merry10's 2008 challenge

Chronology of Reading 2008

December
155. The Arrival, Shaun Tan
154. Aspects of the Novel, E.M. Forster
153. Life of Pi, Yann Martel
152. Bridget Jones Diary, Helen Fielding
151. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
150. The Dog Who Wouldn't Be, Farley Mowat
149. Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
148. Minimum of Two, Tim Winton
147. Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, Maryanne Wolf
146. The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
145. The Absolutely True Diaries of a Part Time Indian, Sherman Alexie
144. Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo, Tim Winton
143. The Time We Have Taken, Steve Carroll
142. Sea of Poppies, Amitav Ghosh
141. Speed of Dark, Elizabeth Moon
140. Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan
139. Burning Marguerite, Elisabeth Inness-Brown
November
138. Picnic at Hanging Rock, Joan Lindsay
137. Maestro, Peter Goldsworthy
136. The Getting of Wisdom, Henry Handel Richardson
135. The Orchard, Drusilla Modjeska
134. Cloudstreet, Tim Winton
133. Curious Pursuits, Margaret Atwood
132. Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood
131. The Lieutenant, Kate Grenville
130. Wanting, Richard Flanagan
129. The Folklore of Discworld, Terry Pratchett
128. 84, Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff
127. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Schaffer
October
126. The Odyssey, Homer
125. Nation, Terry Pratchett
124. Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders, John Mortimer
123. Homer's The Iliad & Odyssey, Alberto Manguel
122. The Iliad, Homer, transl. R. Fagles
September
121. Sexy, Joyce Carol Oates
120. Gentleman of the Road: A Tale of Adventure, Michael Chabon
119. Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds
118. Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood
117. Hotel du Lac, Anita Brookner
116. The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
115. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
114. The Lost Dog, Michelle de Kretser
113. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
August
112. The Road, Cormac McCarthy
111. The Citadel of the Autarch
110. The Sword of the Lictor
109. The Claw of the Conciliator
108. The Shadow of the Torturer
107. The Secret Scripture, Sebastian Barry
106. The Spare Room, Helen Garner
July
105. Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai
104. Stardust, Neil Gaiman
103. Digging to America, Ann Tyler
102. The Tenderness of Wolves, Stef Penney
101. Singing in Sadness, Reginald Hill
100. Five quarters of the Orange, Joanne Harris
99. Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
98. A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian, Monicka Lewyka
97. Unless, Carol Shields
96. The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
95. A Cure for All Diseases, Reginald Hill
94. Breath, Tim Winton
93. The Road Home, Rose Tremain
92. Thirsty Country, Asa Wahlquist
91. Sorry, Gail Jones
90. Bloodsucking Fiends, Christopher Moore
89. The History of Love, Nicole Krauss
88. Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels
June
87. Remembering Babylon, David Malouf
86. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
85. In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan
84. Darkmans, Nicola Barker
83. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker**
82. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
81. Carry Me Down, MJ Hyland
80. Fingersmith, Sarah Waters**
79. Music and Silence
78. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
77. Fifth Business, Robertson Davies
76. Wise Children, Angela Carter**
75. Oscar and Lucinda, Peter Carey*
74. Dark Places, Kate Grenville
73. Lillian's Story, Kate Grenville
May
72. The Idea of Perfection, Kate Grenville*
71. The Blood of Flowers
70. Middlemarch, George Eliot*
69. His Illegal Self, Peter Carey
68. Black Juice, Margo Lanagan
67. The Lagoon and other stories, Janet Frame
66. The Seeing Stone
65. Spiderwick Chronicles, The Field Guide
64. The Word Spy, Ursula Dubosarsky
April
63. Three Cheers for the Paraclete, Thomas Keneally
62. Dance of the Happy Shades, Alice Munro
61. Welcome to the World Baby Girl, Fannie Flagg
60. Born in Death, Nora Roberts
March
59. Thursday's Child, Sonya Hartnett
58. Memoirs of Hadrian, Margaret Yourcenar
57. The Golden Ass, Apuleius
56. Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut
55. Slaughterhouse-five, Kurt Vonnegut
54. The Journal of Dora Damage, Belinda Starling
53. Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe
52. Homecoming, Bernhard Schlink
51. Landscape of Farewell, Alex Miller
50. Miss Smilla's Sense of Snow, Peter Hoeg
49. James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
48. Divided in Death, Nora Roberts, 2004
47. The Bell, Iris Murdoch
46. Diary of a Bad Year, J.M. Coetzee
45. The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing
44. The Pit and the Pendulum, Edgar Allen Poe
43. The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
February
42. Fairyland by Paul J MacAuley
41. Trooper to the Southern Cross by Angela Thirkell
40. Don't Take Your Love To Town by Ruby Langford
39. The Bad Quarto by Jill Paton Walsh
38. My Place by Sally Morgan
37. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
36. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
35. Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda
34. Addition by Toni Jordan
33. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
32. March by Geraldine Brooks
31. People of the Book By Geraldine Brooks
30. Longitude by Dava Sobel
29. Of a Boy also known as What the Birds See by Sonya Hartnett
28. The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho
27. Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
26. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
25. The Mindful Brain by Dan Siegel
24. Saturday by Ian McEwan
23. The Secret Cure by Sue Woolfe
22. Leaning Towards Infinity by Sue Woolfe
21. The Mystery of the Cleaning Woman by Sue Woolfe
January
20. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
19. Evelina by Fanny Burney
18. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
17. The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
16. Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges
15. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
14. Orlando : a biography by Virginia Woolf
13. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
12. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
11. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
10. The Trout Opera by Matthew Condon
9. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
8. The Silver Donkey by Sonya Hartnett
7. The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
6. Atonement by Ian McEwan
5. David Golder by Irene Nemirovsky
4. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
3. Voss by Patrick White
2. The Ghost's Child by Sonya Hartnett
1. Anna Karenina by Tolstoy

Goals for this year include reading more Australian fiction, literary fiction outside the mainstream and older classics.

1. Anna Karenina by Tolstoy

This is my first Russian novel, and it was a beauty! I finished the last pages this morning. Anna's tragedy is beautifully written. I really appreciated Tolstoy's descriptions of thoughts and feelings of the many characters in the book, he is so perceptive.

2. The Ghost's Child by Sonya Hartnett

Beautiful magical tale about a life well-lived. An old woman finds an eleven year old sitting on her settee. She makes a pot of tea and a plate of biscuits and she tells him of her life. YA fiction, Australian Author

3. Voss by Patrick White: Miles Franklin award winner 1958.

An Australian epic set 1845 to 1870 about a German explorer's passion to explore the unknown interior.

Voss maintains a metaphysical union throughout the journey, with Laura Trevelyan, a young woman who stands apart from a fledgling Sydney society.

Wow. I was surprised how much like a 19th Century novel this read. Enjoyed the challenge a lot.

4. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell, 1853

A delightful novel of gentle humour about the doings of a group of spinsters in a quiet country village.

5. David Golder by Irene Nemirovsky, 1929

Short novel about a Jewish Russian emigrant who becomes wealthy through hard business dealings and the bitter choices he makes in his last days.

6. Atonement by Ian McEwan, 2001

7. The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Slimeball! I skim read this after the first chapters.

8. The Silver Donkey by Sonya Hartnett, 2004

After The Ghost's Child (no touchstone) I thought I'd read more Sonya Hartnett. The Silver Donkey is another book for younger readers that I adored.

A young deserter, blinded by war, sheltering in a forest in France is found by young children. They bring him food and the young man tells them stories inspired by a silver donkey he shows them. The stories are beautiful fables full of courage, sacrifice, loyalty and forgiveness.

The Silver Donkey fits very well with Ian McEwan's Atonement I've just finished.

9. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 1960

An all-time favourite. Scout relates three years of her life; her adventures with older brother Jem, and co-conspirator Dill, their fascination with the mysterious neighbour who never leaves his house, and Atticus, her father's defence of a black man facing a charge of rape in a town of ignorance and racism. Atticus has to be one of the most noble constructs in Western literature, and Scout, the most charming.

10. The Trout Opera by Matthew Condon, 2007

Australian Author, potential Miles Franklin 2008 shortlister.

The Australian 20th Century as experienced by a gentle bachelor who lives in the Australian High Country. He will be a centenarian for the Sydney Olympics 2000 and near death, the opening ceremony bureaucrats whisk him off to play a potential role as "The Old Man of Snowy River".

http://www.theage.com.au/news/book-reviews/the-trout-opera/2007/11/02/1193619131...

11. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Orange Broadband Prize Winner 2007

Excellent LT recommendation. All the main characters are sympathetic and strong. I really appreciated learning about the personal experience of people in Nigeria and the Biafran war in the late 1960's. Will read more by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

12. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink, 1997

A short novel examining the relationship between the narrator and an older woman; the ability of individuals to take responsibility for their actions during the Holocaust; and illiteracy.

Thought provoking and good to read.

13. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, 2004

Dystopian fiction based on 6 time-periods, from the 19th Century to a post-apocalyptic future, interwoven to show that the fall of civilisation is inevitable due to human greed that ranges from simple banditry/slavery to corporate greed/slavery, and yet there is always hope, some ideals to work towards a return to humanity. I was dazzled by the Cloud Sextet chapter.

14. Orlando : a biography by Virginia Woolf

I've seen the film which is pretty, I don't remember how it ends, but the book is sumptuous in its depiction of several centuries of cultural life during which Orlando attempts to write The book. Orlando starts out as a young noble, a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I, then changes sex to become a woman to continue her adventures in writing the perfect novel.

Apparently the book is effectively a love-letter to Vita Sackville West. I'll have to read more about it and Woolf's other works.

15. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, 2007

I felt so cool reading this story of a family of Dominican Republic immigrants to the US. It's funny being an Aussie and reading so much spanish and Dominican Republic/US street talk. Wonderful and strong characters.

The story is about Oscar's quest for love including a history of the Trujillo dictatorshop's effect on Oscar's family's fortunes. I cheered for Oscar, but it's not just about him, it's about his family members affected by a fuku or curse - the result of European colonisation of the Dominican Republic - or is it the other way around - Zafa!

16. Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges, 1964

Series of devilishly clever short stories. Conundrums, philosophical musings, crimes with twists in the tale. Reminds me of Poe, H.G. Wells, Umberto Eco. Needs to be read in small bites.

17. The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett, 2007

Delightful, cheeky tale of the value of reading. A fictional Her Majesty starts reading avidly late in life and her world view changes, deepens and becomes more personal.

Truly a refreshing break from the dramas of dictatorships and dystopias.

18. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield,

I enjoyed the references to books and reading in this gothic kind of a tale. Quoted novels Jane Eyre, The Woman in White, Wuthering Heights, The Turn of the Screw are all inspirations in this tale of what happens when a brilliant reclusive author requests a young bookseller's daughter to write her true life story. The truth comes out, eventually, bit by bit for both of them.

Merry, you're doing well so far! I also enjoyed The Uncommon Reader a lot. Sonya Hartnett is an excellent writer. You should have a look at Of A Boy (or its alternate title What the Birds See). I can recommend it.

Thanks judylou! I'll look out for that one.

I see you have Andrew McGahan as a favourite author. Which would you recommend. I'm looking at White Earth sometime in the future.

19. Evelina by Fanny Burney

Persevere past the first pages and Evelina's adventures draw you in. Lord Orville prefigures Jane Austen's Darcy and I'm sure I could read some themes that were looked at again in Pride and Prejudice. Heyer definitely drew inspiration from this novel.

20. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

Delightful cosy mystery.

21. The Mystery of the Cleaning Woman by Sue Woolfe, 2007

I picked up this non-fiction book because of the premise of examining a writer's process of creativity in terms of developments in neuroscience. Sue Woolfe is an Australian author who started researching scientific literature in neuroscience and creativity to assist her in overcoming challenges in writing her novel The Secret Cure.

The best parts are interviews and quotes from authors such as Kate Grenville and Peter Carey about the process of writing their novels, and Woolfe's own journal excerpts and descriptions of overcoming obstacles to the course of her writings. I'm a fan of neuroscience, so I knew this book would be good, but her descriptions of the creative writing process really interested me. So I had to look out for her books.

22. Leaning Towards Infinity by Sue Woolfe, 1996

Winner of the New South Wales Premier's Prize, this is a wonderful and at times challenging novel of mothers, mother guilt, mothering, mathematics, obsession, thwarted genius, the indifference and chauvinism of conservative academia, the earnest hopes, and at times sexual envy of the overlooked daughter seeking her mother's approval.

The allusions to mathematics was good fun, and I got the mother guilt, and the feminist outrage.

23. The Secret Cure by Sue Woolfe, 2003

Definitely on a Sue Woolfe binge here. An interesting premise and very well researched. What if the cleaning lady somehow is responsible for directing the research in a lab, for the purpose of solving a mystery that concerns her deeply, a cure for her daughter's autism.

Once upon a time I worked in a laboratory, and the day to day descriptions of the workings, politics, personalities were wonderfully believable. The story has a marvellous fairy tale ending which is very satisfying given the subject matter.

The author ends the novel with a postscript that elegantly and cuttingly describes the true history of research into autism and the wrong headed ideas about 'refrigerator mothers' that set back research into the causes and useful treatments for autistic children for two generations.

24. Saturday by Ian McEwan

This is my third Ian McEwan novel and I find them amazingly good, they are so easy to read, so clear.

Henry Perowne is a neurosurgeon. The novel follows every waking moment of one day in his life, a day in which he watches a burning plane's trajectory to Heathrow, drives to a squash game and due to a protest march, has a minor accident with three men in a red BMW. It's a day when his family is getting together for a significant reunion and uninvited guests appear.

Themes I found tremendously interesting; the lucid descriptions of neurosurgery, Henry's preoccupation with his inability to appreciate literature and poetry like his daughter, parenting, physical and mental decay, moral responsibility for the Iraq war, media and the war on terror, chance, individual morality, the effect of our actions on others for good or bad.

All through the novel, the brain and its role in emotional states and behaviour is examined through descriptions of dementia, alcoholism, Huntingdon's disease, and the flow states of working or playing sport at peak effort.

The novel is about Henry, his life, his history, his love for his wife, his two adult children, his mother, his father-in-law, his dealings with staff, patients and a violent and damaged person.

I've starred your thread. You are reading some really great books. Because of your description I read The Uncommon Reader. It was really good. I can't wait to see what else you read this year.

Thank you kindly i.should.be.reading.

I am only a beginning reader in some ways, just like Her Maj in the Uncommon Reader. Since I was shown the delights of LT last September, I've been on a reading binge catching up on what's out there.

LT sure is great for recommendations, and arukiyomi's 1001 list is handy too. Have fun!

25. The Mindful Brain by Dan Siegel, 2007

Non-fiction. Current research on mindful awareness practices and their value in improving health and well being from a neurological point of view. Dense but interesting.

I've also read Parenting from the Inside Out by the same author, a child psychiatrist. A thought-provoking book about the role of attachment in the development of the infant brain.

merry, Andrew McGahan is one of my favourites. He has written a number of novels, all different, but my favourite is The White Earth. It is beautifully written and perfectly conjures up the Australian landscape. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.

BTW I agree with you about Ian McEwan. He is a great author.

Thanks judylou, I'm discovering so many good authors since LT. It's helped me be much more adventurous. It sounds like The White Earth will be great, because one of the reasons for reading again was to get into Australian literature and interpretations of the landscape - we've just had one too many years of drought here and its not over yet.

I can relate to that. Melbourne is really struggling. Water restrictions are looking like they will become permanent. But at least we are lucky that reading doesn't rely on rainfall!

What do you think about the Arthur William Upfield "Bony" books? I read them many years ago when I was 10 or 11 and loved them -- had no idea they were written in the 1910s, 20s, 30s -- made me want to go to Australia when I grew up. Read them all AGAIN in the 1990s when they came out in print as a whole set in the US -- that's when I noticed the original publication dates; and noticed that they've been reissued in the US again. I love the stories but wonder how politically correct they are not these days???? I also wonder how much of the character the Crocodile Dundee writers borrowed or if this would be considered a stock-Australian bushman/white detective mix of some sort (and this mixed-race brilliant detective raised in an orphanage is named Napolean Bonaparte, aka "Bony"). He has a listing in Encyclopedia Brittanica online, a pretty long listing on Wikipedia, and a special collections room in the University of Melbourne library with all his papers.

My only rememberance of "Boney" is as a TV show ages ago. I've never read the books. Crocodile Dundee (imo) is a separate beast to the Boney character. Dundee is the archetypal Queensland / NT bushy loner, whereas Boney (if my memory serves) depicts the indigenous Australian finding a place in the "white" world.

I know of the series but not much more. I found a reference to a contemporary critic's take on the Boney series here.

I should look them up! I love mysterys solved by mysterious and brilliant outsiders.

26. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, 1998

Nathan Price takes his wife and four daughters to the Congo to fulfil his mission regardless of the rigours. In Nathan's total self belief I was reminded of Christina Stead's The Man who Loved Children who also brought hardship to his family.

I really loved the voices of Orleanna, Rachel, Leah, Adah and Ruth May telling the story. Adah's voice, with her palindromic verses and cynical, clear eyed analysis is fun to read, Ruth May's like Scout's. I learned so much of the history of the Congo, the damage done by colonialism, capitalism and dictatorship.

There is a lot of wry humour and courage in the book so keep going!

27. Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, 1925

Clarissa Dalloway organises a party. We follow her day slipping seamlessly from one character's conscious experience to the next. Along the way we are treated to visions of beauty and madness, love and death, what might have been. Wonderful to go shopping in Bond Street with Clarissa. Will reread.

28. The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho

A short parable on temptation, and how good and evil could play out in a mountain village. A man walks into a village in decline and offers Miss Prym and the villagers gold bars in exchange for a life. Interesting, but perhaps I'll pick up a Don Camillo for light relief.

29. Of a Boy also known as What the Birds See by Sonya Hartnett, 2002

Commonwealth Writer's Prize winner, 2003, Australian author.

The story starts with a mystery of three missing children, who go out to buy an icecream and never come home.

Adrian, his neighbours and the school are affected by the story that is played out in the media. He lives with his grandmother and uncle who, battling their own problems, cannot give him the sense of family he needs. Adrian develops a friendship with Nicole who lives across the road, bonded by their loneliness and fascination for the missing three.

"Tender, sharp and suspenseful" is very accurate.

30. Longitude by Dava Sobel, 1995

Non-fiction. Terrific book about the development of the chronometer which could accurately measure longitude at sea, saving sailors from shipwreck and death. John Harrison was a self-taught clockmaker who spent forty years cracking the longitude problem. A genius.

31. People of the Book By Geraldine Brooks, 2008

Vivid fictionalization of the history of an illuminated Jewish manuscript. Hanna Heath is an Aussie conservator called to work on the Sarajevo Haggedah, after it has been rescued by a Muslim librarian from the bombing. Her forensic work creates an opportunity to present a dramatised history of the manuscript's fortunes.

32. March by Geraldine Brooks, 2005

2006 Pulitzer Prize winning novel set during the American Civil War. March, the father of the Little Women family goes to war.

I just found the books on my shelf, so maybe I'll pull them off, re-read them and review them -- when I finish comps --40 days and counting down.

33. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, 1966

Tragic conspiracy of events and attitudes sends a fragile girl to madness. Before she becomes the mad wife, Bertha in Jane Eyre, Antoinette Cosway is the Creole heiress who Rochester marries for financial freedom.

Hard to read, almost every page I'm feeling that it's not fair, it shouldn't be this way, but Jean Rhys inexorably develops the momentum for Bertha's insanity. At times, even the reader is unsure of what to believe. Lush descriptions of the vegetation remind you of the ambivalence of the characters in the landscape. Worth reading again.

34. Addition by Toni Jordan, 2008

Debut novel by new Australian author, Toni Jordan. Addition is about 35 year old Grace Lisa Vandenburg who counts obsessively. Her life changes when she meets Seamus Joseph O'Reilly. Cheerful quick read, a bit salty at times.

35. Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda, 1993

1994 Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year - Younger Readers

Read aloud for eight year old. Children's fantasy. A young boy must accompany a band of villagers to the top of the mountain to find the cause of the loss of their water. Rowan bears a magic map with clues in verse to avoid disaster along the way. Some chapters read in the daylight.

36. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon, 2000

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winner, 2001

Great book. Cousins, Sam Clay and Joe Kavalier, young New York Jewish men become comic book creaters during the war years. Joe is driven by his need to rescue his family from Hitler, he is the artistic genius and escape artist. Sam is the ideas man who shoulders the family responsibilities.

Chabon makes me want to find the comic books that inspired him, and to appreciate the art work in them. He comments on the themes and inspirations for the original superhero comics and his characters, Sam and particularly Joe are both vehicles and creators of comic-book style adventures. Witty, funny, occasionally tragic.

37. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte, 1846

Anne Bronte uses her experiences as a governess for this tale of a modestly brought up young woman's attempts to reduce the financial burden on her parents. Instead of being a grim book, Anne uses each situation to remind herself to be true to her principles and her Christian upbringing. The novel ends happily with a marriage to a man of almost paragon like virtues.

Merry, my son adored the "Rowan" series when he was younger. I could almost say that anything by Emily Rodda is worth reading!

Judylou, I have a 13 yr old son who devoured the Deltora Questbooks. My 8 yr old daughter is a reluctant reader, but she was very keen to have Rowan of Rin read to her. We're onto James and the Giant Peach now.

38. My Place by Sally Morgan, 1987, Aboriginal Australian author.

Memoir of a girl growing up at first unaware of her Aboriginal heritage and her quest to find out more of her family's origins. Stories that go to the heart of Australia's history in black-white relations, discrimination, exploitation and denial of human rights.

Very clunky to read, especially at the start, but I found myself identifying with the underlying feeling of "who am I, why am I different, how did my family get here?" The oral histories of the older generation told a compelling story.

39. The Bad Quarto by Jill Paton Walsh, 2007

Cosy academic mystery, fourth in the Imogen Quy series. A talented young academic dies after falling from a college roof. Refers back to Dorothy Sayers Gaudy Night and uses a play of Hamlet and its interpretation as a plot device.

40. Don't Take Your Love To Town by Ruby Langford, 1988, Aboriginal Australian Author

Memoir of an Aboriginal Australian woman born in the 30's living in rural and urban environments confronting poverty, domestic violence and tragedy. While My Place prefigures the Stolen Generation report, Don't Take Your Love To Town anticipates the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. You get a glimpse into the upswell of recognising and fostering Aboriginal culture and identity during the '70s and '80s.

41. Trooper to the Southern Cross by Angela Thirkell, 1934

Angela Thirkell married an Australian Captain George Thirkell after the First World War and moved to Australia in 1920 with two children from a previous marriage, She only stayed a couple of years, but developed a shrewd ear for Aussie colloquialisms.

Trooper to the Southern Cross is a satirical account of the hellish trip the family endured on the sabotaged troop ship SS Friedrischsruh in 1920. Angela Thirkell also gently satirises her laid back husband through the character of the narrator, a laconic Aussie doctor, and herself as the somewhat uptight Mrs Jerry. The ship they travelled on was carrying a contingent of prisoners who caused much mayhem.

The blurb says it "is an hilarious and affectionate satire on the manners and mores of Australia. It is also one of Barry Humphries' favourite books."

42. Fairyland by Paul J. McAuley, 1995

First science fiction novel I've read in sometime. Fairyland is one of the Gollancz Future Classics series. Internet, genetic engineering and psychoactive substances are used to create a Snowcrash meets Diamond Age meets I'm not sure what for a near future which has human made drones being converted into self aware creatures modelling themselves on fairyland archetypes. Gritty.

43. The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien, 1967, audio

Fabulously surreal, mellifluous language. I'm going to have to read this one some time to have fun with the marvellous theories and imagery. Very enjoyable listening.

44. The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe, 1842

Short story. Hysterical narrative of terror.

45. The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing, 1962

Anna Wulf appears to me to be a sane, intelligent, self aware woman and yet by the end of the novel she has endured a period of intense emotional and psychological pressure. They used to call it a nervous breakdown. Lessing calls it a crack up. The novel also relates the breakdown of Anna's commitment to the British communist party, among many other things.

Lessing plays with value and purpose of writing, the impotence of the individual to solve social ills, psychoanalysis and the permutations and combinations of impermanent relationships. It's a pessimistic novel.

Famously, the structure of the novel reflects Anna's disintegration and reintegration, with the book separated in parts by referring to 5 notebooks. A black notebook for writing matters including Anna's first novel "Frontiers of War", red for her political life, blue for everyday events, yellow for emotions and the golden notebook which produces a final knitted up fiction. Surrounding all is the novel, Free Women, detailing Anna Wulf and her "real-time" relationships.

I raced through the last 100 pages because I wanted to find out where it was going and it was late late late. Maybe I'll have to read it again one day, because I felt a certain disappointment, as I do like happy endings, or at least some sense of personal growth, and the breaking down of a sense of self and reshaping it didn't give me that feeling of resolution.

Nevertheless, this novel made me understand why Lessing is considered a major literary figure. Her intellect is brilliant, on many pages I realised that I just don't have her breadth of understanding or the ability to hold all her threads in my mind at once. I know I've missed stuff which will mean a worthwhile rereading sometime in the future.

46. Diary of a Bad Year, J. M. Coetzee, 2007

I really enjoyed this short novel cum collection of mini-essays. The book has pages separated into three parts. The top contains an ageing author's opinions on philosophical issues, current affairs, or personal issues. The middle section contains the thoughts of the author about his attractive part-Filipina typist and her opinions of his work. The bottom section contains the thoughts and observations of Anya herself and her relationship with her de-facto with regard to her work with Senor C as she calls him.

Each part provides commentary on the other, and it serves the purpose for me of illuminating the philosophical musings in a much more accessible way than a series of dry essays. Anya's relationship with her money-mad de-facto and how it changes as he exposes himself is wryly entertaining. The relationship with Senor C is gently affecting, a meditation on love and ageing, a comforting dream.

Fiction, imagination and reality is played with throughout the book. There's even a not altogether ironic essay on the narrator's authority. Wonderful.

47. The Bell, Iris Murdoch, 1958

Imber Abbey is about to receive a new bell and a new novitiate, but it is the lay community at Imber Court which will undergo the most upheaval. The Bell deals with homosexuality, adultery, innocence, spiritual love and the life of contemplation. Truth, beauty and goodness. At times wry, sometimes tragic but not grim. I liked it more as I read further (****).

Have you read much Murdoch? I want to read one of her books, but I confess that I find it daunting trying to figure out where to begin.

I read The Third Policeman a couple of months ago--it's good in printed form, too! (And impressive to think that it was actually written in 1940.)

Hi Medeliia12, The Bell is the first one of Iris Murdoch's I've read. It happened to be sitting in the bookshelf here. A good thread on Iris Murdoch's books is in the group Anglophiles; Iris Murdoch.

48. Divided in Death, Nora Roberts writing as J.D. Robb, 2004

I've read Naked in Death Book 1 of the "In Death" series, and now I've read Book 18. Very popular. Eve Dallas, beaten, abused as a young child left to rescue herself becomes a hard bitten, genius New York cop, falls in love with a genius entrepreneur, granite jawed, jewel-eyed, hunky Roarke, who's backstory also includes a pick-pocketing childhood. Independently, they manage to work past their PTSD-induced nightmares to nail the villains. (***)

49. James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl, 1961

Tremendous read-aloud for my eight year old.

James is the saddest, loneliest orphan left with two mean, selfish aunts, fat Aunt Sponge, and thin Aunt Spiker. Through magical means, a giant peach grows in their yard and James escapes with friends on a series of adventures.

Roald Dahl has a great gift for storytelling, the rhythm of the spoken word changes with the intensity of the action. Some of the narrative is very cleverly in verse. Rich descriptive language for young children, not too hard, not too easy. (*****)

50. Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, Peter Hoeg, 1992 (*****)

Fantastic page-turner. Miss Smilla is a Greenlander living in Copenhagen with special talents in reading ice and snow that give her the edge in solving the mystery of a small boy's death that involves an Arctic conspiracy.

merry10: I am completely in love with your reading list! You have many that I have read and loved, and many that I want to read.
I'll also second judylou's recommendation of The White Earth.
Question: how do you get to read so much when you have an 8 year old? (I don't need an answer - good on you.)

Thanks amanda! I did enjoy Don't Take Your Love to Town, very topical still! Since I've joined LT, I've been on a bit of a reading binge but I think number 50 is a useful cue to slow down a bit. We've had a quiet time here locally and the housework has gone to pieces, so I've had extra stolen reading time!

But, then I go to Girlybooks, or read a review in the papers, or check out the 1001 list, such fun! And I still aim to read more Aussie Lit this year. I've got a huge pile of books to read!

51. Landscape of Farewell, Alex Miller, 2007, Australian Author, Miles Franklin 2008 longlist

"Landscape of Farewell" is a metaphor for images in memory, of the irretrievable past. I found it an easy read because the prose is relaxed and contemplative.

A German academic is retired, defeated by grief and the loss of his wife. He meets a vibrant, angry young Aboriginal academic, Vita who is the means by which he arrives in Australia to visit with her uncle Dougald Gnapun. Together they revisit memories and family stories to reconcile and record the past.

I liked the way Dugald's story that is the culmination of the book was written with a spiritual, dreamlike quality. (****)

52. Homecoming, Bernhard Schlink, 2008

Bernhard Schlink uses Homer's Odyssey as a vehicle to explore Peter Debauer's quest to discover an author with an intellectual approach to moral responsibility that doesn't sit well with his own ideas on justice. (****).

53. Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe, 1720

What a change of pace. Defoe's Moll Flanders is a good hearted woman who has to make the most of her opportunities - prostitution, marriages, thieving, con-artistry, given the restrictions of her time, place and social status. For all the generosity and intelligence Defoe gives Moll, she has a fairly perfunctory attitude to her own infants.

An interesting insight into the how-to's of 18th Century petty theft.

54. The Journal of Dora Damage, Belinda Starling, 2007

This was a racy mid 19th Century page-turner about a woman who steps outside the conventions of social class to save her family from penury. Dora Damage starts binding pornographic books for a group of aristocrats to pay off money-lenders and fend off starvation. You get a 21st Century viewpoint about a whole heap of 19th Century problems including abolition of slavery. (****).

55. Slaughterhouse-five, Kurt Vonnegut, 1969 (*****)

Although this book is classified SF, I couldn't help feeling it read like journalism, or a memoir, and finding out more about it: yes, Kurt Vonnegut was a survivor of Dresden. Brilliant, ironic commentary.

56. Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut, 1973 (****1/2)

Breakfast of Champions is over 30 years old and it is still brilliant. Vonnegut makes your mind leap to strange and intriguing ideas without having to spell them out. Scatological in parts. Plays with author as character.

57. The Golden Ass, Apuleius, 158-180 A.D. translated by Robert Graves 1950 Penguin edition.

An 1800 year old tale of a young man turned into a donkey through his own stupidity and the stories he comes across on his way to returning human and devoting himself to religious worship of Isis and Osiris. Plenty of humour, ribaldry and downright rudeness and more thrashings than you can poke a stick at.

Socrates makes a cameo appearance. Best story is Cupid and Psyche, reminds me of the original Beauty and the Beast fairytale.

From what you say, this book sounds reminiscient of A Midsummer Nights' Dream.

I think you are spot on, kimpett. The humour of Shakespeare has plenty in common with Apuleius. Plenty of slapstick and ironic observation.

58. Memoirs of Hadrian, Marguerite Yourcenar, 1951

I'm a newcomer to Roman emperors and their education, but you could read this fictional memoir as background reading for an MBA. A theory and practice for the governance of self and a sprawling empire written as a letter to Hadrian's successor Marcus Aurelius. It's not an easy read but I found it worth it. (****)

59. Thursday's Child, Sonya Hartnett, 2000, Aurealis award; best YA novel, Australian author.

YA novel set in Australia on a soldier-settlement during the Great Depression. The story opens on the birth of the fifth surviving child of the Flute family. Harper is the nine year old narrator who tells of the family's struggle to survive. Harper's younger brother Tin, a fey child, isolates himself from the family and starts digging.

Terrific story, perhaps this story and Of a Boy/What The Birds See would fit into an Australian Gothic genre.

60. Born in Death, Nora Roberts, 2006

61. Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!, Fannie Flagg, 1998

Dena Nordstrom, a rising television presenter, has a mysterious past to reconcile. Warm, small town characters provide a gentle humour.

62.Dance of the Happy Shades, Alice Munro, 1968

Collection of short stories. Alice Munro has somehow captured experiences that I'm sure I could have lived. Absolutely amazing.

63. Three Cheers for the Paraclete, Thomas Keneally, 1968, Australian Author

Miles Franklin Award winner 1968. Funny, warm and bitter. The experience of a priest in a religious community where tradition and canon law are ill equipped to deal with human failings.

One of the 2008 reprints of recent Australian writing from Vintage classics.

May 10: I'm going to fill in some deleted, duplicate posts here, even though DFED and Nickelini have posted to my thread in the meantime.

64. The Word Spy, Ursula Dubosarsky, 2008, Australian Author.

This book is fantastic for children to explore the curiosities of the English language just for fun! As a parent who loves to share my love of books and words, I couldn't resist. Dubosarsky has a wonderful, quirky style that maintains interest through the book.

65. Spiderwick Chronicles, The Field Guide, Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, 2003

66. The Seeing Stone, Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, 2003

I have read these books aloud to my Reluctant Reader aged 8. Enthusiastic after seeing the film, the brave reader read silently through the first five chapters with many requests for the difficult words.

The books have a rich, visual vocabulary and a protagonist with whom my DD strongly identifies. We are waiting for Books Three and Four Very Patiently!

67. The Lagoon and other stories, Janet Frame, 1951

Childhood, family, family stories, mental illness are the subjects of Janet Frame's book. By turns unsettling, truthful, tragic, but also strangely comforting. In a mental hospital at the time of the first publication, the Hubert Church award for these stories reputedly saved her from a leucotomy.

Merry10 - I have enjoyed reading your reviews and seeing all of the great books that you have been reading! I enjoy reading books about Australia myself! Some recommendations - have you read The Road From Coorain by Jill Ker Conway? Or, for something more spiritual Mutant Message Down Under by Marlo Morgan?

Wow, Merry, we really have similar tastes. From the books you've read this year, there are several I've read over the past year or two: Anna Karenina, Cranford, Atonement, Saturday, The Reader, Half of a Yellow Sun, & Mrs. Dalloway. I agree with all your comments about these books too.

I also have Orlando, Cloud Atlas & Wide Sargasso Sea in my TBR pile. I'll have to keep an eye on your library to see what you like and what you're reading next.

#79 Hi DFED. I'm glad you like books about Australia. Even though I live here, I have hardly touched the literary heritage as yet, but I have read The Road From Coorain and the depiction of Ker Conway's early experiences on the farm is quite meaningful to me as I live on a farm in drought at the moment. Great book, very successful woman.

Marlo Morgan is a bit of a mystery, I'm a bit mainstream and I've never heard of it. If you're looking for a contemporary literary description of Aboriginal spiritual awareness as a part of a modern Australian novel, you couldn't go past Alexis Wright's Carpentaria which won the Miles Franklin award last year. A challenge to get through at times, but gorgeous imagery.

#80 Hi Nickelini, I've been reading with envy your literary exploits. Heh, Heh! You know I've been reading Middlemarch since April 20 and apart from an hour Saturday week ago, I'm still not much further on. And yet, I know I will love it, adore it, and think myself so marvellous for chomping through the reams of character exploration eventually.

Bleak House is definitely on my TBR list, but I'm wondering if I should save it for after some of the other Dickens works, like a box of dark chocolate or something.

merry10, what a fab list of books! I have Leaning Towards Infinity in my TBR pile and a few others you have mentioned. I have also read many you have listed.

Have you read The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau to your 8 year old? It and it's sequel is a great story. I'm always curious what passes for SF in juvenile and YA books these days, so I picked it up on audio. I actually was convinced to read this when I was still working in the bookstore by a 10-year-old who very excitedly told me about it). Let me know if they aren't available in OZ and I'll throw them in the suitcase for August:-)

I will add my name to the list of recommenders of The White Earth. The reader's copy I read called it Dickensian which always and immediately makes me suspicious, but I thought great parts of it was Dickensian . . .

Thanks avaland I'll certainly track City of Ember down. It sounds great. Haven't yet had time for White Earth but it is coming up soon.

68. Black Juice, Margo Lanagan, 2004

Absolutely sensational, highly recommended series of short stories. Margo Lanagan is like a cultural anthropologist of alternate realities. The stories are targeted at the YA audience, but I think this is SF writing for a mature perspective.

I love Margo Lanagan!!! I have White Time, Black Juice and Red Spikes - all of comparable quality. And despite the science fiction or fabulist settings, they have an Australian feel about them. I hear she has another one coming out this year. . .

btw, The City of Ember has a spunky, resourceful young girl as protagonist (with a boy sidekick).

Avaland, I have Red Spikes on a pile here, and will pick up White Time from the library sometime soon.

69. His Illegal Self, Peter Carey, 2008

Jay is a privileged seven year old New Yorker whisked off to Southern Queensland to live on a hippy commune in the 70's. Along the way, the book touches on the radical student activist culture in America at the time of the Vietnam war and the inward looking lifestyle of the Australian hippies of the same time.

I really liked Jay's character, he's clever, resourceful and determined to track down his outlaw parents, and yet he is still a child at the behest of adults and the sub-tropical environment. The adults in the book are flawed but aim to do the best they can.

Meg, I'm reading Theft by Peter Carey. Finding it very amusing and VERY Australian.

I noticed avaland's comments on Leaning Towards Infinity. At first I found that novel confusing, but I somehow fell in deep, deep love with the characters and the story. Don't know why it affected me so.

70. Middlemarch, George Eliot, 1871

Great Novel.

England, 1832, landowners, farmers, minor gentry, bankers, lawyers, doctors, clergy, marriage, financial security, gossip, social class, philanthropy and the politics of parliamentary reform form the backdrop for the characters of Middlemarch.

After procrastinating through Book 1, I raced through the last 600 pages. Eliot absolutely nails circumstances, character and relationships with acute observation leavened with irony.

Like Anna Karenina, you can read Middlemarch as a philosophy of living right as well as an entertaining story. I also found good fun in spotting the occasional contemporary science references which I'm much better at than any of the others - literary, classical, history, and politics.

Jeez, you are on fire!!! 70 books already, very impressive, and a wonderful list too. I'm keeping an eye on you!

Thanks Teri, you've finished W&P, can't hold a candle to that!! (Notice the many YA, short stories and children's books in my list!)

Have popped over to take a look at your long and impressive thread after reading your comment in the chat room. Very impressive list indeed. You are another megareader!! Maybe three or four books a week?

Yes kiwidoc! I can sometimes get through quite a few books, I do slow down for really interesting language or ideas, and some books leave you wrung out for days. I remember The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead was like that. Along with The Handmaid's Tale they were the standouts last year for me.

71. The Blood of Flowers, Anita Amirrezvani, 2007

Orange Prize Longlist 2008

14 year old girl in 17th Century Iran develops her rugmaking skills and talent for colour and design. She struggles to overcome low status and poverty.

This book reminded me of one of the storylines in Geraldine Brooks' The People of the Book, about the obstacles faced by a woman wishing to become skilled in an occupation reserved for men in a culture which represses women's free movement and expression outside the home.

My favourite parts of the novel are the details of rugmaking design and the descriptions of colour, food and the hammam, the communal bathhouse where women relax and gossip.

merry10, another LTer posted this link to a recent piece by Zadie Smith in the Guardian on Middlemarch. I found it quite interesting - worth printing out to read again later.

Avaland, that is an amazing piece on Middlemarch. I was able to read Henry James essay to compare, and I can see the different perspectives. I really enjoyed learning about Spinoza's perceived influence on Eliot's purpose. Now for my next book....

72. The Idea of Perfection, Kate Grenville, 1999

Winner Orange Prize for Fiction, 2001

Kate Grenville writes brilliantly, lucidly, unostentatiously, and I'm trying to think of the books I've read this year that give me the same familiar sense of place and character.

Two difficult, socially awkward people come to a small country town, one to demolish an old wooden bridge and the other to help set up a small museum.

I could rave about this book, but I first wanted to ask the question about one of the characters, "But why Felicity?"....

Because she is outwardly the epitome of perfection, but on the inside inflexible, rigid, obsessed with appearance to hide a pathetic, miserable inability to form real relationships. Jarring, but contrapuntal to the other characters with whom I identified so warmly.

That sounds like a good one--thanks for the review.

merry - thanks for the review. If you have not read The Secret River by Grenville you should give that one a go, too.

I am presently reading The Secret River and enjoying it...as much as one can enjoy extreme hardship and deprivation. The Idea of Perfection is going on my wish list. Does it also take place in Australia?

Donna, The Idea of Perfection is set in a contemporary Australian country town, Karakarook pop. 1374. Kate Grenville's ear for the local idiom is acute. When you read this book, you could be walking down the main street of any small town in South Eastern Australia.

It is a much gentler story than The Secret River, and probably a novel where your own life experience adds to the understanding of the middle-aged main characters. I wouldn't have empathised so well with Harley Savage and Douglas Cheeseman at 20.

The Secret River is at the heart of Australian settlement and colonisation, a great theme, The Idea of Perfection is a more homely, satisfying novel.

I read Secret River last year and must confess that I had to skip many pages where I couldn't bear the ignorance, misunderstanding, betrayal and violence between colonists and the original inhabitants. Kate Grenville seems to be able to understand the worst of us and bring it into context in all her novels.

73. Lilian's Story, Kate Grenville, 1985

Lilian Singer is a fat, loud, unladylike girl born into a wealthy Australian family with a cruel, obsessive father. This is her story. She takes to the street, walking barefoot around Sydney at night with her bookbag during her early twenties as an escape.

Kate Grenville has based Lilian on an eccentric, Bea Miles who lived in Sydney, homeless and would quote Shakespeare for threepence. Lil is a misfit, but remains true to herself. Well written.

74. Dark Places, Kate Grenville, 1994

A prequel to Lilian's Story, this is the life of Albion Gidley Singer, a loathsome bully obsessed with facts and control who cannot understand nurturing interactions with others. A rapist and a molestor of his own child.

Kate Grenville shows you how such a man came to be. She gives you an understanding of how emotional isolation, social awkwardness and an inability to empathise can morph into pompous cruelty well dressed in a business suit. Not my cup of tea.

I suspect Douglas Cheeseman in The Idea of Perfection is in someways an apology for Albion, a socially awkward misfit, but always a sympathetic character.

wow, you did go on a Grenville jag!

75. Oscar and Lucinda, Peter Carey, 1988, Australian author

Booker Prize winner 1988, Miles Franklin Prize winner 1989, Booker of Bookers shortlist 2008.

Son of a Brethren minister, Oscar Hopkins discovers gambling as a sign of God's will, meets an Australian heiress Lucinda who owns a glassworks with a similar enthusiasm.

Peter Carey has a luminous way with words. I was delighted with the writing and fantastical narrative after wrestling through the previous book.

It's a novel which brings together the Old World, England in the 1860's, with the burgeoning colonialism of Sydney. There is gentle comedy and tragedy which leads to a fateful bet to bring a glass church to the edge of civilisation at Bellinger River.

merry, I'm glad you read another Carey. I haven't read this one, but it is one of the ones I own. How do you think it compares with his much more recent Theft?

I'm pushing in here, excuse me, ...Judy the writing styles are entirely different but I think they are both very good novels. We'll have to wait for merry10's opinion.

I agree Amanda, Oscar and Lucinda is like a historical epic with magical realism (although there are no supernatural happenings, there is plenty of magical thinking).

Theft is an amusingly cynical present-day caper novel of sorts, peppered with a meditation on family relationships and obligations. I liked them both for different reasons.

76. Wise Children, Angela Carter, 1991

Rollicking story of twins, Nora and Dora Chance born on the wrong side of the tracks and their relationship with theatre royalty, Melchior Hazard the great Shakespearean actor. Magical realism adds extra sparkle.

Loved it, loved it, loved it! Loved even the tiniest details of clothes and make-up. Revlon's Fire and Ice lipstick replaced by Rubies in the Snow. Shalimar and Mitsouko. Has fun with paternity, paternalism, Shakespeare as high art or low comedy, mothers.

>110 merry10:: Thanks for the mini-review. I recently discovered Carter through The Bloody Chamber (highly recommended), and I've purchased an omnibus that has Wise Children and two other novels. It is now officially on my (grotesquely overcrowded) literary plate. :)

edit: redundancy!

>110 merry10:, 111 Now that's what I need right now...Angela Carter! Off for a re-read, me thinks!

#112 Avaland, this was my first Angela Carter and I found her so refreshing - full of vivacity and puzzles. I wanted to read at least one of her novels before I try out Rushdie's Midnight's Children.

77. Fifth Business, Robertson Davies, 1970.

Highly enjoyed it.

78. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri, 1999

Pulitzer Prize (Fiction), 2000

Short stories by an Indian American who captures the feelings of alienation and loneliness, but also the delight and warmth of people who have lived in two cultures. Excellent.

79. Music and Silence, Rose Tremain, 1999

Winner 1999 Whitbread Novel

Excellent historical drama set at the court of King Christian in 17th Century Denmark. Highly recommended.

80. Fingersmith, Sarah Waters, 2002

Winner CWA Ellis Peters Dagger for Historical Crime Fiction, shortlisted for the Orange prize and the Booker prize.

After the raves on LT, I'll just have to add one more. This is a mad Victorian romp which I enjoyed enormously.

Our reading lists over the last week or so have both included Fifth Business and Fingersmith--and I concur, two great books. If your next read is Wilton Barnhardt's Gospel or Ben Okri's The Famished Road, I'm going to be spooked. ;)

Well.... LT has a way of making books rise to the top of the TBR pile, and your comments on Fingersmith definitely helped. You've got a good thread going. Another historical novel seemed a good segue after Music and Silence.

I read the The Famished Road when it came out and its spirit children made a deep impression. I think you'll like it.

81. Carry Me Down, M.J. Hyland, 2006

Disquieting psychological study of how personal truth is mediated by circumstance and relationships.

82. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte, 1847

A complete change of pace into gothic revenge/romance. I liked it!

83. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker, 1995

Booker Prize Winner 1995, Booker of Bookers nominee 2008, Orange Longlist 1996.

The Ghost Road is the third book in the Regeneration trilogy imaginatively fictionalising the work of W.H.R. Rivers - a real army psychologist - with shell-shocked soldiers in World War I.

Pat Barker writes amazingly about some tough subjects fairly painlessly. The Ghost Road gave me many new ideas to think about so it rates 5 stars. Brilliant.

The novel interweaves a fictionalised account of Rivers' anthropological studies of a spiritual healer in a head-hunting society with his work in rehabilitating soldiers with psychosomatic disorders. There is an interesting contrast in the role of war as part of the head-hunters culture with the effects of war on the men and women in World War I.

84. Darkmans, Nicola Barker, 2007

Medieval jestering in 21st Century Ashford. Lots of linguistic wordplay and some great laugh out loud moments.

85. In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan, 2008

Great book about the history of nutritionism and the wisdom of eating traditionally. Has a great manifesto:

Eat Food, Not too much, Mostly Plants.

86. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro, 1989

Booker Prize Winner 1989

Quietly unfolds the truth of a life and a realisation of regret, of ambition arguably misdirected, of the true value of individualism. Remarkable. Problems with understanding ordinary social relationships are confused with professional self-effacement.

The Remains of the Day is tied with The French Lieutenant's Woman as my favorite read of the year so far. Months later, I cannot get either one of them out of my head.

87. Remembering Babylon, David Malouf, 1993

Booker Prize Shortlist 1994

Gemmy Fairley is a feral man-child raised by Aboriginal people who makes a pioneering white settlement uncomfortable when he returns. It's a beautifully told story that imaginatively and poetically captures how the early pioneers must have interacted with the Aboriginal people.

Hi Medellia, that has to put The French Lietenant's Woman on my reading list! Thanks.

I bet you'd enjoy it. We seem to have (to borrow a phrase from the LibraryThing sign-in page) "eerily similar tastes."

I planned to have some kind of mid year review. Here's a list of all the books read in the first half of the year.

Anna Karenina by Tolstoy
The Ghost's Child by Sonya Hartnett
Voss by Patrick White
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
David Golder by Irene Nemirovsky
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
The Silver Donkey by Sonya Hartnett
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Trout Opera by Matthew Condon
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Orlando : a biography by Virginia Woolf
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Evelina by Fanny Burney
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
The Mystery of the Cleaning Woman by Sue Woolfe
Leaning Towards Infinity by Sue Woolfe
The Secret Cure by Sue Woolfe
Saturday by Ian McEwan
The Mindful Brain by Dan Siegel
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
The Devil and Miss Prym by Paulo Coelho
Of a Boy also known as What the Birds See by Sonya Hartnett
Longitude by Dava Sobel
People of the Book By Geraldine Brooks
March by Geraldine Brooks
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Addition by Toni Jordan
Rowan of Rin by Emily Rodda
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
My Place by Sally Morgan
The Bad Quarto by Jill Paton Walsh
Don't Take Your Love To Town by Ruby Langford
Trooper to the Southern Cross by Angela Thirkell
Fairyland by Paul J MacAuley
The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
The Pit and the Pendulum, Edgar Allen Poe
The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing
Diary of a Bad Year, J.M. Coetzee
The Bell, Iris Murdoch
Divided in Death, Nora Roberts, 2004
James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
Miss Smilla's Sense of Snow, Peter Hoeg
Landscape of Farewell, Alex Miller
Homecoming, Bernhard Schlink
Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe
The Journal of Dora Damage, Belinda Starling
Slaughterhouse-five, Kurt Vonnegut
Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut
The Golden Ass, Apuleius
Memoirs of Hadrian, Margaret Yourcenar
Thursday's Child, Sonya Hartnett
Born in Death, Nora Roberts
Welcome to the World Baby Girl, Fannie Flagg
Dance of the Happy Shades, Alice Munro
Three Cheers for the Paraclete, Thomas Keneally
The Word Spy, Ursula Dubosarsky
Spiderwick Chronicles, The Field Guide
The Seeing Stone
The Lagoon and other stories, Janet Frame
Black Juice, Margo Lanagan
His Illegal Self, Peter Carey
Middlemarch, George Eliot
The Blood of Flowers
The Idea of Perfection, Kate Grenville
Lillian's Story, Kate Grenville
Dark Places, Kate Grenville
Oscar and Lucinda, Peter Carey
Wise Children, Angela Carter**
Fifth Business, Robertson Davies
Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
Music and Silence
Fingersmith, Sarah Waters
Carry Me Down, MJ Hyland
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
The Ghost Road, Pat Barker
Darkmans, Nicola Barker
In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan
The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
Remembering Babylon, David Malouf

Yep. 87 good books: 82 fiction, 52 female authors, 29 Australian authors, 34 from the 1001 list, 10 earlier classics, 3 Booker winners, 5 Pulitzer winners, 2 Orange winners, 3 Miles Franklin winners, 9 from the Orange longlists, 2 Aboriginal Australian authors, 5 non-mainstream non-Western authors, 3 YA, 5 light fiction, 5 non-fiction. I expose my number-crunching nerdiness.

What surprised me was the number of Pulitzer prize winners, not having set out to read them specifically. No, it's not an artifact of choosing from the 1001 list because only To Kill a Mockingbird was on it.

I had planned on reading more Australian "classics" but only read Voss. More globally - not yet. Pretty much mainstream so far.

One of the benefits of LT is discovering the number of great books written by women that I've hardly touched. Half of a Yellow Sun has been one of my favourites this year. Definitely an LT recommendation.

Starting Orange July,

88. Fugitive Pieces, Anne Michaels, 1996

Orange prize 1997, Guardian Fiction prize 1997, Trillium prize 1997 etc.

Tremendous story of Holocaust survival. Very poetic. One of the most powerful books I've read this year.

89. The History of Love, Nicole Krauss, 2005

Orange Longlister; Stories within stories. A lighter book about love lost and recognised.

90. Bloodsucking Fiends, Christopher Moore, 1995

Urban vampire girlfriend fantasy. If you like Carl Hiaasen, you may like this.

91. Sorry, Gail Jones, 2007, Australian Author

Miles Franklin and Orange shortlists 2008. Excellent story, poetic writing about a white child neglected by her avoidant parents, finding kinship with an Aboriginal girl and a deaf mute boy. I will read more by this author.

92. Thirsty Country : Options for Australia, Asa Wahlquist, 2008 (No touchstones)

Non-fiction book detailing the water resources for the Murray Darling Basin river system in Australia: the political and environmental realities for urban water users, irrigators and Federal and State Governments. Fantastic up to the minute book for Australian water users and the future of their showers.

Wow. That's quite a list! Lots of wonderful books.

93. The Road Home, Rose Tremain, 2007

Orange Prize winner 2008

Lev is a Russian immigrant to London. He needs to find work to support his child and her grandmother and his friend Rudi. He starts delivering leaflets and then starts work as a pot scrubber in a kitchen. Through Lev and the people he meets you learn the issues faced by migrant workers. Language issues are just the start. I found it a charming book, very easy to read.

4 books for Orange July!

94. Breath: A Novel, Tim Winton, 2008

This is my first Tim Winton novel. I have yet to read Cloudstreet, The Riders, or Dirt Music but will definitely get to them eventually.

Tim Winton writes superbly about 2 lads growing into adolescence mad keen swimmers and keener to learn surfing. They come under the influence of a guru surfer and his injury stricken wife. Fabulous, fabulous descriptions of surfing, sea and the physical joy of adolescence.

The wider story, as told by a paramedic's reminiscences, is about how a boy's life can be permanently altered by the selfishness of others.

What a fantastic, wide range of books. You are doing brilliantly! Don't get too excited about Winton - apart from Cloustreet, if you have read one you have read them all... Cloudstreet is wonderful, though.

Thanks notmyrealname. I'll definitely check out Cloudstreet. Do you read Reginald Hill's mysteries?

95. A Cure for All Diseases, Reginald Hill, 2008

The latest Dalziel and Pascoe instalment with all the regulars and Franny Roote. Enjoyed it a lot. Love the Yorkshire accent, the quotes and the wit.

96. The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood, 2008

Booker Prize winner 2000, Orange Shortlist 2000

Iris and Laura are sisters. The book opens with Laura driving off a bridge. Iris has married futilely to save her father's business empire. Laura, a fey child-woman, had been involved with a rootless but charming man on the run. A book including a science fiction narrative, is published posthumously which becomes a cult masterpiece. The novel includes a parallel narrative of the sister and her lover's meetings.

Iris is at the end of her life and is reminiscing for her estranged grand-daughter. There is a mystery to be solved.

Cleverly done. I appreciated the novel more after having spent some time contemplating the final effect of the stories within stories and the unfolding revelations.

At times the narrative felt slow, but Atwood is creating layer by layer, character, situation and fate so the final creation feels correct and each description necessary. An unusual reading experience.

Meg, you mean there's a Hill volume after The Death of Dalziel?, good grief, I must get me post haste over to the Book Depository! Silly me for thinking he would end the series!

A great list of books, btw!

No, I have never even heard of Reginald Hill. What's he all about??

Notmyrealname - a good review of the early novels in the Dalziel and Pascoe series is here

They are amusing crime novels and have kept getting better. A Cure for all Diseases wittily draws on the structure of Jane Austen's unfinished novel Sanditon. There are email epistles and Dalziel's recordings surrounding the action. A group of enthusiasts and investors (character names lifted from Austen's novel) are setting up a health retreat at Sandytown. Dalziel is convalescing after the Death of Dalziel or Death comes for the Fatman as it was renamed for the US market. So he's on the scene when Pascoe has to investigate the inevitable death.

>138 avaland: It was a good fun read Avaland!

edited to fix link

97. Unless, Carol Shields, 2002

Orange shortlist 2003

I was very susceptible to this special book. I read it as a testamentary document to Shields' family and friends and the people who were important to her writing.

I've never read Carol Shields before and her writing was charming, involving. I loved reading about her narrator's reading tastes. Her description of her approach to novel writing was exotically interesting to me never having thought how authors really do their stuff. The storyline linking the mother's concern about the disengaged daughter with the marginalisation of women's intellectual ideas worked for me eventually. I loved the gentle feminist rants. Five stars.

Trivia: Unless refers to Margaret Atwood's book The Blind Assassin twice but never by name and uses the word lolloping to describe a personal characteristic just like Atwood had.

98. A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian, Marina Lewycka, 2005

Orange shortlist 2005, Wodehouse prize for comic fiction 2005

I read this novel fairly quickly. I enjoyed Vera and Nadia's concern to rescue their father from an entanglement with Valentina, an opportunistic Ukrainian woman. You eventually sympathise with all the characters inspite of some pretty awful domestic happenings. Great ending.

99. Bel Canto, Ann Patchett, 2001

Orange Prize winner 2002, Pen/Faulkner award winner

Wonderful read. A party including an important Japanese industrialist, his interpreter, an opera singer, her accompanist and many guests are taken hostage by a South American terrorist group. What happens after the first torrid days in the long hostage crisis is a time outside of reality. Hostage and hostage taker become familiar, personalities and relationships grow facilitated by the glorious, mesmerising voice of the singer and the calm intelligence of the interpreter.

I thought the ending was pretty good considering the novel is mapped loosely to the kidnapping in Peru in the 1980's. Five stars.

100. Five Quarters of the Orange, Joanne Harris, 2001

Orange Prize longlist 2002

Discomfiting book about a three French children and their migraine-affected mother surviving during the German occupation. A secret survives with Framboise who also has the knowledge of her mother's famous cookery. Harris really did like serving bitter characters before the sweet finale.

Time to update: July reading continued:

101. Singing the Sadness, Reginald Hill, 1995

Joe Sixsmith crime story. Light entertainment.

102. The Tenderness of Wolves, Stef Penney, 2006

Really enjoyed this murder mystery in pioneering Canada.

103. Digging to America, Ann Tyler, 2006

A story of families, American and second generation immigrant Iraqis, adopting from Korea.

104. Stardust, Neil Gaiman, 1999

A delightful fantasy.

105. Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai, 2006

Challenging story of post colonial India. Terrific descriptions of place.

August

106. The Spare Room, Helen Garner, 2008

Splendid treatment of the difficulty of caring for the terminally ill and the strain on friendship.

107. The Secret Scripture, Sebastian Barry, 2008

Booker shortlist 2008. I liked it.

108-111. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe

Science fiction/fantasy which documents over four books Severian’s rise to Autarch from the guild of Torturers, a relic of an outdated governance system.

112. The Road, Cormac McCarthy, 2007

Magnificent story of a father-son relationship in a horrifying post apocalyptic environment. Surprisingly touching and hopeful.

September

113. Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie, 1981

Rich, intense novelisation of the history of the India and Pakistan post partition as magical realism in the birth and life of Saleem Sinai.

114. The Lost Dog, Michelle de Kretser, 2008

Very dense. Themes; caring for an elderly mother, art, images in modern life, trust, love, the essential beast, Henry James, psychological study...

115. The Color Purple, Alice Walker, 1983

A new spirituality borne of oppression.

116. The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler, 1939

Great to read the original after having seen/read so many homages. Cynical gumshoe deals with low-lifes.

117. Hotel du Lac, Anita Brookner, 1984

Close study of women, love, integrity.

118. Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood,

Terrific mystery based on a real life criminal prosecution in Colonial Canada of a 15 year old for accessory to a double murder. Grace is an incredibly self contained woman who is interviewed 20 years later by a psychologist intent on recovering her memories of the incident. I loved how the chapters were headed by different quilting patterns. Expertly stitched.

119. Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds

Big Space Opera. My return to the genre after a long time. Good fun. Nearly thought I was going to be left with an annoying cliff hanger, but luckily the novel was resolved with two strong female characters free to pursue a new adventure.

Merry, I am enjoying your reviews. Many of the books on your list I have read or intend to read. It was an Alastair Reynolds that I read very early this year that made me want to revisit the SF genre as well!

Although I agree with your thoughts on almost all of "in common" books, I am currently reading The Secret Scripture and about 3/4 of the way through it, am finding it hard going. I just don't find any connection to it.

Thanks Judy. I did like Secret Scripture. You get a sense of how much influence the Church had on day to day life in Ireland. Tragically, in the case of the old inmate. Perhaps it's difficult to feel its relevance here in modern Australia. Yet the old lady had a "goodness" that rose above all her travails and could recognise goodness in unobvious people.

I've been looking at your SF choices too. I've heard Hyperion is excellent, so will look out for that.

I loved The Road so much when I read it last year. I still think about that story. They're making it into a movie - not sure how that will work.

Great reviews!

judy, meg; I've been following your SF reading with interest. I have read great amounts of SF in the past but not much these days. Guess I feel a lot of it is same old, same old. Michael still has a steady diet of it, so I read it vicariously through him!

Actually, I do read still some (beyond dystopias, that is) when it intrigues me.

Interesting, I was just given an advanced reader's copy of an anthology of Australian SF edited by Jack Dann (my old bookstore bosses still slip me these sometimes). I've left it in the hands of my hubby.

Avaland, I think Margo Lanagan may have some new stories in that anthology. Will look out for it.

Yes, I think I noticed that. Seems she is due for another collection also...

As for other Aussie faves in the family. My oldest daughter was a big Sara Douglass fan back before she started getting published over here (I ordered the books from Oz). I think she's outgrown it now. And my husband is a big Greg Egan fan. I've read 2 or 3 of them also. I've been meaning to read that first Sean McMullen novel about the librarians at war (in space) but have never gotten around to it.

120. Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure, Michael Chabon, 2007

A rollicking adventure of Two Musketeer style characters.

121. Sexy, Joyce Carol Oates, 2005

Great insight into a teenage boy's development of independent judgement in the face of a school scandal.

I liked Gentlemen of the Road very much. My first Chabon book!

Interesting review of the Oates YA novel. I've not been following her YA stuff, I can't even keep up with her adult fiction, much less the backlog, the poetry and the essays! :-)

HERE'S a link to a Joyce Carol Oates homepage if you're interested in exploring her writing further. The site has posted the text of her most 'taught' short story, dedicated to Bob Dylan (inspired by one of his songs apparently). Lots of information here, don't want to overwhelm you but I find the woman and her work fascinating at this stage of my life (unlike the 70s when I just couldn't read her).

Not sure that link worked with html code, so here it is flat out:
http://jco.usfca.edu/index.html

Avaland - I was amazed just how much Oates had to say layered in such a short book. Very insightful. I picked up her shortest novel I could find as an introduction and was riveted. Thanks for the link.

merry10: Love your thread.

October reading:

122. The Iliad, Homer, trans. R. Fagles

The clashing energy of war; Greek and Trojan heroes strain for victory inspired and thwarted in turn by the gods.

123. Homer's the Iliad and the Odyssey: A book that shook the world, Alberto Manguel

A bewildering introduction to studies in ancient Classics. Further reading required.

124. Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders, John Mortimer

Light relief.

125. Nation, Terry Pratchett

More entertaining reading from a favourite author.

126. The Odyssey, Homer, trans. R. Fagles

Fabulous drama as Odysseus struggles to return home to Penelope twenty years after leaving for the Trojan war.

November reading

127. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer.

Charming novel of letters telling of the effects of the German occupation in the Channel Islands. Highly recommended.

128. 84, Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff

The charming predecessor of The Guernsey Literary Society. An exchange of letters between a scriptwriter and an English second-hand bookshop during the late 1940's and early 1950's.

Thanks Merry - I'll def check out Dalziel and Pascoe! Some Homer recently I see - did you enjoy?

Yeah, I was wondering about the Homer too. I had to read excerpts of the Iliad and the Odyssey for my class, and it was just gibberish to me. So I tried to take the time to read them in their entirety, thinking something would make sense. Just couldn't do it. The Iliad was just testosterone charged violence, but I had hope for the Odyssey. Couldn't do that one either. The style just turns me right off. Great stories though. Fortunately, all the other Greek stuff I had to read was much more accessible, and I picked up the stories anyway. I may try the Odyssey again one day, but not the Iliad. Did you enjoy them? Did you find it to be work?

I definitely enjoyed the Homer. In fact, it could be quite easy to get geeky about it and search out some translations for comparisons, to eventually attempt to read it in the original language. Maybe.

The Iliad was a slog, but after changing my reading style, slowing down, only reading short sections, you soon learn to relax your attention to repeats and pay attention to the variations. You see a whole different masculine world, and the tragic consequences of Achilles' anger.

The Odyssey had more variety of adventures, many of which we're already familiar with through children's renditions of Greek myths and legends. To read the original allows you to learn (however indirectly) the personality of Odysseus, who is more thoughtful, and strategic (crafty) than the heroes of the Iliad. You get a good picture of individual personalities and relationships, especially Penelope and Telemachus, his son.

It took me a month to read both these books, when usually I might read two in a week. I'm quite sure I could read other translations much quicker now. But it's a month of Australian literature now, and maybe that Cloudstreet!

Well, I must say you've inspired me. I will try theOdyssey again one day. I'm happy to live my life without the Iliad though. Thanks for your thoughtful and encouraging comments.

129. The Folklore of Discworld, Terry Pratchett and Jaqueline Simpson.

Useful snippets for a Discworld fan.

130. Wanting, Richard Flanagan, 2008.

Highly recommended story of clash of culture, Victorian ideals and human nature. Mathinna, a Tasmanian Aboriginal girl is adopted by Lady Jane, the wife of the Governer of Tasmania. Nineteen years later, her husband, John Franklin, is discovered dead in the freezing ice having unsuccessfully searched for the Northwest Passage. Lady Jane urges Charles Dickens to defend his reputation against the discoverer who accuses the lost crew of cannibalism.

I've been interested in Wanting. If you like it, I'll read it. Thanks.

131. The Lieutenant, Kate Grenville, 2008. Potential spoilers.

Daniel Rooke is a mathematical savant astronomer with the requisite poor social skills that leave him the outsider in his social milieu. Thus Grenville allows Rooke the ability to view the First Fleet's colony and relationship to the Aboriginal people more objectively and with less regard to careerist ambition than other more socially fluent officers.

Rooke develops a friendship with Tagaran, a quick witted native girl. She helps Rooke with his collection of Aboriginal words and grammar and gives him a sense of his more social self.

A charming story that can't have a bigger narrative arc because of the constraints of historical fact. Daniel Rooke is based on the real William Dawes. I liked it.

I liked The Lieutenant too meg. Wanting sounds good too.

Hi Amanda and Judy

Wanting is a tricky book to describe and I feel I have to tell you more. It is quite odd, how Mathinna's story is told and entwined with a story of Charles Dicken's own midlife crisis that occurs 19 years later.

Richard Flanagan is really talking about passion, desire, wanting and its effects on the courses of events and lives. Charles Dickens plays a central role, and I found that quite disconcerting for a while. It is done well though, and it feels like Flanagan is examining a mid-life crisis from a mature and experienced viewpoint. If you do read it, I wonder what you will make of it.

132. Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood, 2003

Margaret Atwood has a very mordant sense of humour. I enjoyed this dystopia and found her style able to create a believable narrative. A cynical observation of our current lifestyle preoccupations and the social and political mores with which we live.

Just how far will we go with genetic engineering to give ourselves what we want?

133. Curious Pursuits, Margaret Atwood.

I really enjoyed Margaret Atwood's occasional writing. There is a real insight into her novel crafting, the issues that are important to her, her family background, Canadian literary circles and her broad reviews of the depiction of the female character in literary history. Loved it. Hope my daughter might like to read it.

There is an essay on Sir John Franklin's doomed expedition to discover the Northwest Passage which provided me with some more background to understand Richard Flanagan's Wanting. Curiouser and curiouser. The expedition had inspired other Canadian poets and writers as well.

134. Cloudstreet, Tim Winton, 1991

I loved this novel of two Australian families living at Number 1 Cloud Street. It's the Australian experience, taking in the Depression, the War and the hard years of the early 50's. The Australian vernacular is spot on. Loved the extra zing provided by the magical realism.

Love your reviews Meg.

Enjoying reading about your books. Have you read Winton's The Riders yet? If so how do you think it compares to Cloudstreet? I will have to reread Cloudstreet after just finishing The Riders - I would find it hard right now to say which of the two I prefer.

>176 judylou: Judy, I haven't read The Riders yet. Still on Australian authors though.

135. The Orchard, Drusilla Modjeska, 1994

Three interlinked stories combining biography, art history and folk fable to create a fictional memoir of woman musing on her past and her growth into a centred self and the life paths of other women.

There are comments on Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, and the novel includes a metaphor for self actualization, a fable of a princess with silver hands. It's occasionally hard to keep hold of but The Orchard contains some rewarding reflections for creative women of independent thought.

136. The Getting of Wisdom, Henry Handel Richardson,

A story of Laura, a young, passionate and unwise girl, struggling to understand the unwritten rules of the boarding school's rich and well connected students and the impatient staff.

Interesting to know that this is an autobiographical fiction of Richardson's own experience at the Presbyterian Ladies College in Melbourne.

137. Maestro, Peter Goldsworthy, 1989

A wonderful coming of age story about striving for perfection and the mystery surrounding Paul Crabbe's piano teacher. I really enjoyed it.

I'm glad you liked Maestro; I am a great fan of Goldsworthy.

Judy, I happened to check your 2007 thread looking for other people's reactions to Maestro. We have read a lot of books in common!

138. Picnic at Hanging Rock, Joan Lindsay, 1967

Marvellously atmospheric novel about the mystery of three girls missing after seen climbing the Rock and the consequent effects on the boarding school and its occupants. A real gothic feel. I saw the film in my teens and both it and the book are fantastic.

Two books that have surprisingly intersecting themes, withdrawal from the outer world, mother-love, growing up into new identities and relationships.

139. Burning Marguerite, Elizabeth Inness-Brown, 2002

Marguerite is a loner, returning to her family home an older woman, after her father has passed away. She is asked to take care of a boy for a young couple working, and makes the child her own after their tragic deaths. It's a terrific novel about true family love, full of imagery of growing, gardening, drawing, quilting, the cycle of nature, death/life, barrenness/generosity and a touchstone image of fire and ice. Excellent.

140. Tender Morsels, Margo Lanagan, 2008

A number of Grimm fairytales are woven into this novel of village life and the vulnerability of women in isolated, violent circumstances. Abuse and gang-rape set the scene for Liga's withdrawal into a magically created other-world to bring up her two daughters in peace and safety. The description of Liga finding her way in her magically made heaven made me feel quite teary.

Branza and Urdda grow into beautiful young women who find their way back to the real world and adjust to living a real life with all the difficulties that real people bring. And they lived happily ever after - as well as anyone in the real world can. An excellent folk telling with real wisdom.

Meg, I liked Burning Marguerite.

>184 amandameale: me, too:-)

Sounds good. I'm adding it to my tbr, thanks!

141. Speed of Dark, Elizabeth Moon, 2003

Near future speculative fiction on a cure for the last cohort of adult autistics. Corporate thriller. Well researched. Much in common with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime and Flowers for Algernon.

That one sounds interesting Meg. Should I add it to my TBR?

I think you'd like it Judy. The first third of the novel passes slowly due to the autistic first person narrative but then it speeds up to the corporate thriller it becomes.

142. Sea of Poppies, Amitav Ghosh, 2008

Wonderfully entertaining historical fiction set just before the Opium Wars. A group of people from India are brought together on the slaver ship The Ibis and transported to Mauritius as crew and indentured labour. Great page-turner, with several historical dictionaries poured in as well.

Meg I have wanted to read Sea of Poppies for ages. I just can't seem to get in the mood for it. Oh well, hopefully next year . . .

Meg, I read Burning Marguerite and loved it. Thanks again for the recommendation!

You're welcome Akeela. I loved your review.

143. The Time We Have Taken, Steve Carroll, 2008

Miles Franklin Winner, 2008.

This is the third novel in a trilogy starting with The Art of the Engine Driver and The Gift of Speed. All the novels feature the characters Vic, Rita and Michael and an Australian suburb on the fringes of Melbourne at a certain moment in the Age of the Spirit of Progress (also the name of a real Victorian train).

Steve Carroll has this amazing ability to write the spaces in between thoughts so each chapter is a meditation on a moment. There is a celebration of the suburb's centenary and the unveiling of a mural. Excellent.

Meg, I tried reading the first in this trilogy earlier this year, but it just didn't work for me. Have you read the first two? Is it possible to read just the third one? I feel like I should try it again.

The Time We Have Taken is meditative, reflective and slowly builds on you. I was quite prepared for this, having just finished the fast paced Sea of Poppies. I haven't read the first two, but I will seek them out. I'll choose a time when my mind is quite happy to hover in and out.

PS Did you ever travel on the Spirit of Progress?

I read The Time We Have Taken a few weeks ago and thought is was very good. I am very surprised to here that it is a trilogy.

It was sent to me by an Aussie friend, Amanda, and is not available in Canada (as far as I can tell), which really surprised me. So you probably will not get much talk about it from overseas LTers. Truthfully, I thought it was a more engaging read than Sea Of Poppies - Ghosh told a great story but the first 150 pages were a bit of a slog for me.

Kiwidoc, I know what you mean about the start of Sea of Poppies but I enjoyed the swash and buckle too.

Steve Carroll's writing in this trilogy is set in an unnamed suburb, but very much based on his growing up in Glenroy. I wonder if he will get wider recognition, now that he's won the Miles Franklin. The Art of the Engine Driver was shortlisted in 2005 for the Prix Femina, France's prize for foreign fiction.

144. Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo, Tim Winton, 1990

Hugely likeable YA novel about moving to a new high school, first love and staying true to yourself. Tim Winton draws on his own experience growing up in a WA country town near the surf.

Meg, don't you love those Lockie Leonard stories!

I traveled on the Spirit of Progress so many times between Sydney and Melbourne in the late 70's that I think I was considered a regular!!

>193 merry10: Well, thank you!

145. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian, Sherman Alexie

Blackly humorous story of a young Native American who decides to attend the middle class white high school 22km from home. This would have to be my all time favourite YA novel for this year. Sherman Alexie is incredibly funny and relentless. I read half the book laughing with my throat choked up. Five stars

Every Aboriginal Australian kid living outside mainland cities could relate to this book, but none of them would have a Reardon within 100 kilometres.

146. The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman

Charming story of an orphan brought up by graveyard ghosts and a mysterious undead protector named Silas. American Gods without the gods for kids. Four stars.

Great to hear that you liked The Absolutely True diary of a Part-time Indian My daughter and I were browsing through it and laughing this past summer, but I'm waiting until it's out in paper back before I buy it. It looks great.

Another two added! I discovered Gaiman this year and just think he is wonderful. Book no 145 sounds very interesting too.

147. Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, Maryanne Wolf, 2007

The neurophysiology of reading. Terrific pulling together of current research and anecdotes of how it feels to leap into fluent reading by noted authors. Having a third child who isn't flying into reading fluency while surrounded by books and enthusiastic readers makes Proust and the Squid fascinating reading.

148. Minimum of Two, Tim Winton, 1987

Gutwrenching series of short stories about love, loyalty and the edge of desperation. Combi-van dramas observing the tribulations of masculine identity and young adulthood.

The Proust and the Squid one sounds very interesting. Adding it to my TBR list. Thanks!

149. Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome, 1889

Comic novel of three men holidaying in a camping skiff boating up the Thames. Laugh out loud moments. Gentle holiday reading.

150. The Dog Who Wouldn't Be, Farley Mowat, 1957

Farley Mowat's humorous memoir of his dog Mutt. The book opens in 1929 in Saskatoon, where Farley's mother forestalls her husband's purchase of an expensive hound by accepting a small starving puppy. Enjoyable dog stories in a remarkable childhood.

151. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, 1843

Scrooge redeems himself from selfishness by the lessons of the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Yet To Come. Just lovely.

152. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding, 1996

Very, very funny. Perfect holiday reading.

153. Life of Pi, Yann Martel, 2001

Canadian author, Booker Prize winner 2002. Fantasy of a young man who survives the sinking of a ship with a Bengal tiger for company. Striking, entertaining and thought provoking. Better than I expected.

154. Aspects of the Novel, E.M. Forster, 1927

Imagine literary criticism in 1927! I read this in high school in a very shallow and literal minded fashion. I think the only novel I had in common was Pride and Prejudice. This time around I have a much better idea of what E.M. Forster was talking about.

I am glad to hear you liked The Life of Pi. It is one of my favourite books.

155. The Arrival, Shaun Tan, 2006

Exquisitely detailed graphic novel of the immigrant experience. The fantasy setting, animals and machines helps the reader understand the unsettling strangeness of being unable, at first, to navigate the language and customs of a new country. Truly brilliant.

And the winner is . . . .

Meg, I was pipped at the post with 154 books read! LOL!!!!

BTW I agree with your comments on The Arrival.

What a race Judy! I hadn't realised I'd caught up. Thank you for line honours - we can swap at the end of the year.

Reading Roundup for 2008

2008 was a phenomenal year for my reading. Thanks to LT I became totally addicted to reading great books and couldn’t wait to get to the next one.

Quote from my first post – “Goals for this year (2008) include reading more Australian fiction, literary fiction outside the mainstream and older classics.”

I was very happy with the books I read. I must be a high scorer because about 50 made it to 5 stars and 40 made it to 4.5 stars another 30 4 stars.

I read about 155 books, of which

46 were Australian authors (including 6 Miles Franklin award winners – best Cloudstreet)

83 were women writers

8 Booker prize winners

20 from the Booker longlist (best Fingersmith)

7 Pulitzer prize winners (best To Kill a Mockingbird)

5 Orange Prize winners (best The Idea of Perfection)

23 Orange Prize longlisters (a fabulous count)

50 from the 1001 books to read before you die list including

15 older classics (pre 1930) (best Anna Karenina, Middlemarch and Wuthering Heights)

10 science fiction novels (best Black Juice by Margo Lanagan)

12 were non-fiction reads relating to neuropsychology and science, Australia’s water crisis, writing, literary criticism and food ethics. Best Margaret Atwood’s Curious Pursuits.

My favourite 20th Century books not otherwise mentioned were Wise Children, The Road by Cormac McCarthy and Alias Grace.

My favourite Australian books of 2008 were The Spare Room by Helen Garner, Breath by Tim Winton, Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan, the Lieutenant by Kate Grenville and Wanting by Richard Flanagan.

My favourite YA novel was Sherman Alexie’s The Amazing True Diary of a Part Time Indian followed by Sonya Hartnett’s The Ghost’s Child.

Best book by an Aboriginal Australian author, Don’t Take Your Love to Town by Ruby Langford.

My new thread for 2009 is http://www.librarything.com/topic/53451

Wow. Really interesting and impressive analysis of your reading year. I should review mine in a similar fashion.

can someone tell me what exactly happen in the book sexy by joyce carol oates? In the book she doesnt say it, i just finished it and i am very confused!

Hi Sammm

Nothing physical happens in the book. The drama happens because a boy felt uncomfortable once with a teacher. Three other boys make false allegations to punish the teacher for a bad mark. When the staff of the school and the police interview the boy he looks uncomfortable and they interpret that as evidence against the teacher. The teacher is stood down and is devastated by the loss of reputation. He dies in a car accident.

Are all gay teachers pedophiles? (Of course not!)

Should we believe everything we hear?

Is the boy gay if he speaks up and defends the teacher? Would anyone listen anyway?

Who really listens to the boy and understands him and his dilemma?

How does the boy feel when the teacher is stood down? When the teacher asks him to speak up, what does he do? Why didn't he speak?

How does he feel after the teacher's death?

Whose fault was it? The false allegations? The school's response? The boy not speaking up? society's attitude to homosexuality?

What kind of person is the boy before the incident? What kind of person after?