been farming the land for generations without generating the yields Robert predicts are possible if farmed correctly. I never warmed to Robert, and as the book progressed I found him less and less likeable. The story unfolds as a tale of tragedy for the whole region, when the external factors such as the Depression, Drought and War combine with Robert's ill-advised recommendations to spend all their money on crop additives and modern farming approaches that they can't afford and which don't have the promised effects.

I enjoyed the writing style, and the little glimpses into life in rural Victoria in the 30s and 40s, as well as the way the rural countryside was brought to life. The book even has little black and white photos throughout which appear to be genuine photos from the era, and I really loved that. The way that attitudes of the time to women, 'foreigners' and the war were captured in the story was fascinating to compare and contrast to attitudes today in Australia. I did feel a bit flat after finishing the book though, it felt a bit like Jean had put her trust into her husband and then wasted a large chunk of her life in a slow spiral of unnecessary sadness and that she could have had a much better life if she had not left the Better Farming Train with Robert.

Started reading: 24th July 2016
Finished: 28th July 2016
My score: for the writing and insight into the time period: 8/10 for how much I enjoyed the story: 6.5/10
Genre: Literary fiction

"The Secret River" by Kate Grenville

Started reading as part of the Aussie Author Challenge 23rd February 2016, although I kept putting it down as I got drawn in to various non-fiction books that piqued my interest over the last few months. I have also been studying part-time on top of my research job for the last 6 months, and training for my first half marathon so my free time available for personal reading has been quite limited.

"The Secret River" is written by Kate Grenville. I read another of her books "The Lieutenant" back in 2014, which was also set in Sydney during the early colonisation/invasian by the British. The writing style was similar in both, and Kate is great at bringing the Australian bush landscape to life. Having spent some of my childhood growing up in and around Pittwater in Sydney, a lot of her descriptions of the places and the scenery were really evocative. For example: "A blunt headland, the shape of a hammer, rose up to port. To starboard a lion of a rock reared up, baring its stone breast out to the sea and the unending winds." For someone who has sailed past Barrenjoey headland and into Pittwater, this description instantly pinpoints the location without needing to give any place names.

"The Secret River" tells the story of William Thornhill (convicted of being a thief) who is sent from London to the British Penal colony along with his wife, Sal, and first son. The family continues to grow, and a short time passes before Thornhill is able to apply for his Ticket of Leave. He and Sal work hard, realising that they have a second chance in life to make a go of it, although their end goals they are working towards are somewhat different. Sal dreams of making enough money that they can return to London and live a good life with their (now 5) children, while Thornhill has fallen in love with the idea of owning a bit of land in the Hawksbury, setting up his own little property, farming it and also transporting goods by boat between Sydney and the other small properties and settlements in the area. Eventually Thornhill persuades Sal to move with the kids to an 'uninhabited' stretch of bush land and to give it 5 years to make it work. They set to work building a little hut and sowing a crop of corn. Of course the area is not really uninhabited, the original people who lived in the area, the Darug people, still come and go, camping, hunting and gathering as they probably have for many generations. The rest of the book mainly describes the tensions and interactions between the local Aboriginal people and the new settlers, Thornhill and his family and also other rag-tag characters who have set up their own properties in the surrounding areas. This is where I stopped really enjoying the book, as unlike in "The Lieutenant" almost all of the attitudes and actions of many of the characters are upsetting and sometimes disturbing, probably made worse by the feeling that more than a little bit is based on facts and reflective of the general attitudes of the British settlers towards to Aboriginal people. There are a few good characters such as Blackwood, a reclusive settler who takes an Aboriginal wife, and Dick, one of Thornhill's sons who spends a lot of time playing and hanging out with one of the Aboriginal family groups, but mostly it's pretty awful.

A lot of the book made me cringe at the lack of empathy and understanding of the white settlers towards the Aboriginals, how they treated them so horrendously and brutally, and even occasionally when they thought they were interacting in a friendly way, were still so condescending and out of touch.This book is well written, and Kate really does have a knack for capturing human nature, but in this book a lot of what she captured was of the dark and disturbing way humans have of demonising and destroying other humans. It is a powerful book, and I feel like I should read more books about the Aboriginal people and culture that was thriving before the British settlers took over, and what happened in the years after settlement/invasion so I can try to understand better what was often left out of  or glossed over in the Australian history lessons of my childhood. I am quite incredulous that it is 2016 and the Australian Constitution still does not officially recognise the Australian and Torres Strait Islander people who were the original inhabitants of Australia for at least 40,000 years. If you would like to show your support to recognise the original inhabitants of Australia in our constitution, you can show support at the Recognise website.

Started reading: 23 February 2016
Finished: 24 July 2016
My score: 7/10
Genre: historical fiction

"After Darkness" by Christine Piper

This is the first book I have read as part of the Aussie Author Challenge 2016. I chose to read it as it was given a 5 star recommendation on the Book Lover Book Reviews blog: http://bookloverbookreviews.com/2014/06/book-review-after-darkness-christine-piper.html

This book reminds me in style, quality and similar subject matter/themes to some of Bryce Courtenay's work (but a much shorter book than most of Courtenay's massive novels). I felt a real disappointment and loss when Bryce Courtenay died as the realisation that he wouldn't be writing any more awesome stories for me to read sunk in as I have thoroughly enjoyed and been caught up in many of his books. I'm feeling very impressed and feel a new hope after reading this book that this new Aussie author could potentially take over where Bryce Courtenay left off. I hope Christine Piper becomes as prolific and consistently awesome an author as Courtenay in the years ahead.

This book "After darkness" alternates between 3 locations and times: Early 1930s in Japan, late 1930s in Broome, Western Australia, and during the Second World War in the Loveday internment camp in South Australia. The main character Dr Ibaraki is a reserved, discreet Japanese medical doctor with a background in medical research. He moves to Broome to become head of a small hospital in the Pearl diving community in order to escape some events in his past which are slowly revealed as the novel progresses. He's then arrested and put in a prison camp in Australia during WW2 due to his Japanese background. I didn't know a lot about the prison camps in Australia during the Second World War, so it was a bit of an eye-opener for me to read a novel based on a bit of our history that isn't widely spoken about now. It also highlights the unfortunate timelessness of many of the issues of racial discrimination, conflict of ethics, and loyalty that are faced by many, even if the focus or details change with the decades.

Started reading: 6th February 2016.
Finished reading: 8th February 2016.
My score: 8/10
Aussie Author Challenge Stats: Female Author, New to me, WW2/historical fiction genre.

Aussie Author Challenge 2016 - Accepted :-)

2016 will be the 4th year I have taken part in the Aussie Author Challenge hosted by Jo from the Book Lovers Book Review blog. I really recommend it, as it exposes you to a lot of new Australian authors and books that you might not otherwise think to read, and often they are very well written, on diverse topics and thoroughly enjoyable. I have a lot planned for 2016, so at this stage I am going for the Wallaroo level of the challenge (Read and review 6 books by Aussie authors, at least 2 by male authors and 2 by female authors and from at least 2 different genres). Depending how the year pans out I may upgrade to the Kangaroo level (12 books, and more categories).

For more info and to join up too, see the Challenge info on Jo's Book Lovers Book Review blog.