Craig Silvey – Jasper Jones

Late on a hot summer night in the tail end of 1965, Charlie Bucktin, a precocious and bookish boy of thirteen, is startled by an urgent knock on the window of his sleep-out. His visitor is Jasper Jones, an outcast in the regional mining town of Corrigan. Rebellious, mixed-race and solitary, Jasper is a distant figure of danger and intrigue for Charlie. So when Jasper begs for his help, Charlie eagerly steals into the night by his side, terribly afraid but desperate to impress.
Jasper takes him through town and to his secret glade in the bush, and it’s here that Charlie bears witness to Jasper’s horrible discovery. With his secret like a brick in his belly, Charlie is pushed and pulled by a town closing in on itself in fear and suspicion as he locks horns with his tempestuous mother, falls nervously in love and battles to keep a lid on his zealous best friend, Jeffrey Lu.
And in vainly attempting to restore the parts that have been shaken loose, Charlie learns to discern the truth from the myth, and why white lies creep like a curse. In the simmering summer where everything changes, Charlie learns why the truth of things is so hard to know, and even harder to hold in his heart.

What I thought!

OMG!

Craig Silvey is a blood legend.

What a book. What a story.

It was a hugely easy read. I started it last last night and finished it first thing this morning (I’ve had about 3 hours sleep).

Charlie is a really likeable character. In fact, almost all of the characters are likeable – except for the obligatory school bully and the odd adult in town.

Craig has set this book in a small Western Australian country town. It’s just so familiar to me. It almost feels like my teenaged summer years. The converstaions Charlie has with his best mate Jeffrey Lu are so similar to conversations I would have with my friends (although ours were more girly chats, but the same bullshit was spoken). I can feel the hot summer nights as he’s writing about it. I can feel the mozzies and wasps flying around as he’s describing them.

I actually understood the cricket match that plays a hugely pivetal part in Jeffrey Lu’s acceptance by the town-folk and his peers.

We all went to school with a Jasper Jones. Perhaps if we’d gotten to know them at all we may have found that they weren’t as bad as the gossip made out.

I have walked in Charlies shoes in regards to his first love. I’ve felt what he felt – I guess every teenager does. But we forget don’t we?

Craig has bought up a heap of memories for me with this book.

I’m hugely disappointed that I’ve finished it. That I won’t be able to read it for the first time again. That it wasn’t over 1000 pages.

I’m so extremely jealous that I could never write a book as well as this.

This is a must read for everyone that has grown up in Australia.

And for those that haven’t – you should read it too. It will give you an idea of what summer in Australia can mean to young people.

There is darkness in this book. There has to be. Every town has a secret – and I’m pretty sure it’s usually the same secret.

Read it.

You’ll love it

p.s. I had completely forgotten about having hot milos with sweetened condensed milk in it. Charlie drinks coffee with it – but I have very vivid memories of having milo the same way. See – I told you we forget.

Why I Love Twitter

I’ve decided Twitter is my new best friend.

I’ve discovered so much through this social network.

I’ve been following heaps of authors who are busy tweeting whilst writing their books (really fantastic insights into an authors brain so well worth it in my opinion).

I’ve discovered a world of people who have the most fascinating things to say.

And I’ve just won my first book prize. I’m not even sure what it is but I’m so hugely excited I am almost squeaking.

Thanks heaps Allen & Unwin.

Allen and Unwin is Australia’s leading independent publisher and they cover a massive range of authors.

And all I had to do was tell them what I was doing for Australia Day. It involved me, the kids, a loaf of bread, a jar of vegemite and a packet of salt & vinegar chips. Put them all together and it’s a yummy sandwich – feel free to omit the kids if you’re trying to give them up.

Yeah – I have free books.

I love Twitter

p.s.

The books are:

• The Slap
• Journey to the Stone Country
• Jasper Jones which I am so hugely excited about.
• Red Dust Who is one of my Twitter authors
• Follow the Money

Shamini Flint – Inspector Singh Investigates …

Inspector Singh is back, but this time on secondment to Bali. A bomb has exploded and Singh has been sent to help with anti-terrorism efforts. But there’s a slight problem: he knows squat about hunting terrorists. He’s much better suited to solving murder! So when a body is discovered in the wreckage, killed by a bullet before the bomb went off, Singh should be the one to find the answers – especially with the help of a wily Australian copper by his side. But simple murders are never as simple as they seem – and this one has far-reaching global consequences …

 

 

 

 

 

 

About the book:

The book is about the Bali bombings in October 2002. Inspector Singh is sent to Bali to help with the investigations but gets caught up in a murder that seems to be unrelated to the bombings but all is not as it seems. It tells of a group of expats, both Australian and English that get caught up in the happenings of October 2002 in Bali. The descriptions of both Ubud (where the expats live) and Kuta are very accurate and I really, REALLY wish I could write a book based in Bali so I could go back and do research.

What I thought of this book:

I love this series.

Shamini is a brilliant writer.

Her character, Inspector Singh is both a loveable and cranky policeman. You feel sorry for him, and then you want to smack him over the head. He’s overweight, has what sounds like a witchy wife back home in Singapore, his colleagues don’t like him, his bosses don’t want him on the police force anymore and he gets stuck with seemingly unsolveable crimes. But then his manner can be just awful. He’s rude, he can be a arrogant, he can be mean – but it’s all in the act of ‘getting his man’.

I did like this book. Having been to Bali this year it was almost like sitting back inside a taxi again and being carted around Kuta. I remembered being at some of the places that Shamini references in this book. She writes very well about the bombings and the aftermath. The people looking for their friends/family. The morgue in Denpasar. The police & medics from other countries that assisted.  She also talks about Balinese reactions. She touches on the tensions between the Balinese Hindu religion compaired to the rest of Indonesia’s mainly Muslim community.

Should you read this?

Yes you should. It is really good mystery read, but it also gives a really good insight into the Balinese vs Javanese culture. Told from a Singaporean view point. Definitely.

 

Lack of Motivation.

I think I need a holiday.

Or I need the listing fairy to come and pay a visit to my office.

I just can’t seem to get up the motivation to do ANYTHING with the huge pile of books that seem to be breeding in my house.

I am currently using every trick I can think of to NOT have to sit here and put these books on eBay

I’m using the excuse of my website not being up and running yet. Well, that’s not quite right. It WAS running but I found I had been sold a product that was nothing like I had asked for and wasn’t able to hold anywhere near the capacity I had told them I needed, so I pulled the plug and am just waiting (don’t ask me what for though) to redesign it, and get it hosted with someone else.

But I’m not really sure how long I can use this excuse for. I have a perfectly good vehicle for selling books via my eBay store and that works well enough – so I should just hop to it.

But I really feel like chucking a sickie – which is such an Aussie thing to do. The problem with this is I know the boss really well and I’m pretty sure she’d know that I was lying

Oh well, off to the third kids party for today. I think that’s a pretty good reason to not start listing books right now. Maybe I’ll do them when I get home?

Or I might have to clean the bathrooms, wash the dog, get the washing off the line, make dinner and listen to the kids reading.

I wonder if there’s a fairy for all of that too?

Or do we just call them our husbands?

Karin Slaughter – Genesis

Sarah Linton has fled to Atlanta seeking refuge from the patient in her ER, she’ll find herself deeply ensnared in a case which rips the lid off secrets as dark and complex as they are disturbing. When Special Agents Will Trent and Faith Mitchell join forces to probe into the life of the victim, they embark on an investigation which will change all of them forever.

————————————————————–

Wow this was good! I don’t know if it’s because it’s been a while since I have read this genre (I’ve been scratching a Paranormal Romance itch for the last 6 months or so) of if it’s just a brilliant book but I loved it. This is all-time favourite genre though so it was a very comfortable read.

But when I say comfortable, I don’t mean the content. This woman can write a good story can’t she?

The characters were really well formed. And this is really good because it appears to be the first book in a new series, and I  sometimes find it can take the characters a few books to get to know (when written in a series) and I really want to know them in the first book. I didn’t feel that I was missing too much of the main characters personalities and histories when I read this. She has done a great job with the backgrounds and I can’t wait to read more.

I love the idea of Agent Will Trent having a secret that only his partner and his boss know. It makes him seem so real and more than a little appealing. I felt a connection to this character straight away, I guess I was glad to be one of only a few to know his secret (well, me and the other 500,000 people that have read the book).

I understand (or maybe I just made this bit up, but it sounds good) that Dr Linton will be a part of the series which is great. She’s good for the story. I’d like to see her relationship develop (or not) with Will, and to see how she &  Agent Mitchell work together and as partners with Will.

I also really enjoyed the mindgames of this book. It’s been a while since I’ve read this type of book and I realised I’ve missed it. I’ve been reading these types of books since I discovered Dean Koontz when I was around 13 and have devoured them ever since. I know it’s a great book when I have to finish it the night I start it because I HAVE to know what happens. Mo Hayder did exactly the same thing for me with Birdman.

Scared me so much I couldn’t put it down until it was finished.

And to me, this is the sign of an excellent writer.

Interesting enough, someone I know has recently said that they haven’t read another Karin Slaughter after they became so upset with the ending of the book they had just finished. This person was most incensed about this and felt completely duped (I don’t know which book she was referring though). I also think this is a sign of a good writer (although you don’t want to alienate them completely ) because she has got this reader so completely involved with the story and she has evoked such a huge emotion in this particular reader that the reader has actually taken action because of this book. Surely that is a writers goal in writing a book? They want their readers to feel as passionate about their books as they, the author does.

Anyway, I for one can’t wait to read more. And I promise if I don’t like the ending to keep reading more

Marina Lewycka – A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian.

For years, Nadezhda and Vera, two Ukrainian sisters, raised in England by their refugee parents, have had as little as possible to do with each other – and they have their reasons. But now they find they’d better learn how to get along, because since their mother’s death their aging father has been sliding into his second childhood, and an alarming new woman has just entered his life. Valentina, a bosomy young synthetic blonde from the Ukraine, seems to think their father is much richer than he is, and she is keen that he leave this world with as little money to his name as possible. If Nadazhda and Vera don’t stop her, no one will. But separating their addled and annoyingly lecherous dad from his new love will prove to be no easy feat – Valentina is a ruthless pro and the two sisters swiftly realize that they are mere amateurs when it comes to ruthlessness. As Hurricane Valentina turns the family house upside down, old secrets come falling out, including the most deeply buried one of them all, from the War, the one that explains much about why Nadazhda and Vera are so different. In the meantime, oblivious to it all, their father carries on with the great work of his dotage, a grand history of the tractor.

——————————————–

Surprisingly, I loved this book.

It’s not my usual type of book. And I wouldn’t go as far to say “Mad & Hilarious” as the Daily Telegraph has proclaimed.

But it was fun. And also a little close to home.

The sisters relationship seemed to almost mirror mine & my sisters – although ours is not as fragmented as theirs . The story of their father and his new relationship is also similar to that of our father’s and his relationship with his partner. Although, in all fairness to my father’s partner – she isn’t very similar to Valentina!

The story starts with the father (Nikolai) telling his youngest daughter Nadia about the woman he wants to marry (his wife had died a few years previously). His fiance is from his homeland  – the Ukraine – and needs to get married so she can stay in the country. But first she must get a divorce from her Ukrainian husband.

The story is interspersed with the family history. How the father & mother came to meet (he was Ukrainian & she was Polish). How they managed to escape the concentration camps and came to live in England. And also, while all these backgrounds are being told, and Nikolai is trying desperately to marry, and then divorce, the very voluptious Valentina – he is writing a book titled A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian.

Some of the characters are not likeable at all. Some of them I ended up feeling so sad for. And the book finished a little too early for my liking. I wanted to find out more, but you’ll have to read it to understand what I’m talking about. There were a few story lines that could have been followed up, but were left just hanging – although there was really so much going on in the book it would’ve been quite difficult to add a few more threads into it.

I liked it and will make someone else from bookclub read it next

Jennifer Armintrout – The Turning

I’m no coward. I want to make that perfectly clear. But after my life turned into a horror movie, I take fear a lot more seriously now. I finally became Dr. Carrie Ames just eight months ago. Then I was attacked in the hospital morgue by a vampire. Just my luck.
So now I’m a vampire, and it turns out I have a blood tie to the monster who sired me. The tie works like an invisible leash and I’m bound to him no matter what I do. And of course he’s one of the most evil vampires on earth. With my sire hell-bent on turning me into a soulless killer and his sworn enemy set to exterminate me, things couldn’t get much worse — except I’m attracted to them both.
Drinking blood, living as an immortal demon and being a pawn between two warring vampire factions isn’t exactly how I’d imagined my future. But as my father used to say, the only way to conquer fear is to face it. So that’s what I’ll do. Fangs bared.

Wow.

I was introduced to this series when one of the mum’s from school asked me to buy the rest of the series for her. I asked to borrow this first book from her as it is out of print and can’t find it anywhere (hurry up publishers)!

She warned me it was a little, well, not for the faint-hearted so I went in with really high expectations (not being too sure which category of unfaint-heartedness I should belong to). Was it going to be graphic Vampire stuff or was it full of sex, or just really bad language?

I have to say, with only “not for the faint-hearted” to go on, I was a little underwhelmed by the first half of the book. I don’t particularly like the main character, Carrie Ames who is doing working as an ED doctor at a hospital when she crosses the path of a vampire. I didn’t particulary warm to her – although I’m not sure if that’s the point?

She ends up, after Googling “what to do if attacked by a vampire”, with a vampire who belongs to The Voluntary Vampire Extinction Movement – which seems to be a self- policing vampire society that offs vampires.

The “not for the faint-hearted” stuff occurs about 3/4 of the way through the book (I’ll leave you to get to that bit yourself ), so it does happen – eventually. Really  – I’m not too sure if I really want to read the rest of the series. I will, because I hate to read just one part of  a series, but I don’t think I’ll be putting it up as a must-read.

Shame really because I do love a vampire book.

Dawn French – Dear Fatty

Dawn French is one of the greatest comedy actresses of our time, wtih a career that has spanned nearly three decades, encompassing a vast and brilliant array of characters. Loved for her irreverant humour, Dawn has achieved massive mainstream success while continuing to push boundaries and challenge stereotypes. Here she describes the journey that would eventually establish her as a perhaps unlikely, but nevertheless genuine, national treasure.

Dawn began her career as part of the groundbreaking alternative comedy group, the Comic Strip, marking a radical departure from the more traditional comedy acts of the time. Later came the all-female Girls On Top, which teamed Dawn with Jennifer Saunders, Ruby Wax and Tracy Ullman and firmly established women in British comedy.

As part of the wildly successful and much loved duo French and Saunders, Dawn helped create a repetoire of brilliantly observed characters, parodying popular culture and impersonating everything from Madonna and Harry Potter to The Exorcist. Dawn’s more recent role in the Vicar of Dibley showcased not only her talent but also her ability to take a controversial and topical issue and make it mainstream – and very funny.

From her early years as an RAF child and her flat-sharing antics with Jennifer Saunders, to her outspoken views on sizism and her marriage to Lenny Henry, Dear Fatty will chronicle the extraordinary, hilarious rise of a complex, dynamic and unstoppable woman.

I loved this book. I love Dawn French so was really hoping that it would be a good read and I wasn’t disappointed. She had me in hysterics in places, laughing out loud so hard OH wondered what was going on

She also had me in tears, telling about learning of her fathers death. Of looking back on his life, trying to understand the signs of depression that had been there. I loved that she spoke of him in present tense -  and had many conversations with him throughout the book. I do the same thing with my mum who has been gone for over 20 years now.

I felt anger about the treatment that was awarded her husband (and he probably still gets it in this day & age as well) because of the colour of his skin. It’s just something I won’t ever understand!

Buy this book. It absolutely ROCKS!!!

Under New Management!

I’ve just recently purchased a website. I did a heap of research and asked a heap of questions. Unfortunately the most important question I asked as over the phone and now I have no records to back me up. The lovely saleswoman assured me that I would be able to use this website to add over 5000 books to it.

Easy Peesy she said. We can do that for you. This is the perfect website for you and your new business.

So we looked over all the information, asked a heap more questions that were probably just as important but since they were in writing I didn’t have to worry so much about them.

The following weeks were spent adding content to the website – and trying to fix up the little things I didn’t like. Then I received an email saying I had reached 80% capacity.

What capacity? I only had 130 books listed. Surely they can’t be telling me I can’t add anymore.

One quick phone call sorted that out. Yes I had reached my limit – but if I wanted to pay and extra $20 per month (I was already paying twice the amount everyone else was offering for hosting) I could double my capacity.

WOW – now I could have 260 books listed. That’s EXACTLY what I was looking for.

NOT!!!

Another phone call with me telling the person on the other end that I had been assured by the saleswoman that this website would easily meet my needs.

“Oh, they wouldn’t have told you that” was the response. Do these people think I would really want to spend a HEAP of money on a site that wasn’t even going to list the books I have sitting next to my bed, let alone the 2 rooms full of books I need to sell? GRRRRR

Anyway, if you want to check out my site – please feel free. It’s going to be “Under New Management” in the next week or so.

We will start again. With a lesson well learnt