Reading list
Currently reading
The French Art of Not Trying Too Hard, Ollivier Pourriol (translated by Helen Stevenson)
I like that this book evolved from a dinner-table conversation between friends. No effort, but the delicious surrendering to a juicy idea divinely delivered.
A Pocketful of Happiness, Richard E. Grant (audiobook)
2024 reading list
Morning, Noon and Night, Sidney Sheldon
I moved into a new home in January. It prompted a cull of my hundreds of books, many of them unread, including this Sheldon novel which I forgot I had.
A beloved aunt always had a Sheldon novel on her bedside table, and I suspect it’s that memory that prompted me to buy this book. My curiosity is now satisfied, but this was the reading equivalent of a sugar hit; it left me undernourished.
Farewell, My Lovely, Raymond Chandler
I adore hardboiled detective fiction from the 1930s. I came at the books through my love of Humphrey Bogart, who played private detective Sam Spade in the film adaptation of Dashiel Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon and also Raymond Chandler’s private detective Philip Marlowe in the adaptation of Chandler’s first novel, The Big Sleep.
There is something alluring about the vernacular Chandler employs, especially for Marlowe, who also appears in this, his second novel from 1940, and whose commentary forms the narrative voice. It has a piquancy, a concision; it’s intelligent and intended to be provocative: Marlowe likes to be on the edge of respectability. He likes testing reactions to his bone-dry wit. His way of speaking is magnetic – it’s designed to make him memorable as he goes about his investigative business. It’s also loaded with innuendo, reliably delivering sexual tension with the broad range of women characters Chandler hands up to Marlowe, who is no stranger to a casual dalliance. The way Chandler expresses these encounters, and how he feels about them, is a master stroke.
Chandler is also a master of simile and metaphor. He crams his books with them. Here are a few of my favourites:
The wet air was as cold as the ashes of love.
Darkness prowled slowly on the hills.
I felt as cold as Finnegan’s feet, the day they buried him.
All I need is a silver tongue and the one I have is like a lizard’s back.
He looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.
And look at the way he describes a fellow. Just wonderful:
His forehead was narrow and brainy and his eyes held a delicate menace… His dinner clothes were midnight blue, I judged, because they looked so black. I thought his pearl was a little too large, but that might have been jealousy.
Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World, Rita Golden Gelman
Intrepide: Australian Women Artists in Early Twentieth-Century France, Clem Gorman and Therese Gorman
The Language of the Feet, Chris Stormer
As a student of reflexology, this is the first of many books I intend to read about this ancient natural therapy. Soon to graduate, I wish reflexology to be an additional vocation to my working with words.
A Carnival of Snackery, David Sedaris
Audiobook, narrated by David Sedaris and Tracey Ullman.
Dear Life, Alice Munro
My partner thoughtfully gave me this book to read on a flight to New York. I find it near impossible to read on planes, and had given up trying, but happily could manage Munro’s short stories. While I first read this book in 2022, it was a joy to revisit her evocative mini-worlds.
Four Letters of Love, Niall Williams
This is one of my most treasured novels. I first fell in love with it in the late 1990s. Since then, I have read it several times. The latest read was ahead of seeing the Polly Steele-directed film version at the British Film Festival 2024. Williams himself wrote the screenplay. Here’s an excerpt from the book, his debut novel:
When the letter arrived it was his wife, as usual, who read it. It was one of her pleasures, her husband knew, to be the first to open and read their post … While he read, then, his wife let the news run around inside her. If it was bad, it went deep and quiet and quick to an unreachable place, and even when her husband stopped reading she would say nothing, swallowing the lumps of grief and getting up from the table to wash her hands. If it was good, as it was this time, the news would pop and bubble inside her mouth, she’d start a kind of captured giggle, trying to hold it between her lips until Muiris had finished reading and would look up with the smile that warmed her from her toes and freed the lightness of her laughter.
The Position of Spoons and Other Intimacies, Deborah Levy
I returned from a fortnight in New York this November with 19 new books in my luggage. This was one of them, purchased in Powerhouse Arena bookstore in Brooklyn. As usual, I enjoyed spending time with Levy’s words.
A Waiter in Paris: Adventures in the Dark Heart of the City, Edward Chisholm (audiobook)
2023 reading list
The Weekend, Charlotte Wood
The Peter File, Joshua Humphreys
This is a comedy novel! I enjoyed its abundant word play, its raucous and memorable cast of characters, and it even has a Seinfeld reference. A truly unique read.
Lady Gregory’s Toothbrush, Colm Tóibín
Inheritance, Barbara Hannay
The Gift of Speed, Steven Carroll
I enjoyed this book, bringing back three characters from Carroll’s previous novel, The Art of the Engine Driver. Teenage Michael dreams of one day bowling for the Australian cricket team. This extract is about his being at the Melbourne Cricket Ground as a spectator:
He sits in the only place on earth to which he knows he can bring his dreams and be certain that the place will take them in.
The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben
I most enjoyed reading this educational and important book sitting below various trees in Paris in the springtime. I honour Wohlleben’s dedication to the health of our Earth, and his love of trees.
Things I Don’t Want to Know, Deborah Levy
The Cost of Living, Deborah Levy
Real Estate, Deborah Levy
While in Paris, and on the recommendation of a trusted and dear colleague, I first picked up a Levy book. To make the purchase, I took a trip to the stunning Librairie Galignani. Booksellers since 1801, Galignani is worth a visit whether or not you come away with a readable souvenir.
The joy of browsing the shelves of this beautiful bookshop was only topped by the pleasure of diving into the above trilogy of Levy’s ‘living autobiographies’. They were marvellous: I felt as though I were seated round her table as she shared intimate stories of her life. Each book transported me, and I devoured one after the other. They’re books I’ll read once a year; perhaps each spring as a tribute.
August Blue, Deborah Levy
In addition to her autobiographical trilogy, I also came away with Levy’s latest novel. Mesmerising.
2022 reading list
Taste: My Life Through Food, Stanley Tucci
I liked this book, a Christmas gift from my sister-in-law, celebrating good food, preparing, serving and eating it, and the connection it allows you to form with others, familiar and otherwise. While it’s peppered with mouth-watering recipes, all I want after reading it is a martini. Tucci loves a cocktail.
The Collected Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Parker
This 1974 edition reproduces stories and poems Parker first chose for a collection published in 1944. It also includes some of her book and play reviews that first appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire and Vanity Fair.
What a wit she was. I love her. There are countless laugh-out-loud moments here. Here’s one of her poems:
Sanctuary
My land is bare of chattering folk;
The clouds are low along the ridges.
And sweet’s the air with curly smoke
From all my burning bridges.
Tall Tales and Wee Stories, Billy Connolly
I couldn’t help but hear Connolly’s voice throughout, which made this book come alive:
I do stray sometimes into political incorrectness, and I do not fucking care one bit… I’m telling a joke! Shut the fuck up and get a life!
Modoc: The True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived, Ralph Helfer
An astonishing case of fact being stranger than fiction, this is one helluva love, dedication and reunion story between man and elephant.
Dear Life, Alice Munro
This collection of short stories was my first foray into the work of the 2013 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Canadian Alice Munro. This, from ‘Amundsen’:
Both nurses and aides disliked the CBC which I had been brought up to believe was bringing culture to the hinterlands. Yet they were in awe of Dr. Fox partly because he had read so many books.
They also said that there was nobody like him to tear a strip off you if he felt like it.
I couldn’t figure out if they felt there was a connection between reading a lot of books and tearing a strip off.
The Cattleman’s Journey, Barbara Hannay
The Secret Years, Barbara Hannay
The Paris Model, Alexandra Joel
Notes from Underground, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Devotion, Hannah Kent
I breathed lung-deep, imagined that I exhaled dust. The relief of the forest was exquisite.
The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart, Holly Ringland
All the Lovers in the Night, Meiko Kawakami
Greenlights, Matthew McConaughey
I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. I only picked it up on a solid recommendation; it’s insightful and entertaining. McConaughey’s life has been jam-packed with adventures in his first half-century.
This is an extract from a poem titled, ‘Why we all need a walkabout’:
Noise-to-signal ratio
We are more constantly bombarded by unnatural stimuli than ever before.
We need to put ourselves in places of decreased sensory input so we can hear the background signals of our psychological processes.
As the noise decreases, the signals become clearer.
The Labyrinth, Amanda Lohrey
Exhausted, I go to bed early again and for the first time in a long while sleep an unbroken sleep that lasts until dawn. When I wake my body is soft; it feels as if in my dreamless state I have known mercy, showered in an unearned grace.
2021 reading list
Sour Heart, Jenny Zhang
Extraordinary.
Anne of Green Gables – Rilla of Ingleside, L.M. Montgomery
The book equivalent of comfort food, rereading this treasured series was the perfect way to ease into the new year.
Conversations with Friends, Sally Rooney
Uphill after Lunch, Melbourne Women’s Walking Club, 1922–1985
I’m editing a book to commemorate the upcoming centenary of the Melbourne Women’s Walking Club, of which I’m a proud member. Uphill after Lunch is the Club’s first book. It’s a pleasure to read about the founding members and humbling to realise what a total woos I am in comparison. The women went on moonlight as well as day and weekend walks, camped under the stars in all kinds of weather and ascended the mountains around Melbourne in their very little spare time (most workers had only two or three weeks’ annual leave in those days, and many worked on Saturday mornings, too).
The first moonlight walk was in 1934 to Mt Dandenong, and for some members was their first with the Club.
It was a large group that walked up the mount and the tramp of their feet on the empty roads awoke every dog as they passed. Spending a freezing night on the summit without sleeping bags didn’t deter the newcomers.
I aspire to be even a fraction as intrepid as these hardy women with the most attractive attitude to life: explore, be curious – just go.
World Travel: An Irreverent Guide, Anthony Bourdain with Laurie Woolever
Loosely planned before his death in June 2018, Anthony Bourdain’s ‘lieutenant’, writer and editor Laurie Woolever, took over the completion of this book. I bought it to travel vicariously but also to revel in Bourdain’s unique use of language and adamant honesty.
Paris and the French are easy to get wrong… You feel obliged to embrace the stereotype, and of course, to some extent, the stereotypes are true – indulgent, arty, Socialist, what with their free medical care and their long vacations and their anti-American propensity for high quality of life. They suffer from the burden of a tradition of fabulously oozing cheeses, rich sauces, historic wines, the kind of thing that tends to pigeonhole a culture, make you think it’s all luxury and sodomy. But it ain’t all snooty waiters and haute cuisine… People are actually nicer. Good food is cheaper and more casual…
The book incorporates stories about Bourdain by his brother Christopher Bourdain and various chefs with whom he’d connected over many years, including Bill Buford and Jen Agg. In Australia, Melbourne was his favourite place. Good man.
Is This Anything?, Jerry Seinfeld
This collection of material from the earliest days of Jerry’s comedy career up to 2021 was fun to dive into.
Apricots on the Nile, Colette Rossant
I’m finding it hard to focus on books this year. This memoir by an American–French woman, with recipes thrown in, was nice and short; a pleasant weekend read.
First Person Singular, Haruki Murakami
I can’t put down a Murakami. I finished this short story collection within 24 hours. I think my reading mojo’s back.
From ‘Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey’:
The monkey blinked widely several times. His long eyelashes waved up and down like palm fronds in the breeze. He took a big, slow breath, the kind of deep breath a long jumper takes before he starts to run.
“I believe that love is the indispensable fuel that allows us to go on living. Someday that love may end. Or it may never amount to anything. But even if love fades away, even if it’s unrequited, you can still hold on to the memory of having loved someone, of having fallen in love with someone. And that’s a valuable source of warmth.”
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, Roddy Doyle
I’m glad a friend left this with me. A vivid depiction of boyhood in 1960s and 70s Ireland, it plays with your heart-strings and then saves the strongest pull for the end.
There is something otherworldly about Irish authors’ ability.
The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
Masterful and full of love.
Missus, Ruth Park
I found a second-hand copy of Missus in the newly opened bookshop in town, called Pages.
I didn’t realise Missus was the first book in what became a trilogy – followed by The Harp in the South and Poor Man’s Orange. It was published decades after the first two novels.
The way Park writes, you can smell the dust of the land, the stench of desperation. I’d read her shopping list with devotion. The characters are so real, you feel you might bump into them at the pub.
A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
Mistry brings mid-1970s India to life in vivid stinking loud writhing despairing fashion.
Everywhere I Look, Helen Garner
A collection of essays that take you through the full gamut of emotions, reaching into corners of your soul to awaken those not stirred up for a while.
2020 reading list
Island Home, Tim Winton
Normal People, Sally Rooney
Penguin Bloom, Cameron Bloom and Bradley Trevor Greive
This book was a parting gift from a friend I made unexpectedly earlier this year. During Melbourne’s first lockdown, I escaped to the country to stay with my mum. Her neighbour Jane and I hit it off, and by the time I left, there were lots of hugs and tears and appreciation over our new friendship. I couldn’t read the book she gave me till now, knowing it was a deeply emotional story.
I was editing a very moving memoir written by a family friend (The Tales of Disco Chook: A Memoir by Tan Izzy) and riding the rollercoaster of emotions being back in Melbourne in time for second lockdown. My heart felt all wrung out, but now was the time to pick it up. Cue tears yet again. The story of Penguin Bloom is full of the devastating twists life can take, everyday miracles, and much like Tan’s memoir, celebrates the power of love.
Weather, Jenny Offill
Gee, this packs a punch. This I loved a lot:
Using the following scale, CIRCLE a number to indicate what you miss about when you were younger and how much you miss it.
1 = Not at all, 9 = Very much.
Not having to worry
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Not knowing sad or evil things
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings
Glorious.
THE POET COMPARES HUMAN NATURE TO THE OCEAN FROM WHICH WE CAME
The sea can do craziness, it can do smooth,
it can lie down like silk breathing
or toss havoc shoreward; it can givegifts or withhold all; it can rise, ebb, froth
like an incoming frenzy of fountains, or it can
sweet-talk entirely. As I can too,and so, no doubt, can you, and you.
The Fall of Light, Niall Williams
I fell in love with Niall Williams when I first read Four Letters of Love two decades ago. His writing is so evocative of the depth of human emotion and of the profundity of nature, I often cry reading his books. The beauty of his words undo me:
He stayed in that country a while. He watched the birds of prey high against the heavens like smallest flaws in the blue. He heard the prairie dogs in the night. When the ashes of love gathered in his mouth he stood and went off across the dark sending badgers and foxes and coyotes alike in scattered retreat. He walked and sometimes howled out and sometimes stopped and bent over and wept. He felt like a disease in the blood the shame of failed love and could not explain to himself how it had happened. After a time he returned to his horse and his bedroll and lay until the dawn.
In Full View, Lily Brett
‘Three things can’t be hidden: coughing, poverty and love.’
The Tales of Disco Chook: A Memoir, Tan Izzy
I had the pleasure of editing this moving and laugh-out-loud funny memoir this year. It was written by my family friend and all-round excellent human, Tan Izzy, during the first Melbourne lockdown, shortly after her beloved Mumma passed away.
One of the greatest gifts in the world is love.
To love, to feel loved and to experience love.
Tan’s conversational writing style makes you feel as though you’re with a mate in her backyard listening to stories over a few beers. It’s full of the stuff of life: substance and disappointment, strangeness and deep love. It was an honour and a joy to edit it. It’s a book easily devoured in a day, but one that will enrich you for a long time to come.
Mothers and Sons, Colm Tóibín
My Mother’s House, Colette
Colette’s autobiography resides in this slim book. It’s full of rich stories of her childhood made marvellous by her impressive mother and father.
Have you ever heard tell of Pelisson’s spider that so passionately loved music? I for one am ready to believe it and also to add, as my slender contribution to the sum of human knowledge, the story of the spider that my mother kept – as my father expressed it – on her ceiling, in that year that ushered in my sixteenth spring.
A handsome garden spider she was, her belly like a clove of garlic emblazoned with an ornate cross. In the daytime she slept, or hunted in the web that she had spun across the bedroom ceiling. But during the night, towards three o’clock in the morning, at the moment when her chronic insomnia caused my mother to relight the lamp and open her bedside book, the great spider would also wake, and after a careful survey would lower herself from the ceiling by a thread, directly above the little oil lamp upon which a bowl of chocolate simmered through the night.
Slowly she would descend, swinging limply to and fro like a big bead, and grasping the edge of the cup with all her eight legs, she would bend over head foremost and drink to satiety. Then she would draw herself ceiling-wards again, heavy with creamy chocolate, her ascent punctuated by the pauses and meditations imposed by an overloaded stomach, and would resume her post in the centre of her silken rigging.
Sido, Colette
Sido is Colette’s loving portrait of her mother, whom we come to admire as a woman of Earth and Nature, and of great skill from My Mother’s House.
Why did no one ever model or paint or carve that hand of Sido’s, tanned and wrinkled early by household tasks, gardening, cold water, and the sun, with its long, finely-tapering fingers and its beautiful, convex, oval nails?
Spirit of Progress, Steven Carroll
I’m still dipping in and out of Ruth Park’s Sydney, but going through a few fiction novels between times.
This one, set in post-war Melbourne, has a rhythm all its own, and sets just the kind of pace ideal for winter evening reading. Its stories are gently woven together and told with resonant reverence, its characters memorable, lovable, even. A good solid satisfying read.
A Stairway to Paradise, Madeleine St John
The Women in Black, Madeleine St John
The Apprentices, D’arcy Niland
Immersed in the Park/Niland back catalogue, I re-read this portrait of young couple, Barney and Nancy, scraping out their lives in inner city Sydney when the smoke of many factories polluted the air.
Niland draws such authentic characters, you’re convinced you must be reading non-fiction. I especially love his portrayal of inner worlds. Here, Barney is pondering the question of faith:
… he found he was getting out of his depth and that bewildered him. But he could see this: that faith is a reality, as real as a piece of wood, a garden, or anything else you see with your eyes. It didn’t have to depend on knowledge. In fact, anyone could have faith in something who had knowledge. Faith was what you had when you didn’t have knowledge. He had had faith about things, and later knowledge had just confirmed the truth of that faith.
Therefore, no man was a fool to have faith. When it wasn’t possible to have logic, reason, knowledge, it was possible to have faith. And that didn’t mean faith was a replacement for these things. It was a separate thing altogether. It existed on its own.
… it didn’t mean that everything would go smoothly, or that you didn’t have any part to play. There were bound to be upsets, worries, problems. You were given free will to help yourself out of these difficulties. That was where faith helped. … The natural thing to do then, was to have faith but at the same time help yourself.
Playing Beatie Bow, Ruth Park
I read this book as a child. I couldn’t recall many details when I picked it up again, but the frisson returned in a flash.
Re-entering the life of young Abigail Kirk, who finds herself in 19th-century The Rocks, Sydney, I felt completely immersed in her world, unaware of the hours passing. It’s the ideal choice for lockdown; time seems to have melted for us, too, as it does for Abigail.
I’m on a Ruth Park roll!
A Fence around the Cuckoo and Fishing in the Styx by Ruth Park
These books were the perfect choice after the crushing beauty of Wharton’s The Age of Innocence. Ruth Park’s two-volume autobiography is the opposite in every way to the high society of Wharton’s New York. It immersed me in the forests of New Zealand and Park’s childhood there and led me across the waters to 1940s Sydney and her hard-working life as a writer with new husband, fellow writer D’arcy Niland. Poverty is an ever-present stench permeating Park’s life; Sydney reeks of it.
The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
Don’t you love a book that has you staying up all through the night, engulfed in the pleasure of reading? I am obsessed with Wharton. Book four of hers, down.
In addition to this forest of family trees, Mr Sillerton Jackson carried between his narrow hollow temples, and under his soft thatch of silver hair, a register of most of the scandals and mysteries that had smouldered under the unruffled surface of New York society within the last fifty years. …
But these mysteries, and many others, were closely locked in Mr Jackson’s breast; for not only did his keen sense of honour forbid his repeating anything privately imparted, but he was fully aware that his reputation for discretion increased his opportunities of finding out what he wanted to know.
The Big Smoke, D’arcy Niland
I reckon Niland has to be one of Australia’s most underrated, unloved brilliant writers. With this book, he caused old Sydney’s clanking, clanging cacophony to ring in my ears, her mouldy sweaty smoky stench to linger in my nostrils.
The Touchstone, Edith Wharton
Wharton book three, down. (Including Ethan Frome, the first Wharton book I read a couple of years ago. I devoured it in one sitting, jaw hanging open in raptures at her writing. It’s an ideal book to read in winter.)
Old New York, Edith Wharton
I’ve embarked on a mission to read all the Edith Wharton books in my mother’s home library while I’m staying with her for a few weeks. This one, a collection of four novellas, was a deeply satisfying start.
Wharton has a way of drawing you right inside her world, and with her unwavering guidance, it’s a safe and delicious vantage point. More, please!
The Land Before Avocado, Richard Glover
Laugh-out-loud funny, this boosted my appreciation of living in the land of avocado, elusive homeownership notwithstanding.
The Deserted Newsroom, Gideon Haigh
Published in 2012, this is a quick and fascinating read, and as to be expected from the author, beautifully written.
From Matthew Pinkney, afl.com.au:
As a journalist, I’m guided by my intuition; I’m wary of statistics. But the management here, who are very smart business people, are very stats-driven and want to make editorial decisions based on metrics. That’s a reality today.
From Communications Minister Stephen Conroy:
The business model for breaking news is fucked.
From Alan Kohler, Australian Independent Business Media:
The idea of finding out what happened in the world in a newspaper is ridiculous. But the act of reading on paper has a lot to recommend it. It’s good for the eyes. It’s pleasing to the hands. It’s not entirely replaceable by anything.
Written on the Body, Jeanette Winterson
Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
Exquisite.
Reunited by a Baby Bombshell, Barbara Hannay
I read my first romance novel last year. It was awful – Janet Dailey’s The Master Fiddler (scroll down for my thoughts on it; also, do all romance novels have ridiculous titles?).
Australian author Barbara Hannay came recommended. I can see why. This was a light, entertaining read and I finished it in a few hours. In my nascent reading of this genre, I suspect Hannay is good because she mostly leaves the sex to your imagination. There were no cringeworthy scenes. Hannay here is also effective at building up tension, setting up a strong albeit predictable story and believable dialogue. I didn’t put the book down till it was finished. A Sunday afternoon pleasantly spent.
Salt, Bruce Pascoe
I started reading this at the end of 2019. It was the first book I finished in 2020.
Sometimes, reading Pascoe’s words feels intimate, as though he’s sharing his most private thoughts with you in a dark corner of the pub, and you want the moment to last forever. Other times, he’s retelling our country’s history, and it is imperative.
The history we accepted with such equanimity is unbelievable after rudimentary examination. The story with which I try to inspire my friends is from Charles Sturt’s journal of his desert expedition beginning in 1844. His second-in-command is dead, the doctor is critically ill with scurvy, and Sturt is almost blind from the same disease. Their horses can barely walk. Sturt climbs a dune and is hailed by 400 Aborigines. He is startled to find happy, healthy humans in a terrain that has claimed the lives of many white explorers and reduced his party to a tottering, vulnerable rabble.
Sturt comments on a courageous and generous act: the people have never seen a horse, but after they have sated the thirst of the stumbling explorers they turn to the strange beasts and reach out the coolamons so their fellow creatures may drink. The explorers, with teeth loose and gums inflamed from scurvy, are invited to dine on roasted duck and cakes baked from the grains the Aborigines have been harvesting. In the desert! Then they are offered their choice of three new houses in the village. House, crops, agriculture, baking?
We can accept that the world is round … but we cannot seem to accept as true or pertinent what the explorers witnessed of Aboriginal society and economy. European science has produced marvels, and its foundation principle is curiosity. Why are we not curious that Aboriginal people could cultivate crops in the desert? Why do we pay no attention to the dams and irrigation techniques employed? When our farmers are so threatened by droughts, salinity, erosion and crop diseases, why do we not investigate the crops and farming techniques developed over thousands of years to accommodate the challenging characteristics of this continent?
– extracted from the essay, ‘Andrew Bolt’s Disappointment’, pp.79–80
Studying Australia’s history at university, two descriptors summed up my impression of the British invaders: stupid and cruel. Stupid for rampantly destroying rather than learning from the thriving life right before their eyes. Cruel for the violence and brutality perpetrated on Indigenous Australians, and most especially for taking children away from their families.
My father was not born in this country, my family history is neither Aboriginal nor British. But I am of this land. I feel connected to its red earth, treasure witnessing deep impressions left in rock where women for time immemorial ground grain in central and northern Australia, learning how to read maps illustrating the local fauna and the nearest watering holes for the benefit of those to come. There is deep wisdom in this land, ultra sophistication of true civilisation. I am proud of the vast achievements of First Nations peoples, and celebrate their knowledge, sharpened over the ages, surviving against the harshest of odds.
Thank goodness for Pascoe, what a welcome voice.
2019 reading list
Like many of us, some years I read a lot more than others. This year, I’ve taken a conscious step away from the screen and spent as much of my spare time with a real book in hand, and it’s been a pleasure.
A couple of years ago, I imposed a ban on buying books after buying them far more quickly than I was able to read them. I have no regrets: one can never have too many books, and this year’s reading selections have by and large come from my home library. I also lifted the ban mid-way through the year, coinciding with the sad closure of a favoured second-hand bookshop, Grub Street Books in Fitzroy, from where I bought stacks of books in the months preceding and on the final weekend of its trading.
Here’s what I’ve read since Christmas 2018, in order of reading:
The Japanese Lover, Isabel Allende
We have a Little Library at work. This book came from there. It was a poor start to my year of reading. I felt as though I was skating on the periphery of a story.
Le Testament Francais, Andrei Makine
Any Ordinary Day, Leigh Sales
I went along to hear Sales speak about this book at the Atheneum in Melbourne. I read it in instalments and shed many tears each time.
Mailman of the Birdsville Track, Kristin Weidenbach
They built them tough back then. This is a biography of Tom Kruse, the rock solid man who delivered mail along the punishing 1,000km Birdsville Track from the 1930s. A fascinating slice of Australiana, it made me appreciate bitumen and air-conditioning in cars and fall in love with the reliable and oh so capable Kruse.
The Clock that Wouldn’t Stop, Elizabeth Ferrars
Dark Emu, Bruce Pascoe
Australia needs this book on school and university curriculums asap.
Dingoes’ Den, B. Wongar
Written under a pseudonym, this autobiography of a Serbian man is a captivating tale not only of the life of a maverick, but also of his love and respect for Australia’s Indigenous people, among whom he lived for many years in the 1960s and about whom he wrote extensively. While published internationally, his work was not nearly as welcome in Australia for its exposition of the destructive impact of government policy on Northern Territorians. Wongar writes fearlessly and with deep emotion. It’s a treasure of a book.
Only Say the Word, Niall Williams
Niall Williams is one of my favourite authors. I’ve been trying to track down Boy in the World for years, before I read my copy of its sequel, Boy and Man. He writes with a thread of melancholy I can’t resist, and the Irish landscape is an ever present character.
Deadly Kerfuffle, Tony Martin
Kerfuffle. Good word. I love Tony Martin.
Ripening Seed, Colette
Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
This was a first-time reading of this book. I missed it in childhood, and read it over a weekend away camping with friends. I adored it. It brought back fond memories for others, too.
Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
Isn’t this a tome? I wasn’t sure it was worth it at first, but its humour finally dawned on me. How did he so convincingly depict the classes and the genders?
Came Back to Show you I Could Fly, Robin Klein
I found this at Grub Street Books and bought it based on my remembered love at primary school of Klein’s book, Hating Alison Ashley. I proofread young adult fiction fairly often, and enjoy it. They’re marketed a certain way, but age doesn’t matter when it comes to a good and interesting book. I wanted only the best for these protagonists.
Border Districts, Gerald Murnane
After first hearing about Murnane only a few years ago on Chat 10 Looks 3, I was keen to read one of his books. This one was a birthday gift from my dear friend Judy this year. I now want to read all his other books. I found A Season on Earth at Happy Valley Books in Collingwood. It’s yet to be read.
Corfu: A Novel, Robert Dessaix
Ghost River, Tony Birch
Cheri and The Last of Cheri, Colette
Grub Street Books in Fitzroy had a whole stack of Colettes, which I happily took off their hands.
Voyage, Adele Geras
Another ‘young adult’ fiction, this was a lovely read about various passengers’ voyage to New York from 1904 Europe.
Rituals, Cees Nooteboom
Heartburn, Nora Ephron
Paris Letters, Janice MacLeod
This was a spontaneous gift from my darling friend Sheridan to cheer me up after a break-up. It helped a lot.
Whitethorn Woods, Maeve Binchy
Wildwood, Colin Meloy
I’d given this book to my god son who loved it, and lent it back to me to read so we could discuss it in depth. Treasured moments.
Love, Ghosts and Nose Hair, Steven Herrick
An Australian writer, Herrick’s poems/short stories are marketed to young people. I’ve read a few YA books this year, and enjoyed them all. This one had me traipsing round the Blue Mountains after the characters, whom I loved.
The 39 Steps, John Buchan
Emily of New Moon, Emily Climbs and Emily’s Quest, L.M. Montgomery
I’m an Anne girl. I had to read these. My mum lent me the first book in the series, as I’d found the others second-hand, but had no luck tracking down the first. Thanks, Mama.
Mullumbimby, Melissa Lucashenko
This was also lent to me by my mum, who’d read it with her book club and recommended it. I want to go to Mullumbimby again and see it in a whole new light.
The Captain’s Daughter and Other Stories, Alexander Pushkin
Snow and darkness. Get me some sunshine and light.
Saturdee, Norman Lindsay
Sunshine and light. Pure delight.
What’s it Like Out?, Penelope Gilliatt
Dubliners, James Joyce
After failing to persevere through the punishing Ulysses, I went back to the beginning. ReJoyce and all hail the Irish writer. I have to get to Dublin.
Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977 - 2002, David Sedaris
This book was an impulse-buy when I saw it in a bookshop window walking home from work on a rainy night in August. I first heard David Sedaris on an episode of This American Life years ago. My lovely friend Sarah introduced me to his many books, starting with Me Talk Pretty One Day and When You Are Engulfed in Flames. We went to hear him talk in Melbourne some years ago, and waited to have our books signed. Much to Sarah’s delight, he remembered her from at least a decade prior at a book signing in Sydney and called her ‘Boots’ noting her footwear from that time. What a treat!
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
This book was a birthday gift from my treasure of a cousin Jelena back in 2002. David Sedaris’ Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977 - 2002, was full of anecdotes about humans being complete assholes. I needed a good and lovely fable after that, and Coelho brought the magic.
The Dry, Jane Harper
I found this book in the Little Library set up by co-workers. It runs along a section of our eleventh floor windowsill. Crime novels are not something I usually read, except for the odd book by Ian Rankin, who a Scottish friend got me on to, or Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, who I love through my adoration of Humphrey Bogart who played their detectives so suavely on screen. But as avid readers everywhere can relate to, this book picked me. It had been a long time since a book distracted me. I wanted to drop everything for it. It was haunting, even gripping, as Annabel Crabb would say. I bloody loved it.
Feck Perfuction, James Victore
I found this on special at a bookshop on my way home from work. I’d gone in for Bruce Pascoe’s new book, Salt, and also came out with this. The title prompted me to pick it up. It irritated me — can’t we deal with the word fuck in print? Come on, book marketers. But Victore’s straight-shooting is very attractive, and I happily let the book accompany me to the bar on the way home. I loved this book, and feel it’s the kind I’ll be rereading long into the future.
The Goat, Anne Fleming
I found this gorgeous children’s book at a Little Library I stumbled upon in Fitzroy. I have read a fair few children’s and YA books this year, and have thoroughly enjoyed them all. I think it’s important not to worry so much about a category a book is sold in, but to go for it if its storyline appeals. I’ve got a lot out of these wonderful books, and shall read more.
The Master Fiddler, Janet Dailey
This was the first romance novel I’ve read, and I hated it. The young heroine is kidnapped by the older hero under threat of rape. He constantly man-handles her, bruising her upper arm with his grip and steering her by her elbow. It made me sick that that was accepted behaviour. It made no sense to me that she falls in love with someone who captures her against her will and in whose company she feels fearful and tense and on edge. She confuses sexual attraction for love, and he uses this confusion against her. She blames herself for everything that’s happening; shame is regularly dispensed. Is this a common theme in romance books? I dearly hope not. I will try again. Australian author Barbara Hannay comes highly recommended, so I’ll give her a go.
No Apologies, Joanne Brookfield
This excellent book about women in comedy was lent to me by a co-worker. Knowing I’m a comedy fan, she suspected I’d enjoy it, and she’s right. I loved hearing from comedians I love about the world they inhabit, its good, bad and very ugly bits. My respect for the many trailblazing women was renewed. Thanks, Al.
Only in New York, Lily Brett
Don’t you love an author whose writing makes you laugh out loud? And miss your tram stop? I adore this woman and her writing and her life. And reading about her father’s obsession with chocolate. Another pick from the Little Library at work. Thanks, Cath.
How to Climb Mont Blanc in a Skirt: A Handbook for the Lady Traveller, Mick Conefrey
I found this in a little library outside someone’s home in Freshwater, NSW. I met a whole host of intrepid women down through history, explorers, mountaineers, sailors and pilots, all of whom had a great deal of chutzpah. I’ll return the book when I’m next visiting family in Sydney.
Women Who Run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes
This book is phenomenal. I read a chapter at a time, with breaks in between to absorb the stories told and attempt to integrate them into my life experience and contemplation of various situations. Pinkola Estes is both a Jungian psychoanalyst and a cantadora, a keeper of stories. It’s an exquisitely written tome of great relevance, one I’ll reread again and again.