As regular readers woud know I do regular reviews of books here on my writing site. Every writer should be an avid reader, and I enjoy sharing what I am reading with regular visitors to this site.

This time the review is a little different. Normally I would review books about writing, novels I’ve read or volumes of poetry. I have also reviewed children’s books, including picture books on occasions. (Click here to read more of my reviews.)

This review focusses on a Field Guide to the Birds of Colombia. As my long term readers would know, I also write articles about and post photos of Australian Birds on Trevor’s Birding site. I’m not going to write a new review of this book here. If you are interested in reading this review, click here.

Why Colombia?

This book was given as a special gift to a close family member who has close connections with Colombia. One day I hope to get to that fascinating country and do some birding. Of all the countries in the world, Colombia has more bird species than any other, with nearly 1800 different kinds. By way of comparison, Australia has about 800 different birds.

In due season: poems of love and loss

While it it is a slim book physically, one cannot say that about the poems. All the poems have an impact on the reader. One is taken on a journey through her life – of joys, delights, deep emotions, frustrations, fears and faith. It is a journey from first love to deep loss, from deep contentment to the emptiness of death.

Valerie’s poems poignantly trace the roller coaster ride she encounters in 2008 when her husband is diagnosed with cancer. Some poems hark back to the early days, from their first meeting, first passions of love and the demands of young family life. Other poems are filled with agony as she sketches in verse form the deterioration of Noel’s condition. And the final poems highlight her response to his death, the experience of feeling numb at the time of his funeral, the emptiness of their home without her love and the slow and sometimes painful climb up the mountain of normality.

‘How am I?
Hard to say. I veer between
a stoic resignation – “Wonderful,” I hear them say -
and silent screams of anguish.
Somewhere in me there’s a deep gaping hole
as if a vital part has been ripped out.’

from ‘A Kindness of Strangers’ p.59

I met Valerie during the time we were both completing our Master of Arts course. She has become a respected writing colleague and encouraging friend, one I deeply admire and whose comments on my own poems are highly valued.

Some of the poems in this volume I have a personal connection with, because Valerie presented them in writing workshops for critiquing during our studies for our degrees. One couldn’t help but be touched deeply by the grief she was enduring at the time but still she pressed on professionally.

Highly recommended reading.

Order the book on Valerie’s web site:

• Valerie Volk - you can order any of Valerie’s books on her website. You can also read about Valerie’s academic achievements as well as writing awards she has gained.

The photo (above right) is from the cover of her book. It has deep significance to Valerie – but you’ll have to read the book to find out why.

Reference:

Volk, Valerie, 2009. In due season: poems of love and loss. Pantaenus Press, Adelaide.

Cover of "Taj and the great camel trek"

Book review:

Rosanne Hawke: Taj and the great camel trek.

Published in 2011 by University of Queensland Press.

Two weeks ago I was privileged to attend the Adelaide launch of Rosanne Hawke’s latest novel. I am becoming addicted to launches of her books; this is the fourth one I’ve attended in three years. As anticipated it was a joyous time of celebration because I know how hard she has struggled with this story over the last 4 years.

The main character, twelve year old Taj, lived in Beltana in outback South Australia in the 1870s. His father is a cameleer and Taj has his own camel Mustara, a character in its own right. In fact, Taj and Mustara have featured in another Hawke book, the picture book Mustara.

Cover of "Mustara"

Taj and Mustara are invited to join explorer Ernest Giles on his second expedition  across Australia from Beltana to Port Augusta and then on to Perth in Western Australia. It is not a journey to be undertaken lightly because much of the territory they planned to cover is desert, for most part uninhabited even by local Aboriginal people. The team accompanying Giles struggle with coming to terms with the isolation, their own feelings of fear,  the harsh environmental conditions and the almost total lack of water. At times, they traversed many hundreds of miles without finding a drop of water. The whole journey has them on the very edge of disaster throughout, giving the reader a sense of the extreme hardships they endured.

While this is a novel, written as fiction and from Taj’s point of view, many of the incidents and characters are based on real events and real people taken from Giles’ own journal and the records in newspapers of the day. Taj himself is a fictitious character which points to the real strength of this book. Rosanne revealed at the launch that this book was originally conceived as non-fiction, but early on in her research and early drafts discovered that fiction was a far more powerful vehicle to tell the story. In this way the author has brought history to life for the reader, a delicate balancing act at the best of times. She has handled the transition with great skill. We see and feel the anxiety of the party through the eyes and emotions of Taj.

Highly recommended reading.

Links:

• Rosanne Hawke’s web site
• Taj and the great camel trek special page - including photos from the launch and teachers’ notes.
• Merchandise – buy T-shirts, mugs, ties, fridge magnets and many other items featuring the cover art work from the book. I am the proud owner of a Taj coffee mug which I use every day.
• Marrying Ameera - my review of Rosanne’s previous best selling novel, listed recently as a Notable Book.

Disclosure: Rosanne was my supervising lecturer when I completed my Master of Arts (Creative Writing) course recently. Apart from being a great friend and an amazing mentor, I gain nothing from promoting her books and the merchandise associated with it. Reviewing her books is just my way of saying ‘thank you, Rosanne.’

Rosanne Hawke and a friend

The fearsome flute players

I don’t often write about another of my passions – birding – on this site. But I do include book reviews here. I’ve just finished reading a fascinating book about Australian Magpies, one of our most recognisable and best loved birds.

The book is called “The fearsome flute players: Australian Magpies in our lives.” This is not a scientific thesis paper; it is written in an entertaining and engaging manner, incorporating hundreds of stories of ordinary people in South Australia telling their encounters with these wonderful birds.

I won’t give a full review here but rather refer you to Trevor’s Birding, another site I write so you can read an extensive review of this book.

Special Offer:

The publisher a special offer to readers of my birding site. Mention Trevor’s Birding when you order online and you will also receive a CD of 200 photos of South Australia, including some beautiful photos of scenery and water birds.

I strongly recommend this wonderful book.

Good reading – good writing.

Australian Magpie

Because it is essentially a compact journal, competition to be published in it is intense. I’ve only managed to get one story published in this journal, but I should be fair to myself as I really haven’t bombarded the editors with submissions. The submissions do not have to focus on spiritual topics, though some do.  On the web page is says:

Studio is a quarterly journal publishing poetry and prose of literary merit, offering a venue for previously published, new and aspiring writers, and developing a sense of community among christians writing.

I highly recommend this fine journal. More information, including submission guidelines, can be found on the Studio website here.

Good writing.

Every year the Creative Writing department of the university where I recently completed my MA (Tabor Adelaide) publishes an anthology of poetry, short plays and short stories. The contributors are all present or former students, and a few staff members also add to the eclectic mix of writing. This anthology was the 6th edition and the quality is extremely high. The competition to be included is making it harder to be included every year, so I was pleased to have a short story and a poem in the latest issue.

I’ve read all six editions and have enjoyed all of the stories. Many of the poems could easily have found a home in any of our most prestigious literary journals. In fact, two of our regular contributors, both former students, have had stories published in a leading journal in recent months. It speaks volumes for the standard of teaching at Tabor Adelaide, and says much for the talents being nurtured.

The anthology is called Tales from the Upper Room, reflecting the theological roots of Tabor Adelaide and a direct link to the upper room where Jesus and his disciples met to celebrate the last supper. The ‘upper room’ also refers to the fact that our writers’ groups meet in The Loft, the highest room in the university.

Links:

• Tales from the Upper Room - buy past editions of the anthology here.
• Tabor Adelaide - study creative writing through Tabor Adelaide (external students are also welcome)

While this book is a thin volume it still fascinates the reader, despite its quaint and somewhat outdated attitudes and expressions. It is a reminder of a by-gone era, when people had time to correspond, when books were treasured items to be sought after and possessed – not kept on e-readers – and when times in post-war England were quite different as well as difficult.

84 Charing Cross Road was written by Helene Hanff and published by Penguin.

Cover - Searching for the secret river

I have recently read Kate Grenville‘s historical novel The Secret River. You can read my review here.

Straight after finishing the novel I went on to read her follow up book Searching for the Secret River.

In this second book she goes into great detail about how she researched the novel. The story is based upon the life of her great-great-great grandfather, but she took the facts gleaned from family history and extensive research both in London and in Sydney over a five year period and transformed it into fiction. She has used fact as a broad brush in the hands of her imagination and the finished novel is brilliant. It gives the reader a much clearer view of life in the early years of settlement in the young Australian colony.

Searching for the Secret River is a fascinating expose on the thinking processes of one of our leading authors. Grenville takes us on a journey from the first inklings of an idea for a book through to the finished product. At first she was planning a non fiction book but she struck so many obstacles along the way that she changed tack completely, fictionalising it and letting her imagination run. I’m pleased she did.

While she does address some of the issues faced by all writers of fiction, this is not a handbook on writing. Sure, she does explain why she changed from first to third person, but generally it was the research that so intrigued her that she recounts in the first part of the book. Throughout she grapples with her attitudes, and those of the settlers, towards the Aboriginal people who would have lived in the Sydney area during the time in which she sets her novel. She was confronted by some very unsavoury discoveries. The reader of the novel is likewise confronted by some of the events of those days. Australian history is not always the clean, lovely accounts I read as a student many years ago.

While she has drawn from actual  historical records, her novel is not another version of history. ‘I was shameless in rifling through research for anything I could use,’ she writes, ‘wrenching it out of its place and adapting it for my own purposes… What I was writing wasn’t real, but it was as true as I could make it.‘ (Grenville p. 210)  She has been criticised for her (alleged)  misuse of history. I think she has achieved what most other writers struggle with – she has made history come alive for the reader.

Reference:

• Grenville, K, 2007, Searching for the Secret River. WF Howes, Leicester.

The Secret River

I’ve recently read Kate Grenville‘s novel The Secret River on the recommendation of a friend. I can’t recall if I’ve ever read any other works by this prominent Australian author, but will certainly be looking at her other books in the future.

The story begins in London and follows the story of William Thornhill, a boatman on the Thames. He is involved in a misadventure which lands him in jail and sentenced to hang. Fortunately his wife’s family has connections, and his sentence is commuted to transportation to Australia as a convict ‘for the term of his natural life.’ His wife and young family are allowed to travel on the same convict ship, but as free settlers in the new penal colony at Sydney.

The story grabs the reader as Thornhill and his family struggle to survive. After some years he gains his freedom. Through hard work and many setbacks they eventually establish a farm they think of as their own. The indigenous population see things much differently and the inevitable conflict arises. This is a dark and often tragic part of recent Australian history, the ramifications of which we are still attempting to work through.

Grenville has drawn some memorable characters, especially in Thornhill, his wife Sal and her longing to some day return home to London, and some of the minor characters living near them. Their daily endeavours are well documented, set against the ever present strangeness of the unfamiliar landscape. Grenville also carefully plots the growing problem they had with the local Darug people who had lived here at one with the environment for millennia.

Interestingly, this story was inspired by the author’s family history. Her great-great-great grandfather was Solomon Wiseman after whom Wisemans Ferry, near modern Sydney, is named. While the novel is fiction, the author has drawn heavily upon historical records of the day, including those of her family. Thus we have in the novel a blurring of the line between historical fact and an author’s imagination as expressed in the fiction of the story.

This blurring resonates with what I am attempting to do with my own work in progress, a children’s novel set in Nepal which draws on actual historical events.

The Secret River is an important work by a highly acclaimed Australian author. It has rightly won many awards, including:

• Winner, Commonwealth Writers’ Prize 2006
• Winner, NSW Premier’s Literary award 2006
• Shortlisted, Man Booker Prize, 2006.

Reference:

Grenville, K 2005. The Secret River. Text, Melbourne.

Whatever you read this year, put this novel on your MUST READ list.

Ameera, 17 years old, is the daughter of an Australian mother – a Christian – and a Pakistani father who is a devout Muslim. Seeking to be like her Australian friends, Ameera discovers that her father strongly and actively opposes any social contact with non-Muslims. He tightens his grip on her activities until he discovers her interest in a Pakistani Christian boy.

She is suddenly sent off to visit relatives in Pakistan thinking she is attending the wedding of her cousin Jamila. Soon after she arrives she discovers the awful truth: it is she who is marrying her wealthy cousin through a business transaction organised by her own father.

When her passport, return ticket and mobile phone are confiscated by her uncle, Ameera realises she is trapped. There seems no way out of going through with the wedding. Only her determination, courage and a growing love for Tariq can see her through this nightmare.

This is without doubt the best novel I’ve read this year, and the best YA novel in a long time. The author has drawn a wide range of believable and very memorable characters, all of them true to their particular culture, either Australian or Pakistani. I found the conflict experienced by the characters caught between two cultures as portrayed in Ameera, for example, to be both compelling and authentic.

Rosanne Hawke has used to great advantage the time she lived in Pakistan while teaching, and later on a fellowship while researching this novel. Her understanding of the Pakistani culture brings this story to life as she describes the customs, foods, clothing, ceremonies and even the elaborate jewellery used in weddings.

While this is a story which carries the reader along – a page turner – it also has a very serious message. The people living in countries like Pakistan still practice arranged marriages, and have done for centuries. This story is different. It portrays a forced marriage which is now illegal in Pakistan. Sadly, many forced marriages, in a range of countries, still occur. Few girls caught in such a situation don’t have the means to escape, or have the courage of the character Ameera to face the consequences of their plight.

This novel is a love story.

A tragic love story with just a touch of romance, romance shattered by reality. I believe, however, it is not a novel just for girls. Sure, it will appear to be most attractive to teenage girls, and they won’t be disappointed.

If I had my way however, I’d make this compulsory reading for every teenage male in Australia. There is so much they could learn about love, respect, honour and relationships. Besides – it’s an exciting read with danger abounding on every page.

References:

• Hawke, R, 2010, Marrying Ameera, Harper Collins, Sydney.
• Rosanne Hawke – click to go to her website.
• Reading guide to Marrying Ameera

Update: this book sold out in the first week after publication. It is about to go to a second print run. Fantastic.