First Nations people are advised that this post contains the names of deceased people. It has been my reading group's tradition for some years now to read a book by a First Nations writer in July, the month in which NAIDOC Week occurs. Coincidentally, NAIDOC Week’s 2023 theme was “For our elders”, which worked beautifully with our … Continue reading Debra Dank, We come with this place (#BookReview)
Review – Non-fiction
Biff Ward, The third chopstick: Tracks through the Vietnam War (#BookReview)
Biff Ward's The third chopstick was my reading group's October selection. It's the second book by Ward that we've done, the first being her memoir, In my mother's hands (my review), about growing up with her academic father, the historian Russel Ward, and her mentally ill mother, at a time when mental illness was shameful … Continue reading Biff Ward, The third chopstick: Tracks through the Vietnam War (#BookReview)
Mark McKenna, Return to Uluru (#BookReview)
Mark McKenna's engrossing history, Return to Uluru, takes as its starting point the arrival in Central Australia, in 1931, of 29-year-old police officer, Bill McKinnon. Of course, Uluru's true history reaches back into the almost-incomprehensible mists of geological time, and its human history back to the arrival of Indigenous Australians tens of thousands of years … Continue reading Mark McKenna, Return to Uluru (#BookReview)
Jess Hill, See what you made me do (#BookReview)
I took me a long time to read Jess Hill's 2020 Stella award-winning See what you make me do, partly because I bought the e-book version which I read in fits and starts and partly because of its content. As the Aussies among you will know, Hill's book is an intense, thorough discussion of domestic … Continue reading Jess Hill, See what you made me do (#BookReview)
Sarah Krasnostein, The believer (#BookReview)
One of the reasons I love reading fiction is to be introduced to lives and cultures I know nothing about. This is less so in nonfiction, but Sarah Krasnostein's latest book, The believer, fits the brief. In it she explores questions concerning what people believe and why through six different people (or groups of people), … Continue reading Sarah Krasnostein, The believer (#BookReview)
Chrystopher J. Spicer: Cyclone country: The language of place and disaster in Australian literature (#BookReview)
I love thinking about place in literature, so I was intrigued when Chrystopher Spicer, cultural historian and adjunct senior research fellow at North Queensland's James Cook University, offered me his book Cyclone country: The language of place and disaster in Australian literature for review. Unfortunately, I've taken a while to get to it. Place can … Continue reading Chrystopher J. Spicer: Cyclone country: The language of place and disaster in Australian literature (#BookReview)
Sara Phillips (ed), The best Australian science writing 2020 (#BookReview)
In 2016, my reading group discussed the 2015 edition of The best Australian science writing. We enjoyed it so much that we decided to do it again, and so this month we read the 2020 (tenth anniversary) edition. Our discussion was as engaged as before (and the overall reasons I enjoyed this volume are the … Continue reading Sara Phillips (ed), The best Australian science writing 2020 (#BookReview)
Carolyn Collins and Roy Eccleston, Trailblazers: 100 inspiring South Australian women (#BookReview)
South Australia, say the authors of the beautiful coffee-table book Trailblazers, "was an early leader in women's rights, so it's no surprise that it has produced an army of trailblazing, inspirational women". However, they continue, their stories are not well enough told or known, hence this book! As with any endeavour like this, it was … Continue reading Carolyn Collins and Roy Eccleston, Trailblazers: 100 inspiring South Australian women (#BookReview)
Julia Baird, Phosphorescence (#BookReview)
Much as I love watching Julia Baird on The Drum, and much as Mr Gums and I worried about her multiple cancer diagnoses and her extended journey to recovery over recent years, I'm not sure I would have read her book, Phosphorescence: On awe, wonder and things that sustain you when the world goes dark, … Continue reading Julia Baird, Phosphorescence (#BookReview)
Chloe Hooper, The arsonist: A mind on fire (#BookReview)
It may not have been the most sensible decision to read Chloe Hooper's book, The arsonist, during Australia's worst-ever bushfire week, but in fact I picked it up a few days before the crisis became evident, and once I started I couldn't put it down. The arsonist tells the story of the man arrested and … Continue reading Chloe Hooper, The arsonist: A mind on fire (#BookReview)
Whispering Gums 