some music in your book, madame?

king dork, frank portman

We had been working pretty hard to get the band ready for the Festival of Lights. We weren't sounding too bad. It was still pretty rough, but, in our better moment, we sounded kind of like Buddy Holly meets Thin Lizzy with a punk rock sensibility and a slight psychedelic edge, like UFO playing Velvet Underground songs or something.

about a girl & mahalia, joanne horniman

When she'd played four songs straight she paused. She had kicked off her black rubber thongs and was sitting on a chair in the spotlight barefoot, bare-shouldered, dark-haired, with her white guitar cradled in her arms like a lover. She drummed her feet lightly on the floor, staring into space as though considering what to play next.

It was a simple, dignified song, sung with strength and purpose. Eliza improvised, and sang on, oblivious of Matt standing in the shadows, listening. She played with the notes, bent them and warbled them, whispered them, and cried them out, her whole body, her mouth and lungs and chest an instrument for the sound.

after january, nick earls

This is just another item on the growing list of things I am unlikely to tell the people I went to school with when I see them next. So what did you do at the coast? Well, one day I sat on a stool in the hinterland and a hippy family played pop songs for me.
That was great, Cliff says. What did you think Alex?
Yeah, really good.
So, do you sing?
Me? No.
I think you might, F says. I think you might be about to.

if you like a bit of music in yr books, there are many others i'd recommend:

if i stay, gayle foreman, just listen, sarah dessen, nick and norah's infinite playlist, rachel cohn & david levithan, queen of the night, leanne hall (wolfboy is in band), amy and roger's epic detour, morgan matson, rpm, noel mengel, the true story of butterfish, nick earls
(not a complete list)

(badges by Carrie the Excellent via the sticky institute, lyrics by mr darren hanlon and messieurs donald, monnone and white aka the lucksmiths)

What can you CBC? A shortlist off the port bow!

2011 CBCA Shortlist

What excitement! Ye gads!

About a Girl, Graffiti Moon, Six Impossible Things, The Midnight Zoo, The Piper's Son, The Life of a Teenage Body Snatcher (pic below, my copy has gone walkies). How often does the CBC get it so right?*

You can go to the CBCA website for all the other categories. They are all good, but none like the YA section.

And isn't it so wonderful to see so many lady novelists represented? All other literary prizes are always skewed firmly the other way. And so many lovely lady novelists to boot! Bring on the cake and champagne! (shortlisted mans can have cake and bubbles too).


*(err...though extremely disappointed that Lian Tanner's The Keepers isn't on the Younger Readers list...)

2480

Jo Horniman, your books make Lismore seem so...exotic. But perhaps the Simpletons experienced it another way?



p.s. Do bass players in Lismore still dress like pyjama pirates?

monthly monday milf meeeeem

MMM is a meeeem created by The Dugong Lady and kate.o.d in celebration of those who lurk handsomely in the background. we want you between our pages.

and the winner of my very first Minor characters-ILF non-meme is none other than:

otis

(from mahalia, written by joanne horniman, published by allen&unwin)

otis plays the blues. when he plays the blues his whole body gets into it, the music flows through his very body and out of his guitar. but even though he plays so beautifully and with his soul, otis wants to study and be a teacher. and when otis gets a crush on a girl he starts working out, starts looking "sharp", with hollows in his cheeks and a glint in his eye. when his best mate (matt) has to pawn his guitar, otis gets it back for him. now that's a best friend. i am definitely a bit in love with him.

here's how he's described in the book:

"...otis worked hard at school. he had goals, something matt had never had. otis's ordinary, stolid, pudgy face, what the americans would call homely, was as familiar to matt as his own. an ugly black bastard was how otis had once described himself, his voice light and quick and careless, lifting his eyebrows to show he didn't give a shit what he looked like."


but in spite of this description, in my mind otis is also very sexy.

maybe something like this handsome devil --->

'trying not to make out with my spoon'

the sky is everywhere, jandy nelson

this is lennon's story (lennie to most people). her older sister bailey has recently died unexpectedly from a fatal arrhythmia and the book explores her grieving process and her relationships with her gram (who has looked after her and bailey since their mother took off exploring), her uncle big, her friends and two different boys. toby is bailey's boyfriend - equally as adrift and devastated as lennie and the two fall - horribly - into each other's arms for comfort. joe fontaine is the new boy, a total dream, and it is with him lennie (or john lennon, as he calls her) feels like she can play music once more.

i found that the sky is everywhere actually had some similarities to secret scribbled notebooks - very lush surroundings, lavish emotions, an elderly guardian, sisterly connections, intriguing boys. it made me imagine how bereft kate would have been if sophie had died. but ssn wins because of its deliberate, perfectly-chosen, prose with not a word too many...

this book is full of blowsy overblown language. however, i didn't mind. lennie was such a ridiculous romantic, complete with a wuthering heights obsession. it worked, i think.
i didn't like the blue font though, it was vair distracting and sore on the old eyes. and though i liked that the book felt a little like a diary with the elastic strap thing, i think this very moving story could have used a more sophisticated jacket.

my favourite part? when lennie becomes acutely aware of sex and her body and goes around kissing the furniture. wonderful!

my cover or yours?

oh dear. is it the same girl?

so i haven't read the ciara geraghty book, i just saw it at the airport and felt a bit pouty and cross that they would use "sophie" on another book. where do the covers of books come from? obviously the interweb. it must feel nice to know that at least the about a girl cover is one of a kind.

i read a review of it tho and discovered that both books are about single mothers. how freaky is that? and the author of becoming scarlett is irish - and sophie loves the potato famine (err, the subject of it).

this review makes me think that i like sophie's story better. i love my candlelight novel, and am sorry that someone else is wearing its skin.

why february is going to be exciting

well! not only will i be gleefully falling off the wagon with a gin and tonic in one hand and a latte in the other...


...the rest of you can read the deliciousness, the joy, the bittersweetness of joanne horniman's latest novel, about a girl. the idea is this: that anna is living on her own in a town she moved to because the bookshop there hired her. she sits in the storeroom and reads novels on her break (and sometimes when she is meant to be working!). sometimes she goes out to see a band. one night she sees flynn singing and anna is instantly smitten. because this is a book, and because this is the way it should go, the two girls soon see more of each other and soon become lovers. while their relationship progresses - often blissfully and with great affection, anna is often wracked with fear, or worry, that flynn won't come knocking next time. we learn about anna's life before flynn, we come to realise that maybe flynn too is keeping something of herself hidden.
this is a remarkable love story, passionate and mature, and smacks of beautiful young things. there's literary references and music, you yearn to be clever, and to be friends with anna.

i'm not 100% sold on the cover though - it makes it seem to be a younger book than it is. however, i do like the idea of illustrated YA book covers, as i don't love books with photographs of people's faces, as a rule (mostly because i like to imagine what the characters look like for myself, and also because it can sometimes be tacky).

p.s. i meant to thank allen&unwin for sending this reading copy to the shop. you guys are rad.

spotlight on my favourites: joanne horniman

secret scribbled notebooks

this is probably my favourite of her novels. mostly because i love kate, the main character. i want to be her. she's finishing up her final year at school, dreaming of escaping her hometown of lismore and hungry to experience life. there is a delightful cast of characters: sophie is kate's sister who lies long hours in bed reading and reading and breastfeeding her baby (first called anastacia, then hetty). lil, the red-lipped, raven haired old lady who brought them up after their father left them behind at the rambling bed and breakfast called samarkand (the house almost a character to itself). the "russian prince" from the second hand bookstore enchanted me as much as he did kate. jo's words are masterful, evoking the lusciousness of this almost tropical hinterland, as well as its oppressiveness.

mahalia

matt and emmy were only teenagers when they discovered they were expecting a baby - mahalia, it turned out. but they decided they would love her and worry about the other problems later. but emmy can't seem to cope and before mahalia is six months old she leaves them and goes to stay with her godmother in sydney. matt is fiercely determined to take care of mahalia by himself and be beholden to no one.
this is a beautiful story and very realistic. again set in lismore (reading jo's novels you expect to see characters from every book just wandering about) and the landscape and the people flesh out the story, no less important than matt and mahalia and the main action. another set of characters that i want to be friends with; particularly matt's mate otis and his family, and the lion-like eliza.

a charm of powerful trouble

i have only read this book the once, and it was quite a few years ago when it first came out. i remember it being very sensual, lush and dream-like. it is the story of sisters and their mother and all the mess of relationships and people in their lives.
i remember vividly one of the characters' first kiss. in secret, hidden in some verdant and sequestered place (the landscape felt wild!) she kissed her friend and bit her, so her first kiss tasted of blood. such a powerful piece of writing, it has stuck with me since.
it makes me think of picnic at hanging rock. but set in the australian tropics. and much more poetic.

then there are the sequels, or companion novels...

little wing tells emmy's side of the story; her time away from mahalia, helping us to understand her motives for leaving. i think my loyalties lie too strongly in matt's camp and i did not fully warm to emmy. but her personal development and healing, as well as the people she meets on the way, make it a warm and moving novel. the cool blue chill of the nsw blue mountains (the setting for this book) is a contrast from the muggy scenes of lismore in the other books.

in my candlelight novel we are treated to the poetic and sexy story of sophie, the sister kate (from secret scribbled notebooks). just twenty-one, and a single mum to the delectable little hetty, sophie is starting university. filled with literary references and crammed with the blossoming ideas as sophie ruminates on motherhood and love. this is what young adult literature should be; smart, sumptuous and thought provoking. just divine.

all these books are published by the wonderful folk at allen and unwin. read them, savour them. (buy them)