#AusReadingMonth 2021 Wrap-up post

- It has been a long summer…
- filled with climate change events COP26 (fires, hurricanes, floods)
- ….USA finally ending a 20 yr war….(…exit was messy)
- ….battle to control Covid #DeltaVariant and now
- …a new #OmicronVariant continues!!
- I always look forward to #AusReadingMonth2021
- @bronasbooks (This Reading Life)
- ….and want to thank her for doing a wonderful
- …job hosting and reviewing!
For #AusReadingMonth2021 I read:
- Coda – Thea Astley (1994) (novella) REVIEW
- The Year of Living Dangerously – ( 224 pg) Chris Koch (1978) REVIEW
- Always Add Lemon – Danielle Alvarez REVIEW
- Vertigo: A Novella – (144 pg) Amanda Lohrey (2008) (novella) REVIEW
- The Newspaper of Claremont Street – Elizabeth Jolley (1981) (novella) REVIEW
- In Praise of Veg – Alice Zaslavsky REVIEW
- Australian Food – Bill Granger REVIEW
- Basics to Brilliance – Donna Hay (cookbook) REVIEW
- Tea and Sympathetic Magic – Tansy Rayner Roberts (novella) REVIEW
- I’m Ready Now – (156 pg) Nigel Featherstone (novella) REVIEW
#Novella Amos Oz

- Author: Amos Oz (1939-2018)
- Title: Crusade (pg 92)
- Genre: novella (Translation from Hebrew)
- Published: 1971
- Monthly plan
- #NovNov
- @746Books10
- @bookishbeck
Quick Scan:
- Setting: 1096, Middle Ages
- Characters: French nobleman Guillaume de Touron
- …and his band of ragged followers.
- First Crusade 1095-1099: drive Muslims out of Jerusalem
- Story: follow this group of warriors on their way to the Holy City.
- Theme: obsessive hatred that surrounds Jews
- Irony: nobody wins!
- …this hatred destroys both… the Jews (hated) and crusaders (haters)
Quick Scan:
- Chapters 1-3
- The Count has a lot of things on his plate besides the Jews:
- shrivelling vinyards, debts, death of his wife
- …and a curse placed on him by a Jew who Guillaume is burning at the stake!
- Chapters 4-6
- Killing is central in the story: a Jew refuses to die after hours of torture
- …and the crusaders end up killing each other!
- Conflict: peace of mind (free Jerusalem) VS mania (dying on way to Holy City)
- Chapters 7– 9 – motley crew of personages that are distractions in the story.
- Chapters 10-13 – trapped in a winter storm in a monastery…
- Guillaume is depressed and delusional
- ….he falls on his spear and is dead.
- #EndofUselessStory
Weak point: narration
- The narrator rehashes the entries
- made by a chronicler, Claude Crookback for the backstory.
- Crookback supposedly has witnessed all events first-hand.
- This is irritating…IMO narrator and chronicler are synonyms!
- Why not eliminate the middle man and just
- stay with the 3rd person narrator?
Weak point: switching point of view
- It is so strange….in one sentence I read:
- “…they drank and let their horses and servants drink.”
- …and the I read:
- “Even the villagers received us grimly.”
- #SoConfusing
Quote reveals the essence of the main character: (ch 5)
- “…Guillaume felt a wild desire to overpower or crush
- some obstacle..
- …whose nature was hidden from him...”
Weak point: disjointed…too many personages!!
- The story is just 92 pages and I would prefer that Amos Oz
- concentrate on one or two characters/conficts.
- Unfortunately we are thrown from one chapter to the other:
- …the bishop of St.-Etienne, the Jew that perhaps
- …has artfully entered into Guillaume’s ranks
- the howling of wolves, dogs, foxes and villagers.
- We meet a piper Andrés Alvárez and three half brother Celts
- …other Teutonic Knights (Albrecht of Brunswick), Jewish peddler
- …monks in a monastery.
- This goes on and on….and I’m losing interest fast!
Concluson:
- This was just awful.
- I’ve read Amos Oz’s
- International Bestselling memoir
- Tale of Love and Darkness in 2005 and loved it.
- (Don’t miss this book!)
- But in 1970s it seems Mr. Oz was not yet at his literary peak!
- This novella felt like a thin gruel
- …supplemented by literary tricks
- …shifting POV, dual narrators.
- It showed me nothing of Amos Oz’s wonderful writing.
- It had a strange disjointed structure with unrelated info thrown in…
- I got lost, confused, bored.
- #WasteOfMyReadingTime
- I KNOW Amos Oz can do better!!
#AusReadingMonth 2022 Tansy Roberts
- Author: Tansy Rayner Roberts (1978)
- Title: Tea and Sympathetic Magic (pg 73)
- Genre: novella
- Published: 2021
- Monthly plan
- #AusReadingMonth2021 @Bronasbooks
- #NovNov @746Books
- @bookishbeck
- #AWW 2021
Quick Scan:
- Tea and Sympathetic Magic
- Miss Mnemosyne Seabourne teams up with a fascinating
- spellcracker Mr. Thornbury to foil the kidnapping of the
- Herny Jupiter the Duke of Storm
- …and prevent a forced marriage.
Notes:
- Strong point:
- Ms Roberts use names
- from mythology and the solar system for her characters!
- Henry Jupiter – is a very eligible bachelor, with grand library.
- The planet Jupiter’s most iconic feature is a
- giant STORM know as the Giant Red spot.
- The Duke is wearing “…a bright orange cravat.” (pg 10)
- …just like The Giant Red Spot on Jupiter!
- Ms Roberts uses this info to create
- “Henry Jupiter, the Duke of Storm”.
- Strong point:
- Ms Roberts uses lovely names of moons for female characters
- Moons circle planets…usually men in society!
- Mnemosyne – moon of Saturn
- Europa – moon of Jupiter
- Galatea – moon of Neptune
- Strong point: Ms Roberts does highlight important issues
- …that the main character Mnemosyne is passionate about:
- A) Rules for men were different than for women...
- Duke of Storm enjoys special rituals to meet his demands
- “brimming cup of tea and does not have to wait 2 seconds”
- ….and he had done nothing to deserve this attention. (pg 10)
- “This is the world we live in: one where
- B) Ladies traveled by the slow path,
- …while gentlemen were allowed short-cuts.” (pg 17)
- C) “No one should marry the wrong person.” (pg 39)
- Weak point:
- the title suggests “magic” but I was so
- …disappointed.
- The idea of a spellcracker…walking through portals, transforming
- a ball into a prickly hedgehog to stop a wedding and throwing
- tea cups at a wedding cake to release a captive wedding guest
- …is NOT my idea of magic.
- It is just not.
Last Thoughts:
- I decided to read this novella because I so
- enjoyed Girl Reporter by Ms Roberts last year.
- I missed a great story idea, a memorable main character
- and unique writing style.
- IMO this novella is like cotton candy
- …sickly sweet, all fluff and just melts away.
- #IAmNOTIntendedTargetAudience
#Novella nr 3: NovNov – AusReadingMonth 2021

- Author: Thea Astley
- Title: Coda
- Genre: novella
- Published: 1994 (188 pg)
- Monthly reading plan
- #AusReadingMonth2021 @bronasbooks
- #NovNov @746Books
- @bookishbeck
- #AWW
Introduction:
- I started reading the complete works of Theas Astley during
- #AusReadingMonth in 2017
- …and have finished 13/17!
- Finally I found a copy of Beachmasters @ Amazon.co.uk.
- That book is NOT easy to come by!
- Collected Short Stories (1997)
- ….also a very difficult or very expensive book to acquire!
Novels
- Girl with a Monkey (1958)
- A Descant for Gossips (1960)
- The Well Dressed Explorer (1962) Miles Franklin winner
- The Slow Natives (1965) Miles Franklin winner
- Boat Load of Home Folk (1968)
- The Acolyte (1972) Miles Franklin winner
- A Kindness Cup (1974)
- An Item from the Late News (1982)
- Beachmasters (1985)
- It’s Raining in Mango (1987)
- Reaching Tin River (1990)
- Vanishing Points (1992)
- Coda (1994)
- The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow (1996) Miles Franklin long/shortlist
- Drylands (1999) Miles Franklin winner
Short stories
- Hunting the Wild Pineapple (1979)
- Collected Stories (1997)
Quick Scan:
- Coda examines the despair of old age.
- Thea Astley is a truth-teller about becoming an “aged” misfit in society.
- Strong point: Ms Astley is still able to cut through
- …the tragedy with a sharp literary wit.
- Occasionally the narrative is interrupted by stories plucked from the
- Australian newspapers:
- “…there has been an alarming increase in so-called
- ...’granny-dumping’ throughout the country.” (Condamine Examiner, 16 Jan 1992)
Character: Kathleen Hackendorf
- Born 1920s, no real ambition except get out of Townsville!
- We see her sitting in a tacky Mall at a plastic table under a fig tree
- drinking her coffee as she contemplates life and her grammatical losses:
- “I’m losing my nouns!”
- Daughter, Shamrock, wants her mother on a shelf like a cracked doodad.
- Son, Brian, a financial schemer in his second marriage has no time for his mother.
- Both have sold Kathleen’s house out from under her and put down the dog.
- BFF …Kathleen at least has her dotty dear friend Daisy
- Only trouble is ….Daisy is dead.
Conclusion:
- I hope I’ve given you just a taste of
- …what you can expect in this book.
- Read as Kathleen wonders when the buzz went out of her life...as she is
- “…rooting about for words in the old handbag of her years.” (pg 188)
- Weak point: I found the pages devoted to Brian’s
- “crackpot stratagems” (pg 106) too long.
- It ruined the mood of the story about the aging Kathleen!
- Weak point: In the end, expected some fireworks from Ms Astley
- …but Kathleen’s life story seemed to just fizzle out.
- Again, I am a fan of Thea Astley and find that some of her
- later books lack the punch of her best books
- The Slow Natives, The Acolyte, Boat Load of Home Folk and
- …A Descant for Gossips.
- #MildlyDisappointed
#Novella nr 2: NovNov – AusReadingMonth 2021

- Author: Nigel Featherstone
- Title: I’m Ready Now (pg 156)
- Genre: novella
- Published: 2012
- Monthly plan
- #AusReadingMonth2021 @Bronasbooks
- #NovNov @746Books
- @bookishbeck
Quick Scan:
- Chapters 1-12
- Introduction characters and backstories
- …marriages, childhood, deaths, abandonment.
- Chapters 13-16
- The tension rises to a boiling point: Gordon (son),
- Mother and Levi (Gordon’s lover) are all about to make
- a life changing decisions but it
- …is unclear to the reader what that will be!
- Conflict: should mother just listen to her son’s plans
- …or try to stop him from making a grave mistake?
- Chapters 17 – 23
- The story reaches the climax
- ….during Gordon’s 30th birthday dinner celebration.
- Chapters 24 – 32
- The resolution…each character embarks on their own paths.
- ..and perhaps those paths will cross each other in the future
- ….at least Nigel Featherstone ends the book on an optimistic note!
- Conclusion:
- Ending:…feels like the sound of a bell ringing.
- #Bravo !!! Nigel!
- Strong point: Structure – Alternating narrator:
- ch 1 Son (Gordon) and ch 2 Mother (Lynne)…etc
- Strong point: Thoughts and inner dialogue
- 70% of the book is inner dialogue that
- raises the emotional level in every scene!
- It reveals the truth, the darkness, hopes and dreams
- …that are often lost in direct dialogue.
- Mother (Lynne) is worried about her son
- …but cannot let him notice her concern.
- Son (Gordon) feels his heart is torn in half.
- ..one part for his lover (Levi) the other part
- for his determination to continue with
- …the “Year of Living Ridiculously”.
Major theme: loss, abandonment
- In chapter 9 we hear Mother say words that left me puzzled.
- Gordon: “Is there anything you need while I’m up the street?
- Mother: “No, just make sure you come home.”
- Gordon “…of course I’ll come home…”
- Mother: “Than that’s all I need.”
- As you read Nigel Featherstone adds layers
- with backstories about the characters and their lives.
- Only then does this short dialogue between mother and son make sense.
Characters:
- Gordon (Donian, nickname) 29 yr, born 23 October 1981
- Levi Greenguard (Jewish social worker, Gordon’s lover)
- Mother (Lynne)
- Eddie (stepfather) – recently deceased
- Margie Ardmore (friend of Mother…feels like an aunt for Gordon)
- Patric Finn (…just mentioned as mother’s first love)
- Minnie and Lenah ( Gordon’s step-sisters)
- Ailis Kildare (Lynne’s mother, from Ireland, died in Hobart 62 yr)
- Father – (name?) died 6 months later
- Shanie Doyle – G’s childhood friend …followed him from Hobart to Sydney
- Delia Canola – Shanie’s fiancée
Best Quote: chapter 19
- “I think birthplace is a matter of DNA.
- You can try running from it….
- ….but it’s always in you, mapping you out.”
Locations:
- Mother takes a flight from Hobart, Tasmania to…
- Sydney – Gelbe, NSW (inner-city suburb) – Gordon’s appartment
- Convict-era cottage on 11 Union Street (polished doorknob) (backstory)
- Point Puer (place where Patric Finn made a film)
- Battery Point…where Shanie used to live
- Battery Point House – owned by mother Lynne
- Gleeson House (1839) (..the family home Hampton Road, Hobart)
- …is about to be sold at an auction…so Mother is visiting her son Gordon.
- Sydney apartment (Eddie’s place at Manly on the Corso)
Title: “I’m Ready Now”
- Ch 27 – quote … to bookend the story:
- Mother: “There’s a future in abandonment, so it seems.
- I’m ready for it.”
- Ch 30 – quote … as Levi leaves he says to Gordon:
- “marriage is not out of the question”..in the future.
- Levi calls for a taxi and says “Yes, I’m ready now”.
#Novella nr 1: NovNov – AusReadingMonth 2021
- Author: Amanda Lohrey
- Title: Vertigo ( pg 144)
- Genre: novella
- Published: 2019
- Monthly plan
- #AusReadingMonth2021 @Bronasbooks
- #NovNov @746Books
- #NovNov @bookishbeck
- #AWW
Introduction:
- Sometimes I search days for a good book
- …and sometimes one just falls into my lap!
- I ordered this book a year ago.
- This year for #AusReadingMonth I am determined to
- sweep through my Kindle TBR and read as many Aussie
- authors as I can.
- Also this review is ….for #NovNov @746Books
Conclusion:
- Veritigo is a stunner.
- Luke and Anna, thirty-something…. decide on a change.
- Worn down by city life they flee to a sleepy village by the coast.
- One senses that the change of living area is only nothing more than as escape
- for a couple who have difficulty communicating.
- The neighbours are strange but authentic.
- The problem is the drought.
- The book felt like a compact box of chocolates.
- I ate the first few bonbons (part 1) and
- as I continued to remove the layers (part 2) of paper
- only to come deeper (part 3) into an exquisitely crafted novella.
- Chocolate and this story are
- so addictive that one cannot stop reading/eating it.
-
“this book is unputdownable!”
- The last layer was one one the best descriptions I’ve
- ever read of a bush fire….incredible!
- #MustRead
- …absolutely a “coup de coeur”.
#AusReadingMonth2020 Simpson Returns (novella)
- Author: Wayne Macauley
- Title: Simpson Returns ( pg 135)
- Genre: novella
- Published: 2019
- List of Challenges 2020
- Monthly plan
- #AusReadingMonth2020 @Bronasbooks
- Bingo card: VIC
- #NovNov @746Books
NOTES:
- Main character:
- Jack Simpson – ghostly World War I hero soldier
- …not everyone can see him, apart from those who helps
- Helper: Murphy, his donkey
- Quest: Jack is in search for an inland sea in the center of the country.
- Majority of the tale: deals with characters he meets along the way
- teenage runaway
- refugee
- Vietnam veteran
- single mother
- deranged ex-teacher,
- Setting: Australia
- Theme: Jack tries to help others but sometimes fails….
- Jack defends his actions by claiming the
- …intention is more important than the result.
Conclusion:
- Backstory: Shrapnel Gully – bullet in the heart – Lasseter’s vial – the Inland Sea.
- Characters: Sad stories
- …that could not spark a scintilla of pathos in me, sorry.
- While the first half or so of the book
- …was interesting (Jack and Murphy) it became repetitious and tedious.
- Each section had the standard line to a character: “…tell me your story.”
- After 61% of the book….
- I decided to approach it from a different angle.
- With the help of KINDLE flashcards
- I noted ONLY the dialogue of Jack
- …and filtered out the tragic stories of the other characters.
- I flashed the cards
- ….and had a rolling conversation with Jack.
- I just wanted to salvage anything from the book.
Last Thoughts:
- Perhaps I’ve have been spoiled
- …after reading Nigel Featherstone’s
- stellar novella Fall On Me.
- Page turner? Only when I was turning
- …a few pages at a time hoping it would get better.
- It did not.
- #ReadAndDecideForYourself
#AusReadingMonth2020 Girl Reporter (novella)
- Author: Tansy Roberts
- Title: Girl Reporter ( pg 182)
- Genre: novella (SF)
- Published: 2017
- Trivia: Winner Aurealis Award 2018 Best SF Novella
- Bingo card: TAS
- List of Challenges 2020
- Monthly plan
- #AusReadingMonth2020 @Bronasbooks
- #NovNov
- #NovNov @746Books
Conclusion:
- I just loved this novella!
- Tansy Roberts just nailed it with the ‘new vocabulary‘ for the
- networked, connected, vlogging, livestreaming, vid, twitter feed generation.
- Friday Valentina (#SuperheroSpill reporter) made me laugh:
- “There’s something beautiful about the perfect hashtag.
- Truly, the hashtag is the epic poem of the 21st C.”
- Have some fun and enjoy Tina (mother), Friday Valentina
- Solar, Astra, The Dark and many more characters.
- This book is full of snark and satire!
- Strong point: snappy dialogue
- Tansy Roberts’ dialogue:
- develops the plot
- reveals characters’ motivation,
- creates an cyberspace experience for reader
- makes an average story extraordinary.
- #MustRead
- #MustLaugh
#AusReadingMonth2020 Icefall
- Author: Stephanie Gunn
- Title: Icefall (114 pg)
- Genre: novella (SF)
- Published: 2018
- Trivia: Best Science Fiction Novella 2018 Aurealis Award
- Bingo card: WA
- List of Challenges 2020
- Monthly plan
- #AusReadingMonth2020 @bronasbooks
- #NovNov @746Books
- @bookishbeck
Conclusion:
- Well, fly me to the moon..…
- if you are like me I seldom read SF. It just does not entertain me.
- But I am trying to read deeply and widely,
- so I decided to ‘test the waters’ with a short 114 pg novella.
- Now, I did the research for you (see review)
- …so you can dive right into this book.
- Just think….at the next book club meeting when they ask t
- o suggest a ‘something completely different…
- you can suggest ICEFALL by Stephanie Gunn!
- The club will be determined NOT to read it
- ….you could probably crack rocks on their jaws!
- But…at least try to guide them into the world of SF!
- Millions of people read nothing else!
- Stephenie Gunn was a research scientist turned full time writer.
- I’m curious how she will combine her
- …scientific backround with her fiction
- Will Ms Gunn write what she knows
- ….or what she feels?
Glossary:
- I do not read very much SF
- …so looked at some terms I found in the text…and what they mean.
- This made the book MUCH easier to process.
- VIR POD – spaceship ‘Wanda R’
- …named for Wanda Rutkiewicz, first woman to climb K2.
- VIR – virutal interfaced reality
- VIR implants – one can experience both worlds (virtual and real) at the same time
- AI hologram – 3D image formed by split laser beam.
- Ms Gunn describes a AI holographic character as
- genderless, expressionless, fingers bloodless
- …can dematerialize and form again in i.e. the navigator’s chair (ch 15)
- …can flow around me (Aisha) to envelope me completely in its field (ch1)
- AI (artifcial intelligence)
- I did not know if this was a human replication or just a voice!
- Replicant androids are indistinguishable from human beings
- …remember the film: Blade Runner… how was human and who was AI?
- In this book AI comes with a package of standard visages:
- male, female or null gender.
- AI uses the visage and name of Mallory
- …in reference to G. Mallory
- the first person to summit Mt Everest.
Title:
- Icefall is a similar planet to old Earth.
- MacGregor Corporation has established two colonies on Icefall.
- Icefall organizes a Icefall Climbing Competition once every 7 years.
- Essential in the plot is a ‘weeping mountain’.
- All of the pointed masses of ice and snow in a glacier melt.
- Millions of mega litres of water wash over the
- continent destroying everything in its path.
- The waters lie still for one ICEFALL day (25 hrs).
- The next day waters retreat…moving against gravity.
- The mountain draws everything back towards it
- …the glaciers, the icefall and continental ice all reform.
- This was the SPOOKIEST thing in the entire book!
Setting:
- Planet Demeter home of narrator Aisha Ashkani
- Planet Icefall
- Greyspace – folded space beneath normal space that surrounds planet Icefall
- Many references to “old Earth”
Structure: 26 chapters, 114 pages
- Present – Ch 1-5-11 (arriving on planet Icefall)
- Backstory – Ch 2-3-4-6-7-8-9-10-13
- Present – Ch 14-26 present (Icefall Climbing Competition)
Main Characters:
- Mallory (AI) – projects its holographic interface around narrator Aisha.
- Aisha: former priestess of ONE Order of the New Earth
- Maggie (Margaret Malleore) mountain climber – Maggie and narrator are married
- Gorak – bot (robot) raven like bird that will be narrator’s ‘eyes’ on the Mountain.
Irony:
- Aisha Ashkani (priestess) is from Sherpa heritage.
- Sherpa believe the mountain is
- …their goddess and one should not
- trespass on the sacred ground.
- Ironically
- …Aisha becomes fascinated
- with mountaint climbing and leaves the temple
- …to reach the snowy summit.
Last Thoughts:
- This SF novella is about Mountain climbing in space…in the future.
- Humans have left old Earth and have colonised the universe.
- There is also a very touching love story in this book
- …that brings the SF and the human elements in balance.
- You will have to read the book (reading time? 2 hrs)
- to discover the tender bond between Aisha Ashkani and Maggie.
- #GreatRead
#AusReadingMonth2020 Dolores (novella)
- Author: Lauren Aimee Curtis
- Title: Dolores ( pg 128)
- Genre: novella
- Published: 2019
- List of Challenges 2020
- Monthly plan
- #AusReadingMonth2020 @Bronasbooks
- Bingo card: NSW
- Trivia: shortlisted NSW Premier’s Literary Award 2020
- …for New Writing
- #NovNov @746Books
- @bookishbeck
- #AWW2020 @AustralianWomenWriters
Introduction:
- 16-year-old arrives, alone, at a convent in Spain.
- She is given the name Dolores.
- Short and mysterious…one-sitting read. (2 hrs)
- …the close-up details of life in the convent.
- Each chapter shows Delores adapting to the nuns’ routines,
- before taking us to her backstory…to her secret.
Conclusion:
- What can I say….
- Of course you must remember this is a debut novella
- and the author will improve as time goes on.
- Ms Curtis was shortlisted for NSW Premier’s Literary Award 2020
- …so somebody must have seen merit in this book.
- Unfortunately, I did not.
- A story is setup… Dolores is rendered human.
- We see her encounter a problem or challenge.
- She wanders through darkness in the convent.
- But here’s the thing
- …she doesn’t evolve into a problems solver or heroine
- The book ends abruptly leaving me hanging in mid-air.
- Weak point: too much description
- no irony, complexity, nuance, depth
- ….it’s all surface.
- But when you start writing…sometimes surface is enough.
- Strong point: the blurb was better than the book!
- #NotBad…
- But also…#NotGreat