"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,

 

"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,

"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

Heart of the Grass Tree by Molly Murn

This book is the first I have read by the Australian author Molly Murn. It is an intergenerational historical fiction/drama set on South Australia's Kangaroo Island. Reading about the beautiful unique landscape of Kangaroo Island that is so well captured by Molly Murn was bitter sweet for me, as I was reading this book as devastating bushfires tore through and destroyed much of the spectacular Flinders Chase National Park on the island.

This book tells the stories of different female characters spanning the 1800s to the current day, with little side stories to give perspective from a couple of the male characters too. I found a couple of the stories really interesting and engrossing (those told by Maringani & William and Nell & Sol), but was not really captured by the stories of the more recent characters like Pearl and Diana and their immediate families. I think if the novel had focused more on Maringani and Nell's stories I would have scored this book much higher as I really enjoyed those parts of the book more. I also found it a bit confusing how the book was set out, some chapters clearly specified in the chapter heading which character was telling that part of the story, while others did not and instead had a location as the chapter heading. The sections told by the male characters did not seem to have chapter headings with their names in them either. I am not sure if there was a reason/pattern behind the choice of chapter heading styles and maybe I missed the subtlety of it.

I have heard that Molly Murn will be giving a talk at the Friends of the Barr Smith Library next month, so I am going to go to this and hopefully learn more of the history behind the novel and perhaps gain a better appreciation of the novel and it's structure too.

Started reading: 15th January 2020
Finished reading: 19th February 2020
My score: 6.5/10
Stats: Female author, Australian Author, New Author to me, Historical fiction and modern drama.

Photo taken by me in April 2019, on day 2 of hiking the Kangaroo Island Wilderness Trail

"Wimmera" by Mark Brandi

Initially when I started reading this book I was really excited as it reminded me a little of "Jasper Jones" but unfortunately as I read on it didn't live up to the high standard of Craig Silvi's novel. Both focus on teenage boys living in small Australian towns, navigating the experience of growing up, seeing things through a child's eyes then slowly becoming more aware of the darker side of adulthood and that not everything is as it may appear. While (mostly) not explicit, the dark side of this novel was sickening and disturbing, and I found the multiple failures of both the parents and the police/judicial system to protect the innocent kids in this book was depressing. 

Started reading: 31st March 2019
Finished: 3rd April 2019
My score: 4/10
Aussie Author Challenge stats: Male author, new to me author, fiction, crime-fiction.

"Taboo" by Kim Scott

Started reading: 27/01/2019

Finished: 11/02/2019

My score: 8/10

Two of the books that I read that had the most impact on me in the last year or so were "Dark Emu, Black Seeds" a non-fiction book by Bruce Pascoe about the evidence and history of the oldest human agriculture on earth by Australia's First People, and the novel "Terra Nullius" by Claire G Coleman. Both are by Indigenous Australian authors, and both blew my mind in different ways, and started to help make me aware of how ignorant and unaware I was/am about so many aspects of the amazing culture and people who have been on this land for so many thousands of years and how horrific colonisation was and is in their experience, and how little we understand and appreciate it. So this year I am deliberatly seeking out more books by Indigenous Australian authors to help continue learning more from them. I have quite a few lined up to read, but if you have read any that you think I should add to my list, please let me know! :-)

Kim Scott is from Western Australia and is of the Noongar people. "Taboo" was a Miles Franklin award finalist in 2018, and has also won a number of other awards e.g. NSW Premier's Literary Awards 2018 and the Queensland Literary Awards 2018. He has written previous books which have also won major awards, such as ""That Deadman Dance" which won the Miles Franklin award in 2011. "Taboo" is the first book by Kim Scott that I have read, and "That Deadman Dance" is also in my "to read soon" pile.

"Taboo" is written in 3 parts. I must admit I struggled to put much of Part I into context until I started reading Part II, as Part I and Part III are the present time, and Part II gives you some of the past/background that leads up to the events that occur in Part I and III.  

The story is set in the present day from what I can tell, and the setting is people from "that Wirlomin mob" coming back to their land in WA which has been taboo for many years after brutal massacres of their people by the colonisers. They are returning for the opening of a "Peace Park", a Reconciliation memorial. Many of the group have been in prison and/or are dealing with addictions and other issues as part of the flow on effects of colonisation. There is also such compassion and resilience and passion too, and the characters really do come to life out of the page. The book deals with issues of being disconnected from their people and country, loss of language and knowledge that stretched back thousands of years. The book also makes you recognise the sometimes unconscious and sometimes deliberate biases with which we look at the world and judge people, and how one-sided history books can be. Despite these serious issues, and some very dark unpleasant sexual exploitation parts to the book, the story is written in the most beautiful way, almost like poetry or painting with words that bring scenes and people to life, and also there is humour and wit at times. 

  

Some of the Aboriginal characters in the book speak in their local language, and are trying to teach other characters the words so that their language and culture and stories live on. But the words are not written, which although it disappointed me a little at first as I am really interested to learn the local Indigenous words for places and animals, I think it was a deliberate choice by the author to not include the words in the local language and actually made me think about how many Australian languages have been lost or are only spoken by a few remaining people who survived the colonisation period and were able to stay connected to their people and country. So much culture and language lost, before you even contemplate the human life cost of the brutal massacres. It also made me reflect on how Indigenous Australian languages were spoken languages, not traditionally written down as texts, at least from the little I know (which is very little) and so perhaps there isn't one set way to write each word.   

Anyway, this was a complex book for me, very thought-provoking - while I was reading it, and also now after I have finished the book I am still reflecting on it and digesting it in my mind. It has some dark disturbing aspects, but it also has some positive light throughout it, and some humour and is beautifully written. I think it will stay with me for some time, which is a sign of a really good book.

If you would like to hear the author, Kim Scott, reading from the first few pages of this book, you can listen to this episode of ABC National's AWAYE program. Kim brings his writing to life, it sounds like poetry it is so evocative in places.

If you want a more detailed review with more of the story line then you may be interested in this review from the Sydney Morning Herald. 

Aussie author challenge stats: new to me author, male author, Australian Indigenous Author.