spotting aussie books abroad

i travelled a bit last year, just a short ten week trip around the world, you know, just for fun.

because i can't not go into a bookshop wherever i am, i kept my eyes peeled for any familar faces, as it were. i found lots! so here are the ones i photographed. not that it matters, but they are not in the order in which i saw them.



here's barry jonsberg's kiffo and the pitbull and it's not all about you calma...but with their american covers and titles. as they are known there: the crimes and punishments of miss payne and am i right or am i right? this was taken in new york at a big, messy, noisy bookstore on broadway (i think).



at the same bookstore i saw joanne horniman's fabulous mahalia, with a great cover (have to say i didn't love the jonsberg ones...).


at waterstones on high street, kensington in london i saw on the new releases table tim winton's breath and michelle de kretser's the lost dog.

in the children's section of the same waterstones i found my fave aussie teen series, tomorrow when the war began. (on a side note i am v excited about the upcoming movie, even though i have serious doubts about the casting).

this was my favourite! in a little bookstore in mitte, berlin, i found markus zusak's incredible, fabulous, wonderful the messenger...or der joker! unglaublich, fabelhaft, wunderbar!

while on my trip i read jeffrey eugenides middlesex, jane austen's persuasion (which i read probably four or five times after i stupidly went to morocco for two weeks with just this one book), spanking shakespeare by jake wizner, an abundance of katherines by john green...and surely more things as well. probably a murakami, i think i read hard boiled wonderland and the end of the world. i know i read my morocco travel guide and the one for central europe pretty much cover-to-cover on those nights stuck in the hotel in morocco (not so safe for a girl travelling alone at night there).

but there is something great about reading while travelling. you remember the books and the stories within them for strange and different reasons, sometimes. and persuasion was great because i had just been to dorset for my friend's wedding and we'd walked on the cob at lyme regis...i felt very austen there.

new releases - october

very exciting stuff! many new books! too much work to do!

but it's all good, and i'll have plenty to read and report back on. and for anyone (cough*jenny*cough) waiting for the knife of never letting go in paperback. it's here!

intelligent and pink

i realised that i never posted my review of lili wilkinson's book pink (which i loved).

so here 'tis:

"working for the centre for youth literature, lili wilkinson (author of scatterheart, the not-quite perfect boyfriend, as well as the latest gem angel fish)must be very familiar with everything that is out there in young adult fiction today. she has used this advantage in her very funny new novel pink, for older readers. this one is for the kids that just aren't sure: about their sexuality, their friends or themselves. pink successfully turns the traditional theme of fitting in upside down, while reinforcing the importance of being true to one's self - if you can figure out who you are.

ava has convinced her parents to send her to a posh academic school, instead of the more carefree, alternative high school she had previously been attending. she wants to be challenged. even though she loves her girlfriend chloe, she wants the chance to reinvent herself a little and make some new friends. of course, her plans do not run smoothly. the characters are all well-written, come from a range o backgrounds and the dialogue is quick and snappy (hello gilmore girls!) and fun. ava is a smart and strong female character and i love this idea of the rebel lesbian girl who wants to try living in the mainstream."

so that was the bit i wrote for a magazine. i want to add a few things:

pink would be a great companion read to simmone howell's ace gold inky-winning notes from the teenage underground. i could see ava and gem (the warhol-loving, filmmaking, feisty protagonist) as friends, hanging out at the state library.

i love that there are some great books out with smart and funny girls as the main character. i also love destiny mccartney from gabrielle williams' beatle meets destiny who was a (maybe just little) bit ditzy, but also clever and fun.

i think i might compile a list of all my fave smart chicks in YA. and my favourite smart lads too!

(oh and as a last note...i love that ava's parents threw her a coming-out party when she told them she was gay. reminded me of the party gem's mother threw her (in nfttu) when she got her period.)

naked or dressed

i stayed up quite late the other night finishing nick hornby's latest novel juliet, naked. (out this week, from viking)

it was marvellous! fantastic! once i finished i went back and read the last few pages again and sort of sat there thinking about it. and now i just want everyone i know to read it so i can talk about it.

it's the story of duncan and annie, de facto by circumstance not totally by choice or love. duncan's love and passion is reserved for tucker crowe - a dylan-esque, leonard cohen-type singer-songwriter (but not so famous) who disappeared completely after his sudden retirement.

fans the world over (led, pretty much, by the obsessive duncan) theoriesed ceaselessly over the reasons for tucker's retirement. was it the famous "impossible" julie - about whom tucker's chef d'oeuvre juliet was written? did she break his heart completely? will tucker ever release another album?

but it also deals with annie and duncan's relationship, their trip to america to tour all of tucker crowe's haunts and all that happens from the moment they receive the first copy of a new release acoustic demo version of tucker's album (released as juliet, naked) when annie has a finger hovering over the play button as she contemplates the fatal sin of listening to it before duncan. (and thus, being able to form her own opinion of it, not coloured by his academic analyses of style and influence).

juliet, naked is truly classic, truly fab, hornby.

coffee art

here are the coffees the evil sister and i were served when we had lunch at the rather funky alphabet city cafe on high st, westgarth just the other day. impressive coffee art! i haven't come across much coffee art, just the occasional feather and love heart.

and they were delicious coffees as well! perhaps a little on the milky side, but i'd definitely go back. plus, it's just across from the westgarth cinema. and it does good food. and also there's a very quirky junk shop in westgarth too, filled with treasures - if you could only get to them!

some picture books

at my work i get to read a lot of picture books. this is something i love! my ultimate favourite being wilfred gordon macdonald partridge by mem fox and julie vivas, which never fails to make me a bit weepy - in the best way!

mannie, strawberry luca and lilliput are off for a day's adventure! they take along mannie's special box - a pink suitcase filled with secret things. mannie is martine murray's latest creation and a brilliant addition to her other tearaway adventurer-girls cedar b hartley and henrietta; brought to life in sally rippin's beautiful, expressive illustrations.
'wait a minute! what's in the box?' it's all sorts of things that make their adventure go swimmingly, even when the clouds become grey and ominous. it is then that the shy, timid elephant lilliput has to summon her courage. i love martine's expressions: 'a serious explorer hat', 'creep peep creeping through the tall reaching trees', 'tip top toeing along the dark pointy roofs'. beautiful!

colin thompson's latest picture book is a sweet and humourous story of a frightening-looking bulldog called fearless. however, fearless is really a friendly scaredy-dog. people cross the road when confronted with his thick muscled body, docked tail and meaty jaws, when really he was "just smiling hello." this makes fearless confused and sad. sarah davies has provided perfect, detailed illustrations, bringing out the endearing fearless - so expressive and realistic.

this one is a new favourite of mine. not only is zou an adorable little zebra-boy but the story goes that he wants to make his parents breakfast in bed so they'll get up and play with him - and they need coffee! plus it is french (and i am a serious francophile) so zou pours bowls of coffee for his maman and papa. but watch where you're walking, zou!

written by michel gay. in france there are lots of stories about zou, so i hope we'll see more of him soon.

and speaking of coffee...i've been pretty slack about trying new places recently. however, i did get a takeaway latte from giant kitchen little (i think this is what it's called) on moreland road in brunswick. the staff were so friendly and they played excellent spanish-type music and sang along. the coffee itself was nice and hot, not too creamy, but a little bit weak. i will go back though.

i also went down to point lonsdale on the bellarine peninsula and had coffee with my mama bear and evil sister at kelp. kelp has a nice view onto the beach and along to queenscliff. the coffee was actually quite good this time (previously it has been burnt and bitter) and they give you a little piece of yummy fudge on the side so that was nice. for food though, they don't even have one vegetarian option so i got cross.

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)