Twenty books I read in 2014.

I love to read. Anyone who has known me since I was a child will know that I was a book worm, always reading something. I usually had several books on the go – one on my bedside, one at the dining table, one in the living room – and as an adult, not much has changed.

Here's a list of books I read in 2014. Not making the list are the countless text books, case law and journal articles I have read – I'll spare you that!

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Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey
Possibly the best Australian fiction I have read, ever. Being made into a film directed by Rachel Perkins (see here). Familiar, confronting, raw.

The Road by Cormack McCarthy
I didn't really enjoy reading this but I did appreciate the starkness and the monochromatic, post-apocalyptic horror of the world depicted. I didn't enjoy the lack of apostrophes. Pissed me right off. So did the incomplete sentences.

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
Set in Iceland, I enjoyed the richly tactile and textural descriptions of the landscapes; the dim, cold interiors; the smells, sounds and touch of the characters and their environs (as previously noted in this post). This book tells story of the last woman in Iceland to be publicly executed.

Room by Emma Donohue
Do you ever think sometimes that every story is the variation of a theme, that nothing is new in this world? Sometimes I think that books are like this. When I was reading Room, however, I honestly thought that this is a story I don't think has been told in this way before. Took a bit of getting used to the voice, but an unusually fascinating read.

Tracks by Robyn Davidson
I wrote about my thoughts in this post.

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
I have a feeling this one will be on the bestsellers lists for a long time, and deservedly so. This was one of my top reads for the year. Art, drugs, lust, love, coming of age, family, identity, wealth, furniture restoration. All the important topics in life.

Maestro by Peter Goldsworthy
Technically this was a re-read, prompted by my regular visits to Darwin and memory of having read this at school. It becomes more interesting the more I learn about Darwin during that period of time before Cyclone Tracy. I wrote about re-reading it here.

Barracuda by Christos Tsiolkas
Read more in this post.

From Alice with Love by Jo Dutton
Read more in this post.

The Elegance of a Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
Read more in this post.

Triptych by Krissy Kneen
I picked up this book on sale at the local bookshop. I really enjoyed Kneen's style of writing. The subject matter, not always. The genre is erotica. Sometimes, with animals.

The Vagenda: A Zero Tolerance Guide to the Media by Holly Baxter and Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett
Ironically, I was reading this on a flight where I was seated next to two gentleman representing the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship, who spent the flight reading their Bibles. The irony of it was when they asked was I travelling for business or leisure? Would I have time for shopping while I was in Darwin? Hopefully I had some workmates who would look after me while I was there? Were they intentionally patronising? I don't believe so. Is that the crux of the problem? Absolutely. More here.

Deeper Water by Jessie Cole
I really liked this book. The descriptions of place were rich and vivid; I could almost smell the damp forest air. The story was well told and raised some interesting thoughts about the parallel life of a young woman growing up a step removed from mainstream culture and technology. The sense of place and character development were well done. The sense of 'other' was nicely explored without making the reader (me!) uncomfortable.

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
I enjoyed the voice of the protagonist in this book and felt it stayed true throughout the different stages of life being described. This is a book with quirks and twists and chimpanzees. There, I spoiled it...

Gravity by Mary Delahunty
A fascinating glimpse into the final year, both political and personal, of Australia's first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard by former journalist and Victorian state politician (and bearer of my family's surname) Mary Delahunty.

Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham
Do you like 'Girls'? I asked this question of my sister-in-law before I realised how it sounded. Of course, I meant the series created by and starring Lena Dunham. You don't need to have seen the show to appreciate the book. There's a great review of it here.

Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth
Rapunzel meets French Revolution. This book has the lot: legend, myth, magic, history, wealth, poverty, fashion, romance, deceit and even the Plague. There's bodice-ripping and there's gore.

Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg
I found myself nodding in agreement to many of the points explored in this book. Before reading it, I'd prepped myself to expect a corporate woman style of American evangelism. I consider myself as professional but not particularly 'corporate' in my approach to work. I didn't feel like I was reading the wrong book, if that makes sense. Highly recommended.

Affection by Krissy Kneen
Another one on sale at the bookshop, so I went back for a second try. This is a personal memoir of Kneen where she grapples with sex v love and her need for both, sometimes concurrently. Also gives a glimpse into Brisbane as a student in the 80s. I enjoyed this more than Triptych; Kneen really is a fabulous writer.

The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

Deserving recipient of the Man Booker Prize 2014. An epic of love and war told with beauty and devastation. Interspersed are beautiful haikus. I generally don't like war stories and had to push myself through episodes of dysentery, amputations, beheadings and cruelty. But the focus is on the characters, not the history of the war and fighting. I love the way Flanagan tells a rich story and includes elements of the mundane; these serve to make it richer still. Moreso, I love that Flanagan gave his $40,000 prize winnings, awarded for the Prime Minister's Literary Award, to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. Kudos.

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I was surprised at how much I managed to read throughout the year!

What was your top read of the year? What would you like to read this year? My pile of books to read doesn't seem to get any smaller  – does yours? Here's to happy reading in 2015!

Change of season.

Yesterday morning started with this golden, late summer light; by evening, winter had arrived. Today was cool, hovering around 15 degrees for most of the day after a top of 19 degrees C. Whilst the more temperate climates of the southern and eastern parts of the country enjoy the seasonal transition offered by Autumn, here in Central Australia we seem to go straight from summer to winter. And then back again all too soon. I am embracing the change and welcoming the cooler weather. Winter: I am ready!

It's been five months since Peter and I began doing the Territory Tango. He's living at one end and myself, the other. He's just up the road, really; except that in real terms, there's a distance of 1,500 kilometres between us. The Northern Territory is a really, really big place. Alice Springs is far away from a lot of places. We have just spent two weeks together - me, a week in Darwin and then he, a week in Alice - a luxury as we live together, apart.

Our last book club read was Burial Rites by Hannah Kent. This was actually my choice, as we've been taking it in turns to select a book. I chose it for two reasons: it is set in Iceland and for a long time I've been fascinated by this remote island country; and secondly I heard the author interviewed a while ago on Radio National (listen here) and thought the process of forming the book was interesting. I appreciated the richly tactile and textural descriptions of the landscapes; the dim, cold interiors; the smells, sounds and touch of the characters and their environs. Kent received a seven figure advance for this, her first novel - astounding! But don't read it with this in mind. Read it for the harsh yet gentle narrative of Agnes Magnusdottir, the last woman in Iceland to be publicly executed.

Another recent read is Tracks by Robyn Davidson, the 1980 memoir of Davidson's journey walking with camels across the desert from Alice Springs to the Western Australia coast. I started reading this on a flight from Melbourne to Alice Springs and it was poignant to be reading her descriptions of 1970s Alice Springs whilst looking out of the window at the ancient (yet timeless) scorched red desert country. I thought the Alice Springs of her description was a place I wouldn't want to live - which, if you've been reading this blog for a while, is not the way I feel about this town, today. And, a spoiler - I almost sobbed out loud (this time, on a flight from Alice to Darwin) when her beloved companion, a dog called Diggity, becomes poisoned by strychnine. I won't tell you the rest. It's too hard to imagine having to do this to any animal to relieve its pain, let alone a beloved companion - a friend. The descriptions of Central Australia and the communities Davidson passes through - Areyonga, Pipalyatjara, Wingellina - are interesting and familiar. It's certainly not a comfortable read, and many aspects of this journey made me cringe. I haven't yet seen the movie - have you?

Now, I'm partway through (and quite enjoying) The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt and am also going to start our next book club read, Room by Emma Donoghue. Oh - and speaking of books about Alice Springs, I heard an interview on the local ABC with a writer who used to live here, so I've ordered one of her books, written to reflect her time living here - it's called The Rest is Weight, by Jennifer Mills, who also blogs here.

So that's a bit of an update on what's been going on around here lately. What's been happening in your part of the world? Has winter arrived yet? Or summer, for that matter?

Things I've read lately.

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
Our last book club read for the year was The Luminaries, the 2013 winner of the Man Booker Prize written by New Zealand's Eleanor Catton. It's a richly-worded epic mystery set in the damp goldfields of Hokitika. The story weaves its way around the dozen or so characters, narrated by the reliable voice of Walter Moody, a young solicitor who has travelled to NZ from England to make his fortune.

I found it an enjoyable but dense read. The characters are so well fleshed out and the story so intricately revealed that I couldn't help marvel at Catton's immense skill. Then I'd have to remember who was who, where the plot was up to and what had just taken place. I actually haven't finished it yet! The story is compelling but I think you need to spend bigger blocks of time reading to make progress. I lugged it around on holidays and was able to chew through hundreds of pages at a time (it's LONG!) but since then I haven't had chunks of time. I'm so close to the end I'll just have to keep going. In the meantime, I was distracted by...

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Maestro by Peter Goldsworthy
I thought of Maestro on my first trip to Darwin in August last year. This had been one of the texts we studied in our year 12 English class so it was a quick but enveloping re-read (on a flight from Alice Springs to Melbourne). Knowing a little bit more about Darwin meant the sense of place - which had come rushing back in such a strong way that I wrote about it in this post - had more of a context. It also made me want to practise piano.

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Barracuda by Christos Tsiolkas
This is our next book for discussion at book club, and it was as engaging as I expected from Christos Tsiolkas. The dialogue is often raw and rough and the characters are flawed and not necessarily likeable which, I find, is something Tsiolkas can do well and still create characters that the reader can sympathise or resonate with. It would be interesting to read this around the lead up to a summer Olympic games - perhaps you'd see the young, cocky and often privileged male swimmers with a different lens. It's a story of class, gender, sexuality, violence, broken-ness, family politics - and a dream that is within sight but out of reach.

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From Alice with Love by Jo Dutton
I was keen to read this book as it is set in Alice Springs and Central Australia. It's always interesting to read literature (fiction and non-fiction alike) set in the place you live and I've found this to be particularly so about living in Alice. Since I've lived here, I've read Songlines by Bruce Chatwin, A Town Like Alice by Neville Shute, Cleave (also sometimes titled Alice Springs) by Nikki Gemmell (coincidentally set between Alice Springs, where I currently live, and the Illawarra, where I am from - and where Gemmell was born!), Alice Springs by Eleanor Hogan, and A Long Weekend in Alice Springs, a graphic novel by Joshua Santospirito based on the essay by Craig San Roque. I found From Alice with Love to be quite a flat read. It was nice to feel that the places, people and dialogue were familiar - which makes me wonder how readers who haven't lived here would find it. It was, however, quite often grammatically awkward and I found the dialogue to be stilted. It did delve into some of the complexities of living here but overall I thought the story was a little shallow and I had that odd feeling where I thought that the main character didn't really match her name. I am glad I read it, though.

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The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
What an intriguing title! Originally written in French, the translation to English did not - I'm presuming - lose in the process any of the elegance and poignance of the language. The language is a real delight; the word 'nary' appears in the first couple of sentences. The narration is shared in alternating chapters between Renee, the frumpy, middle-aged, widowed concierge of a posh Paris apartment building, and Paloma, the 12-year-old daughter of one of the wealthy, left-leaning families who inhabit the building. Each harbour their own secret; Renee has carefully constructed a veneer of ordinariness that hides a sharp intellect and refined taste in the arts and culture, while Paloma is so discontented with her family and the world she deems as meaningless that she plans to commit suicide by her 13th birthday. An unexpected new tenant in the building is the catalyst for Renee to emerge ever so slightly and Paloma to discover a glimmer of meaning. I believe this has been made into a movie - I wonder if it does it justice?

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Next on our list is Burial Rites by Hannah Kent, set in Iceland and telling the story of a woman condemned to death for her role in the murder of two men.

Have you read any of these books? What did you think? What are you reading right now?

Stills: Inside, outside.

1. I picked up this mirror from a trash-and-treasure stall at the local markets. It reminded me of a mirror I used to have that belonged to my grandmother. It was misplaced in a move at some point in time, so when I found this one it was meant to come home with me.
2. Bougainvillea from the plant alongisde the house...
3. ...on the mantlepiece, alongside the mirror.
4. This morning I picked this mega-zucchini from the garden. It is really heavy! 
5. Natives for along the back fence.
6. The chooks have been getting into the veggie garden and helping themselves to almost everything in sight.
7. Except, it seems, sweet basil and thyme. They also didn't care much for lemongrass and the zucchini bushes. They did, however, take a liking to corn, silverbeet, kale, Vietnamese mint, and the leaves from the chilli plant. Clever chooks left the chillies.
8. The guilty three, who now have clipped wings and a double-height fence!
9. Luckily they have been earning their keep and laying two-a-day.
10. We had book club on Sunday morning. We all rode our bikes together into town for breakfast and a chat about the latest books. This month we read Patrick White's The Twyborn Affair (which I'm still ploughing through) and The Long Weekend in Alice Springs (a graphic novel based on an essay, which I talked about in this post). Some of us also read the Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, which I'm just about to start now that uni is over for the year.

What are you reading at the moment?

Linking with the Beetle Shack.

The matter of time.

Time flies past and slips away. So much packed into the days, and the hours. Sleep comes very readily these days. Despite the frantic pace, still there has been time to share food with friends, to embrace the evening cool before summer properly arrives.

And the notion of time was unfurled in our most recent book club book, Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being. From the author's website (and a most fitting description):

Open up this book and discover: an earthquake-causing catfish, a hundred-and-four-year-old Buddhist nun, French maid cafes in a manga-fied world, cyberbullying, natural disasters, Zen philosophy, the infinite possibilities of time, and an uplifting story of love, loss, and wisdom old and new.

1. Lemon tree against the evening sky, walking the dogs after work.
2. Mid-week dinner at a friend's place, with a delicious meal from a Jewish cookbook. It was chicken with vegetables and clementines. Clementines! I didn't know they were an actual thing until this point.
3. Kitchen busy-ness. And golly, I'm in love with this kitchen.
4. Iron boost with freshly grown leafy greens.

And, a link to Em at The Beetle Shack!

Psyche & place.

Perfect weather and an interstate friend in town meant that we spent most of the weekend outdoors. Today we headed off for a drive out of Alice Springs and into the East MacDonnell Ranges. After following the Ross River Highway for a while, we took a turn-off onto a 4WD track to go the back way to Ross River.

It was stunning countryside: deep reddish-brown ancient rocky hills set against the bluest of blue skies, towering ancient river red gums, and a carpet of vivid green hinting at last week's rain. 

We drove through wide sandy riverbeds and creeks with permanent water that splashed and rippled into a wake behind the car. 

At Trephina Gorge we wandered, enthralled, through the wide passage formed between textured red-ochre rock faces. Underfoot was sand, cool and coarse against my bare feet. We stopped and I stretched out on my back on the sand, feeling it mould and cup my arms, back, legs, feet. Further down the gorge, a family was singing rhymes to their small children, whose laughter rippled and reverberated through the space. 

Back in the car, I was reading a graphic novel called 'The long weekend in Alice Springs'. It is an illustrated adaption of an essay that explores the notion of cultural complex from the perspective of a mental health worker in Alice. It delves into place and space and psyche, and the ripple effects on the psyche when there is a forced disconnection imposed and people are removed from their place and space. 

From the author's website:

The Long Weekend is a graphic novel that has been adapted from an essay that explores the idea of the Cultural Complex; one of Carl Jung’s early ideas about group behaviour that was left largely unexplored until very recently in the academic world. Craig San Roque, the author the original essay, acts as narrator and protagonist in the graphic novel. He takes the reader throughout a long series of poetic thoughts, places and over the course of three days in the surreal and troubled central Australian desert town of Alice Springs. A town which provides a stark setting within which he grapples with the meanings of his analysis of his own culture and the pain which it intentionally and unintentionally inflicts upon other cultures.

Moving, challenging and dangerous, the Long Weekend is a haunting comic, both shockingly funny and supremely uncomfortable to read. It will stay with you long after you put it down upon your bedside table and turn off the lamp and settle into a restless sleep.

He's right. And lingering alongside and mingling together in my own psyche is the quiet magnificence of the country we spent today within. 

Books and rain.

It's a rainy Sunday today and the perfect kind of morning to drink coffee, eat brunch and talk about books. A few weeks back I mentioned the book club - an informal group of friends who all love to read and we all wanted some extra motivation to read outside our comfort zones, in the midst of our busy lives.

Our first book was 'Swimming Home' by Deborah Levy, and our latest book was 'The Sense of and Ending' by Julian Barnes - very different books written in completely different styles. Have you read either if these?

It's still raining and now it's a perfect sort of afternoon to curl up with a book and a cup of tea. Now, if only my uni work would just do itself.

Currently reading: The Buddha of Suburbia

I love to read. Despite living in three states in the last eight years, I've always carted boxes and boxes of books with me. I haven't yet ventured into the world of the Kindle, but I admit that I've I installed the Kindle app on my iPad, so I've gingerly stepped into the ebook-land.

I've recently read 'Swimming Home' by Deborah Levy, which was the first book for our newly-formed book club. More about that later.

At the moment I'm quite enjoying 'The Buddha of Suburbia' by Hanif Kureishi. It's set in London in the 1970s and the main character is the dreamy teenager Karim. He flits between the world of tradition - both Indian and English - and the wild, new offerings of the new world of free living that the '70s presented.

I'm halfway through and so far it's an engaging read. You kind of feel fond of Karim - he's a little bit lost, a little bit naive. But pretty likeable.