Here is my reading summary for the fortnight ending 1st July 2012 – the books I have finished; a sneak peek of all the books I am currently reading (as I never read just one book at a time) and any quotes or internet links that catch my eye.
My rating system:
A= Excellent Stuff – a real page turner and read in one sitting
B= A really good read – so hard to put down
C= Average – very readable and enjoyable – could put it down but couldn’t wait to get back to it.
D= It was OK, a bit of a struggle to finish.
1. This fortnight I have finished:
- A Fountain Filled With Blood by Julia Spencer-Fleming (Mystery) – B
- Am I Black Enough For You? by Anita Heiss (Autobiography/Australian Author) – C
- The Hut Builder by Laurence Fearnley (Fiction) – B – Finished reading yesterday but review not written yet
- Every Secret Thing by Marie Munkari(Fiction/Short Stories/Australian Author) – C – Finished late last night so review not written yet either.
2. My Current reads:
Blurbs from the books I am currently reading are:
Hot Silver: Riding the Indian Pacific by Steven Lewis (Non-Fiction) – Steven Lewis’s hilarious review of his train journey across Australia on the Indian Pacific in the train’s fortieth anniversary year. Hot Silver stops with the train in Broken Hill, Adelaide and Kalgoorlie, all of which are closed when the Indian Pacific visits. Most closed of all, though, is Cook, the tiny town (pop. 5) in the middle of the vast Nullarbor Plain, 200,000 square kilometers of nothingness in the centre of Australia. A perfect read for the armchair traveller, Hot Silver is a laugh-out-loud account that brings to life one of the world’s most famous train trips with the deft sketches and first-hand observation of a seasoned travel writer.
Swallow the Air by Tara June Winch (Fiction/Australian Author) – When May’s mother dies suddenly, she and her brother Billy are taken in by Aunty. However, their loss leaves them both searching for their place in a world that doesn’t seem to want them. While Billy takes his own destructive path, May sets off to find her father and her Aboriginal identity.
3. Quote/s and links for the week
First some links that I found while surfing the net this week:
20 Awesome iPad Apps That Will Teach Your Kids to Read:
http://savedelete.com/20-awesome-ipad-apps-that-will-teach-your-kids-to-read.html
Are our e-readers invading our privacy?:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jul/04/big-ereader-is-watching-you
10 future publishing predictions and how they have panned out:
Now some quotes:
The first is an excerpt from THE HUT BUILDER by Laurence Fearnley, is an e-book so this is about 30% into the story – Boden and his father have just heard on the radio about a massive train disaster that has taken place on the north island of New Zealand – the train that his mother is traveling on.
“…The magnitude of the disaster, the fact that it had taken place on Christmas Eve and the images in my mind’s eye of the train crashing off the bridge and into a black, torrential river unnerved me. I imagined my mother’s complete and utter terror in the seconds between sensing something was wrong and being flung around the carriage. I hoped that she had died instantly – I couldn’t bear the thought of her drowning…”
The second is also from THE HUT BUILDER by Laurence Fearnley chapter 14 about 80% through. Sir Edmund Hillary has just taken Boden on his one and only mountain climb up one of the easier routes on Mt Cook.
“…The first rays of sun touched the peaks and ridges and the sky was suddenly drenched in salmon pink. As far as the eye could see, the tops were bathed in warm skin tones whereas on the snow slopes and cliff faces beneath us everything was slate-black. I couldn’t believe that anyone – not even a man who had climbed the highest mountain in the world – could ever grow blasé about being, simply, in the mountains…”
My last one is from pgs 62-63 of the Chapter ‘The Big Wind in EVERY SECRET THING by Marie Munkara. Brother John from the Catholic mission has just spent the night having sex with two of the aboriginal women as they sheltered from a cyclone – it is the next morning the storm has gone and he is musing as the two women sleep on.
“…How was he going to reconcile his behaviour with the codes of practice of the church? But the more he thought of it the more he came to the conclusion that there wasn’t anything to reconcile. God had said to love thy neighbour and that’s exactly what he’d done. He had shown love towards these two fellow human beings and they in turn had shown love towards him. He didn’t have a problem with that…”
I hope you are enjoying Swallow The Air