Why Are We Like This?

Another recommendation via the Radio National book countdown -- Robin Williams, the long time host of The Science Show, which I've been listening to on a Saturday morning for as long as I can remember, suggested Why Are We Like This? by Zoe Kean, who has worked as a science journalist with the ABC, so there might be a touch of nepotism here! I do enjoy a spot of popular science, and Kean writes in a clear, lively style that meant that I understood almost all the science she was explaining.

Why Are We Like This? poses some big questions about human behaviour and genetic heritage: why do we have sex? Why do we sleep? Why do we age? and more, and takes an evolutionary approach to nutting out the answers. Not all these questions are solved, and Kean does a great job of setting out the various scientific debates, as well as honestly letting us know her own opinion. It shows science as an area of energetic but respectful conflict, motivated by curiosity and the advance of knowledge, which is something unspeakably valuable in these times where science is being ruthlessly devalued and misunderstood. We need many more books like these and many more writers like Zoe Kean who can help dumdums like me grope towards a rough comprehension of what science does, as well as its hard-won conclusions.
 

Bel Canto

Ann Patchett's 2001 Bel Canto came onto my radar through the Radio National Top 100 Books of the 21st century; it ended up at number 64, but the description of the story made it sound a lot more interesting and quite different from what I'd expected. 

This is a juicy, layered, rewarding novel. In an unnamed South American country, guerilla fighters storm an event at the Vice Presidential mansion and take hostage all the party guests -- most of the women and all the staff are then released, apart from the famous American opera singer Roxane Coss. Because the guests are from a variety of countries, everyone relies heavily on the Japanese translator, Gen. It turns out that the guerilla soldiers are mostly teenagers, with a couple of girls among them, including the very beautiful Carmen. Inevitably, as days of captivity turn into months, bonds start to form across the divide between the guerillas and their prisoners, and Roxane's music binds them together into a kind of dreamy trance-world. Of course the ending, when it comes, is shattering.

I don't think I've read any of Ann Patchett's novels before, but now I understand why she is such a popular and respected writer. At least in Bel Canto, she treads the line between literary and popular fiction perfectly.
 

Charlotte Sometimes

I was so riled up by Ian McEwan's dismissal of children's books as not proper literature that I pulled out an old favourite to see if it would stand up to scrutiny. Penelope Farmer's 1969 masterpiece, Charlotte Sometimes, is less than 200 pages long, and yet it packs a punch more powerful than some novels twice the length. Every time I read it, it seems darker: the dank November weather, the austere boarding school corridors, the grieving Chisel Brown family in their cold dark house, in mourning for their soldier son, the neglected Japanese garden -- it all adds up to an eerie, haunting story, quite apart from the creepiness and gnawing anxiety of Charlotte's helpless swap with Clare from 1918.

Charlotte Sometimes is an evocative exploration of identity, fragmentation and fate. In some ways, it's a very small story -- at first, only Charlotte and Clare are aware of what's happened to them as they mysteriously swap places, though later Clare's sister Emily and Charlotte's friend Elizabeth also learn the secret. The sinking horror when Charlotte realises that she is trapped in the past, because of adult whims, and her utter helplessness to change the fact, is genuinely terrifying. Not much happens: Charlotte and Emily try unsuccessfully to get Charlotte into the magical bed one night, they gatecrash the Chisel Brown's seance, they are caught up in street celebrations at the end of the war -- but none of these events directly change the narrative. By denying agency to the protagonist, Charlotte Sometimes seems to break every rule of writing for children; perhaps this is what makes it stand out as genuine literature!

One of the absolute classics of the time-slip tradition, Charlotte Sometimes remains as vivid and disturbing as ever.
 

The Daydreamer

 

Take a look at this cover. What kind of book do you think this is? A horror novel? Some kind of weird erotic adult furry fantasy? No, it's a children's book. I'm pleased to note that later editions dial back the weird and have much more appealing, kid-friendly covers, so someone eventually realised this one was doing them no favours, with the intended readers at least, though I could see Ian McEwan's adult fans picking it up.

I must confess that I did not greet The Daydreamer in the right spirit. For a start, the first sixteen pages are printed twice -- okay, not McEwan's fault, but it's sloppy (I expect better from Vintage). But then, get this -- from the Preface:

We all love the idea of bedtime stories... But do adults really like children's literature? I've always thought the enthusiasm was a little overstated, even desperate... Do we really mean it, do we really still enjoy them, or are we speaking up for, and keeping the lines open to, our lost, nearly forgotten selves? ... What we like about children's books is our children's pleasure in them, and this is less to do with literature and more to do with love.  

Well, I respectfully disagree, Ian. And how is the gall of the man, to say this with such confident authority, in the preface of a book written for children? He may as well say, kids' book are crap, here's a crap book I've written, hope you like it. It all reinforces my view that this first edition at least, was pitched  squarely at adult readers of McEwan, not children themselves.

The Daydreamer is not bad. Peter has an active imagination and he finds himself caught up in all sorts of hypothetical situations. Three of the seven stories involve body swaps: with a cat, a baby and an adult. In other adventures, he makes his family disappear with vanishing cream, tricks a burglar and defeats a school bully (using cruelty rather than violence -- though he feels bad about it afterwards). Because this is Ian McEwan, there is a definite creepy undertone to some of the stories, especially the one where his sister's dolls come to life. But the final story, where Peter finds himself suddenly grown up and in love, doesn't seem aimed at children but at nostalgic adults, and I suspect the whole book was really written from this point of view.

 

Not Just a Witch and Dial a Ghost

I've now read almost all of Eva Ibbotson's novels for adults, but not so many of her books aimed for children. I found these two in one volume in a secondhand shop. Not Just a Witch was first published in 1989, Dial a Ghost in 1996, but they are both the kind of timeless, old-fashioned middle grade story that retain a lot of, as the kids say now, 'charm.'

There's a satisfying (but not too graphic) amount of gore and creepiness in both these novels, and child protagonists are firmly to the fore. Not Just a Witch centres on two witches, one who can turn people into animals, another who can turn people in to stone, and their child friends who foil a dastardly plot to take advantage of them both. Dial a Ghost features a friendly family of phantoms, an orphaned heir, a ghost and haunting matchmaking agency, and two pairs of obnoxious villains (one alive and one dead). Both novels would make great bedtime read-alouds for a child with a sense of humour and an appreciation of the macabre -- maybe not one who's susceptible to nightmares!

Foxspell

Foxspell by Gillian Rubinstein won the CBCA Book of the Year for older readers in 1994. It's a seamlessly accomplished mix of social/family drama, and eerie supernatural story, and I'm not surprised that it won. Tod and his mother and sisters have moved to the fringes of Adelaide to live with Tod's grandmother after his English father has returned to the UK for an indeterminate period of time. Tod has learning problems and isn't particularly invested in school; his older sisters are starting to be interested in boys, his mother wants to be a stand up comedian, his brisk grandmother is busy with her hens and her vegie garden. As Tod starts to explore the quarries and bush that surround Grandma's house, he becomes fascinated with the foxes that live there, and one fox in particular offers him a chance of a very different, wild, fierce kind of life.

Rubinstein is clever in her handling of the foxes, acknowledging that they were imported from far away, just like the white inhabitants, and don't belong in this landscape. I've just realised that the foxes in the book only hunt other imported species -- hens, rabbits, cats -- neatly sidestepping the issue of the damage they do to native animals. It's a narrow line to tread, recognising the attraction of these cunning, beautiful animals but also the fact that they should never have been brought here.

The book ends on a breathtaking climax, leaving the resolution to the reader's imagination. I think my copy might have belonged to a teacher who could have been reading it aloud to two separate classes -- there are pencil notes in the margins marking (I guess) where each class is up to. It would make a wonderful read-aloud, appealing to both those who like realism and those who love fantasy. For a thirty year old novel (gulp, I feel old!), Foxspell holds up incredibly well.
 

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

I first heard Becky Chambers recommended on one of the ABC radio book shows, and I think they said something about her writing 'hope-punk,' which sounded both intriguing and inviting. I found the first of her Wayfarer series, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, at the Athenaeum Library, and I'm happy to report that there are two more in the series.

I used to read quite a bit of science fiction as a teenager, culminating in Ursula Le Guin's philosophical novels, The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, but as I got older, I grew out of the habit. I did love Star Trek (especially Voyager), and of course Doctor Who and the dystopian Blake's 7, but science fiction writing has largely slipped out of my life. 

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet recaptured all the things I loved about my adolescent favourites. There is a cheerful, multi-species crew of various sexual and gender persuasions; there are adventures and encounters both pleasurable and dangerous; there are political and ethical dilemmas, and just a sprinkling of techno-babble. All the characters talk like twenty-something college students (except the dignified captain, Ashby) and there is plenty of banter as well as heart-rending moments. I was slightly disappointed that the planet-let Cricket was named for giant insects rather than the game! But it was really delightful to spend time on the Wayfarer, and I approve of hope punk. I'm looking forward to more. This is technically an adult book, but in many ways it would make a perfect YA.
 

A Talent to Annoy

The Mitford sisters are one of my guilty pleasures. I was seduced as a teenager by Nancy's The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate (I think I must have come to them via the 1980 TV adaptation) and then gradually discovered the rest of that glittering, wicked, gifted family. 

A Talent to Annoy collects a selection of Nancy's articles and reviews, mostly from the 1950s and 60s, when she was living in France. Her writing sparkles, even when she's discussing contemporary French politicians and 18th century personalities that mean very little to me. These articles often contain 'teases,' because Nancy did love to provoke as well as to entertain. One tease which had a long afterlife was a piece about the English aristocracy, in which she discussed 'U' and 'non-U' speech, where U stands for upper-class. For example, it's U to say napkin, non-U to use the word serviette. Nancy was actually quoting the work of a linguistics professor from several years earlier, but the article set off an explosion of furious debate in Britain and is still cited today.

I think Nancy must have longed to live in the 18th century French court (pre-Revolution), surrounded by amusing, learned and fascinating (and rich!) people. Each of these pieces is headed by a quote from one of her letters, and her voluminous correspondence, especially to her sisters and to her great friend Evelyn Waugh, give a real flavour of her personality. She used to spend every morning sitting up in bed dashing off letters -- how heavenly, and much more useful for posterity than doom-scrolling.
 

Thunderhead

FINALLY I got to read Sophie Beer's Thunderhead, after the library found it, or restocked it -- the very last book on this year's CBCA Notables list. I must admit when I started reading it, I wasn't sure if this was going to be a book for me. Our narrator, Thunderhead, is writing a blog, but one they hope that no one ever sees, shouting their troubles into the void. Thunderhead adores music, but they have tumours growing on their auditory nerves which may one day make them completely deaf. As someone who is (gulp) let's say, music-indifferent for the most part, I told myself that I couldn't really relate... Sadly, years working in the music industry have left me jaded and cynical :(

But then, unexpectedly, when Thunderhead was given the bad news about their hearing, and realised that their dream of becoming a music journalist would never happen, I found myself blinking back tears. And from then on, I was all in. Thunderhead is not just grappling with serious illness and losing music, they also have Year 8 friendship woes to navigate. Their best friend, Moonflower, has changed schools and found a new friendship group, while Thunderhead is left with two impossible nerds as the next best option. 

I really loved the nuanced way that the Moonflower situation developed, with the friends drifting apart, but still caring about each other. And I had to laugh at the musical theatre and animal-loving nerd, who shares a name with my younger daughter, who is/was also obsessive about those things. (She said, who is this author and why were they spying on me as a 12 year old lol) Long story short, I ended up enjoying Thunderhead much more than I initially thought I would, and I loved the illustrations, too. There are also loads of playlists for various moods, should you feel inclined to explore Thunderhead's musical tastes more deeply. A great note to finish on (see what I did there).
 

An Unsuitable Attachment

There is a terrible story attached (ha!) to this novel -- terrible from an author's point of view. Barbara Pym submitted the manuscript of An Unsuitable Attachment to her publishers, who had published her previous six novels, which had been pretty successful though the last three were less well received than the first three). They rejected it. Pym was stunned and hurt. They didn't even ask for a rewrite, or fully explain their reasons, though they did say (with some justification) that in 1963, novels about clergymen and spinsters and glasses of sherry were 'old-fashioned' and becoming harder to sell. Pym retreated in mortification and didn't even try to sell another manuscript until the late 1970s when her career revived and she was even nominated for the Booker Prize.

It's true, An Unsuitable Attachment is not her best work, but not deserving of the harsh readers' reports it apparently received. (By the way, those reports were written by two men, and surely one can assume that most of Pym's readers were women?) The unsuitable attachment of the title refers to a younger man falling in love with an older woman; he is also of a slightly lower class than her, but to modern eyes it hardly seems unsuitable at all. More concerning is the obsessive love of Sophia, the vicar's wife, for her cat Faustina. (She says to her husband, 'She's all I've got.' !!) There are moments of droll, gentle humour, keen observation and poignant emotion, and though the stakes are very low, there is still much to enjoy. Boo to those readers who rejected it so hurtfully -- it's now available in several editions, so evidently people did want to read it after all.

Dreams and Wishes

I spotted Susan Cooper's Dreams and Wishes: Essays on Writing for Children in a second hand bookshop. It's inscribed on the flyleaf: To Mary -- Write, write, write!!! -- but not signed. I'm wondering now if that inscription could possibly have been written by the author? And I wonder who Mary was?

This collection has been put together from various articles and speeches that Cooper gave in the 1980s and 90s. There are some interesting stories about how her famous series, The Dark is Rising, come to be; the first volume, Over Sea, Under Stone, started life as an entry in a competition for a family adventure book, and the magical elements only crept in during the writing. Cooper was also very concerned (some things never change) about a drop in children's reading for pleasure, and the fact that some children spent three or four hours a day watching television, passive in front of a screen. As I read this, I couldn't help thinking, oh boy, Susan, you don't have any idea what's coming down the line...

I hadn't realised that this seemingly most British of writers has actually spent almost her whole adult life in the US -- perhaps that's what gives her descriptions of Wales and Buckinghamshire their potency. She agrees with a thesis I have heard before, that the writers of the so-called Golden Age of children's literature in the UK were shaped by growing up during the Second World War, when the battle between Good and Evil was played out literally above their heads and all around them. It's a persuasive argument. Susan Cooper is still with us, she is ninety, almost exactly the same age as my mum, and I am the same age as her children. The Dark is Rising was a formative text for me, as I'm sure it was for many fantasy, and other, writers -- long live Susan Cooper.
 

A Desert in Bohemia

I am such a fan of Jill Paton Walsh, and I particularly loved her Lord Peter Wimsey novels, which seamlessly continued Peter and Harriet's story, so it was a thrill to realise that there was a whole novel of hers that I hadn't yet read. A Desert in Bohemia was published in 2000, and it follows from the perspective of various characters the impact of Communism on a small community in a fiction Czech country over fifty years.

I really enjoyed the interweaving stories from different points of view, and as usual with Walsh, there are philosophical dimensions to the narrative involving questions of guilt, free will, responsibility and forgiveness. The writing is, as always, beautiful and moving. Some readers have complained about the fact that the novel is set in a fictional country, Comenia, when there are so many real countries which went through a similar journey and whose stories could have been told instead. I'm not so sure about that. To me, A Desert in Bohemia is not intended to be historical fiction; it's more of a fable about human nature, suffering and hope. So possible historical implausibilities didn't bother me too much, though I can understand if you were connected to any of those real Communist countries, they would rankle.
 

Ghost Bird

Look at that impressive array of award stickers! Lisa Fuller's Ghost Bird is her debut YA novel, and it's jam packed with creepy atmosphere, Aboriginal lore and fully rounded family drama. It's kind of a horror story: Stacey's twin sister Laney goes missing after a night out with some local tearaways. Is she being held hostage by the neighbourhood racists? Has she simply run away? Or is there a supernatural explanation, linked to the mountain where the elders have forbidden them to go?

Fuller switches effortlessly between Aboriginal English for the dialogue and standard English for the narrative. Stacey is realistically scarred by her experiences by the end of the book; things aren't wrapped up easily. There's a lot of back and forth between Stacey and her peers while they search for Laney, or try to gather information, and it sometimes felt like the wheels were spinning slightly. But Ghost Bird is a gripping and accomplished YA supernatural thriller, and it thoroughly deserves all the award stickers it's amassed. I really enjoyed it.
 

A War of Nerves

A War of Nerves was an impulse buy about a year ago from Brotherhood Books, and it's taken me a long time to read it -- I'd read a chapter at a time in between my other non-fiction books, because it was pretty dense stuff, though fascinating. Ben Shephard traces the history of the military and the treatment of mental illness in soldiers, from the phenomenon of 'shakes' and shell shock in the First World War, all the way through to PTSD suffered by combatants in the Falklands War. He examines the influence of a handful of charismatic doctors and psychiatrists, who were able to promote their own favoured treatment method. Various theories and treatments swung in and out of fashion, from a brisk, robust talking-to by a senior officer, and encouragement not to let the other men down, all the way to elaborate, personalised therapy in a specialised setting, which in Shephard's view, made the soldiers see themselves as irreparably damaged.

Shephard seems quite averse to psychiatry in general, noting unfavourably the 'industry' that sprang up around Vietnam veterans and what he calls 'the culture of trauma,' where everyone who experienced combat was almost expected to be broken by it. Shephard prefers the matter-of-fact approach of earlier doctors, who pragmatically gave exhausted soldiers a chance to rest away from the front line, and then sent them back to the fray. He rightly points out the powerful effect of expectations on the way that soldiers cope with the horrors of battle, but it's telling that he ends the book with an anecdote where a boatload of sailors had to pick up a load of bodies and body parts and take them back to harbour, and they deal (apparently effectively) with this horrific experience by singing songs and having a stiff drink together. I'm not sure that I'm entirely convinced.
 

A Question of Age

I am a huge fan of Jacinta Parsons. Her afternoon radio show on ABC Melbourne got me through Covid lockdowns -- her warmth, humour, compassion and curiosity created an oasis of community in a weird and disorienting time. She warns that A Question of Age is no self-help book; rather, it's an extended meditation on womanhood.

Some readers have complained that there's not enough about ageing, and too much reflection on being young. Many have praised her beautiful, eloquent writing. Parsons is careful to point out her own privileged position as an educated, white, middle class woman in a rich country, although her own experience of debilitating illness has sharpened her awareness of fragility and discrimination.

Ultimately I found it quite hard to relate to A Question of Age. Although I'm well aware that there are fewer years ahead of me than behind, I haven't really experienced a sense of loss of youthful power or beauty. My own adolescence and youth was pretty miserable, at least as far as sex and relationships were concerned, so I have few regrets about leaving those years behind. I love being middle-aged, pleasing myself, sure of my own preferences, with a few good friends and a loving family. I've been very lucky and I know it, but it leaves me with little to lament about growing older. Long may it stay that way.

Wrong Answers Only

Finally I've made it to the end of the 2025 CBCA Notables list! (With the exception of Sophie Beer's Thunderhead, which seems to have been lost by my local library -- however, they have still got my reservation, so perhaps they are intending to replace it at some stage??)

Wrong Answers Only by Tobias Madden is the story of Marco, over-achiever, happily gay, about to move to Melbourne from Ballarat to study Bio-medicine, when his life is derailed by a panic attack (not that Marco will admit that it's a panic attack). Nonna Sofia comes to the rescue, sending him to Europe to join his long-estranged uncle who is captain of a Mediterranean cruise ship, on which, by a happy coincidence, Marco's best friend Celine is also working as a dancer. It's CeCe's idea that Marco, who has always done  everything right, should start doing things wrong for a change.

If you're a fan of cruise ship life, clubbing, casual sex and drinking, arguments and misunderstandings, then Wrong Answers Only has a lot to offer. It moves along briskly and I appreciated the no-drama queer content, and the strong bond between Marco and CeCe, but by the end of the novel I wasn't altogether convinced that Marco had found the solution to his anxiety problems, or that the family rift with Uncle Renzo was on the way to healing. It's quite a crowded narrative and I'm not sure that all the ends really tied together. But still a lot of YA fun.
 

The Place of Tides

James Rebanks was burnt out. A Cumbrian farmer and author (from the same neck of the woods as Rory Stewart), he had spent too many years as a rural activist, not taking enough time with his family, with frustration and anger building building inside. He remembered an old woman he'd met in Norway, on an isolated island, and felt that she could offer him solace; she invited him to come and stay with her.

Anna was a 'duck woman,' a dying breed, who travel to the remote islands where eider ducks nest. They build safe nesting places for them, protect them from predators, and watch over them until the eggs hatch and the ducklings are taken out to sea. Rebanks, Anna and Ingrid, a younger friend of Anna's, spent ten weeks on this island, working hard to tend to the nests, observing the ducks, waiting and watching and quietly spending time together. At first Rebanks felt restless, until he eventually settled into the rhythm of the life and recognised that yes, this was exactly what he needed. But to his surprise, though he'd thought it was solitary time that he was craving, he came to realise that in fact Anna was deeply enmeshed in community, and it was the time spent with Anna and Ingrid that achieved the real healing.

The Place of Tides was only published last year, and I discovered it by accident on Brotherhood Books. It fits perfectly into a category of books my friend Chris calls people and animals -- books like H is for Hawk, or The Company of Wolves. It's nature writing, but it's also a meditation on life, connection and spirituality. The Place of Tides is an absolutely beautiful book, simple but profound, and it took me into another world.
 

Promised the Moon

I borrowed Stephanie Nolen's 2002 Promised the Moon from my space race-obsessed younger daughter, and the title is a little misleading. Promised the Moon is the story of a group of American female pilots; but the first woman in space, by a country mile, was a Russian. Were these women 'in the space race' at all? It's arguable, because they didn't really even get close to going into space.

What happened was that the medical officer associated with the space program decided to see if women would be comparable to men in handling the rigours of space travel. This became an issue because NASA at the time needed to save every ounce of weight in the payload, because their first rockets were not that powerful. If a woman astronaut could replace a man, she'd be lighter. It was as simple as that. They tracked down an experienced (but still young) female pilot, and put her through the same tests that the male prospective astronauts had gone through, and she shone. In fact, her endurance and ability to deal with isolation were superior to the men. Plans to test a wider female cohort were put in place, and a dozen other women pilots went through the physical testing.

But then NASA pulled the plug. They didn't need any female astronauts after all; they had plenty of qualified blokes already; their rockets were more powerful now, so the weight factor no longer mattered. The women, who'd had their hopes raised, were cast aside.

Even though they didn't make it into space (except for Wally Funk, who flew on the New Shepard spacecraft in 2021 at the age of 82), these women were remarkable, battling a super-sexist industry to work as pilots. (Even in the 1970s, I don't remember encountering a single female pilot in all my father's years flying in PNG, and I well remember Debbie Wardley's fight to fly for Ansett in 1980.) But if the aviation world was sexist, the space industry was ten times more so. There was just no way that NASA was going to allow any little lady to steal thunder from their big strong brave hyper-masculine jet pilot astronauts. In many ways this is a sad story, but it's also a fascinating.
 

The Trees

Another absolutely extraordinary book, this time a novel. I was blown away by Percival Everett's latest novel, James, and his 2021 The Trees is just as powerful. It's funny and horrific, it gallops along, it's brilliant and deeply unsettling. It starts as a murder mystery, with the mutilated bodies of white men discovered along with a Black corpse who bears a striking resemblance to the body of lynched teenager Emmett Till. Two Black detectives try to unravel what's going on, as the bodies mount up and the circumstances grow more bizarre and inexplicable.

Everett's special genius is for dialogue. It fizzes and crackles like electricity through these pages, pulling the reader inexorably through a landscape of horror and rage that might otherwise be unendurable. The Trees is both furious and droll, eminently readable and starkly appalling. Everett makes the case for the history of lynching in the US as a kind of slow motion genocide, forcing us to confront the unspeakable cruelty that is a continuing reality.

The Trees was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. If great things come in threes, I can't wait to see what Everett produces after this and James.

Question 7

Question 7 by Richard Flanagan came in at number 65 in the ABC Radio National Top 100 Books of the 21st century countdown, and the description of it prompted me to borrow it from the local library. It was published in 2023 but somehow I'd failed to seek it out; I did realise while reading it that I'd read an extract, or part of the work in progress, at some time, I assume in The Monthly.

Question 7 took my breath away. What an extraordinary, profound, elegant, supple, brilliant and moving book. Part autobiography, part history, part fictionalised history, it is a book that defies categorisation. Broken into short, easily digestible chunks, it weaves together Flanagan's family history (his father, who spent time in the Japanese death camps; his mother, who raised six children in hardship; his shrewd, demanding grandmother) together with the development of the atomic bomb, via HG Wells' affair with Rebecca West, Leo Szilard's campaign for peace, the horrific attempted Tasmanian genocide and Flanagan's own near-death experience of drowning in river rapids at twenty-one.

This is superb writing. I must confess, I have found Richard Flanagan's fiction too strong meat for me -- I didn't even attempt The Narrow Road to the Deep North, though I'm sure it's incredible -- but Question 7 is the best book I've read this year. If I was voting in the Top 100 again, it would be in my list without question (no pun intended).

Dragons in the Waters

Madeleine L'Engle's 1976 novel Dragons in the Waters was another find from City Basement Books. I looked at it quickly and it didn't ring a bell, so I was pretty sure I hadn't read it before. And it didn't ring a bell as I was reading it, either. But lo and behold, when I went to file it on my bookshelf, what should I discover but... another copy of Dragons in the Waters! Oh, dear. I'm not sure when I first acquired it, but it must have been a long time ago, and it seemingly made No Impression Whatsoever on my reading brain.

You would think it would be memorable, because it involves a ship sailing to Venezuela (I paid extra attention to that because Venezuela is in the news at the moment -- and particularly because the plot line concerned smuggling, which is the issue that Trump is objecting to). It also centres on a stolen portrait, an idyllic indigenous community, a flawed white explorer... This makes me think that this book might have stayed with me more securely if I'd read it more recently, because it does deal with subject matter in which I now take a keener interest than I did say, fifteen years ago. Not saying that I necessarily agree with the way that L'Engle handled those topics, but I certainly had opinions about them.
 

Letters to Sherlock Holmes

Letters to Sherlock Holmes, edited by Richard Lancelyn Green (son of Arthurian scholar Roger)and published in 1985, was an impulse buy to pad out an order from Brotherhood Books -- it looked like a lot of fun. 

For decades, people had written to Sherlock Holmes at 221b Baker St, even though that address was occupied by a bank (it's now the site, sensibly, of the Sherlock Holmes museum). Some letter writers seemed genuinely hazy about the reality of Holmes, while others clearly realised that they were partaking in a shared fiction. He received letters inviting him to solve crimes, congratulations on his birthday, general admiration, or burning questions. The bank employed someone to answer these queries, which apparently arrived at the rate of a couple a day.

Well, all this sounds like a delightful whimsy, and the subtitle of the book promises 'the most interesting and entertaining letters,' but I'm sorry to say that in fact most of the letters are pretty dull. The questions are repetitive, the expressions of fandom are boring. It must have seemed like a cracking idea for a book, but it was a sorry disappointment. Luckily, it didn't take long to read.

Quartet in Autumn

 

Another Barbara Pym novel, but Quartet in Autumn comes from the end of her career, rather than the beginning. Published in 1977, it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, a substantial accolade after her previous novel had been ignominiously rejected fifteen years earlier. She went on to publish two more books before her death in 1980, so at least she knew that she was appreciated after that long humiliating hiatus.

 

Quartet in Autumn has a different feel from her earlier work. The characters are still diffident and awkward as they move through the world, but that world has changed so drastically around them that they seem stranded in a different time line altogether. Pym's widows and spinsters in her novels from the 1950s were still assured of a recognised place in society, however uncomfortable. Now they seem utterly out of kilter with the modern world. The four office colleagues are just waiting for retirement, when their department will be shut down; their work is vague and apparently completely meaningless. Marcia, Letty, Norman and Edwin are drifting toward death and seem powerless to control anything around them. Only at the very end does Letty realise that she does have the ability to choose her fate, however slight that power might be.

 

Because of this melancholy atmosphere, Quartet in Autumn is less amusing than the three novels I've already read, but it has an elegiac depth that makes it more moving. Pym is a masterful, spare writer who packs a great deal into a few pages.

Meet The Austins

A browse in City Basement Books in the city yielded a handful of prizes, including a couple of Madeleine L'Engle books. I wasn't sure whether I'd already read Meet the Austins, until I came to the very last chapter and remembered the grandfather who lived in a stable by the sea, with the stalls lined with books -- that stayed with me! Lucky Grandfather.

L'Engle's books often contain some kind of paranormal or other-worldly aspect, but Meet the Austins is firmly set in the everyday world. The Austins are a big, loving, slightly chaotic family which is stretched when they are joined by ten year old Maggy, suddenly orphaned when her pilot father is killed. Maggy is quite difficult to handle, not surprisingly. Twelve year old Vicky is our narrator, and she leads us through various episodes: Maggy's confronting behaviour, Vicky's own poor judgment which leads to a serious injury, a visit from a mysterious woman who is not who she seems to be, and finally the visit to Grandfather, where little brother Rob goes missing. It's all very wholesome and the family are mostly thoughtful and considerate, though they do make mistakes. 

Meet the Austins was published in 1960 and it is an old-fashioned book in some ways, though the Austins are a wonderful model for gentle parenting (mostly -- there is some spanking). A lovely comfort read, with enough philosophical questioning to keep it from being too complacent. 
 

Warra Warra Wai

Confession: I purchased this book at the Sorrento Writers' Festival because I felt like I should buy something, but my expectations honestly weren't that high, and it's languished at the bottom of my TBR pile ever since. Well, joke's on me, because it's actually really good, and has won a history prize.

Warra Warra Wai, co-written by Darren Rix and Craig Cormick, has a nice premise: it traces Captain Cook's path up the east of Australia, juxtaposing his observations with the stories of the First Peoples who watched his progress, both traditional cultural stories about Country, and stories about Endeavour and its crew. Rix, a First Nations man, did the travelling and interviewing; Cormick stayed in the archives and contributed the often disturbing history of settlement contact and conflict.

I think because it's divided into bite-sized chunks with each new tribal Country that Cook passed, this is not an overwhelming read; it becomes a fascinating travelogue as well as a history, with glimpses into each local language and Dreaming stories. It would make a wonderful companion to a leisurely road trip from Victoria up to Cape York, insightful and packed with history which too often whitefellas just don't know. 

Top 100 Books of the 21st Century

I spent such an enjoyable weekend keeping an eye on, or listening to, the countdown on ABC Radio National of the Top 100 Books of the 21st Century, which played over this last Saturday and Sunday afternoons (Melbourne time -- it was broadcast simultaneously over the whole of Australia). I voted for my own top ten on the first day without thinking about it too hard, and of course since then I did have second thoughts, and remembered books that I'd forgotten. 

I have read 62 of the final 100 -- I think. I'm not sure if I have actually read Horse, by Geraldine Brookes -- I think I have -- which would make it 63. Five of my personal ten made it into the Top 100 (Piranesi, This House of Grief, Dark Emu, Wifedom and Wolf Hall). There were a couple of books that I loathed that rated highly with other people (looking at you, Where the Crawdads Sing). There were many books that I loved, but didn't vote for, that I cheered for when they appeared (My Brilliant Friend, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Normal People, Burial Rites, The Slap, Limberlost). Some books I know are probably amazing, but I know I don't have the emotional strength to face them (The Road, A Little Life). Some books I am determined to seek out, having found out a bit more about them (A Gentleman in Moscow, Question 7, Bel Canto). There are books that I've tried to read, but which defeated me (Carpentaria, Prophet Song).

But the best part was hearing so many people get excited about books and reading. It doesn't matter what books are your favourites. It gave me hope that reading and literacy isn't completely dead, and I hope that bookshops and libraries get a boost from people seeking out titles they've missed, like me.
 

White Noise

I'm still working my way through the 2025 CBCA Young Adult Notables list -- only a couple of books to go, but I'm still finding gems that didn't quite make it to the final round. Raelke Grimmer's White Noise is really good. It's rare to find a novel set in Darwin (the closest I've been to Darwin is applying for a job there -- I can't imagine how different my life would have been if I'd actually got it!) and White Noise is very evocative of the tropics, with lightning storms, oppressive heat and humidity, and outdoor markets. In other ways, Emma's life is utterly relatable, with friendship difficulties, a possible new boyfriend and navigating grief for her dead mother.

But what really sets White Noise apart is that it's a first person autism story. Emma has meltdowns where she completely shuts down; she forgets to eat; she misreads some social signals; she finds noisy, crowded environments difficult; she doesn't register pain well. All these things directly affect her daily life, and I don't know that I've seen such a realistic, empathetic portrayal of life with autism in YA fiction. It definitely helped me to understand what it might be like to live with autism from day to day.

I loved the portrayal of Emma and Summer's friendship, which hits some bumps in Year 10, and also Em's relationship with her father, who is still dealing with his own unresolved grief. At the end of the book, not everything is tied up neatly, which I also appreciated. White Noise is great, especially for a debut, and I'm interested to see what Grimmer does next.
 

Pissants

I don't know that I can say that I exactly enjoyed ex-AFL player Brandon Jack's debut novel, Pissants, though certainly parts of it are very funny. Young straight men are the demographic with whom I've always felt least comfortable, and Pissants takes us into the heart of their territory, a world that Jack knows only too well, inside what he (and every football player, coach and commentator) calls 'the Four Walls,' the inner sanctum of the AFL club.

Pissants is kind of a novel, and Jack claims that it's fiction, but it reads as more like a series of linked short stories or vignettes in which the same group of characters recur. These are the marginal playing cohort, good enough to get onto an AFL list, not quite good enough to break into the team every week, their playing lives precarious, hostage to their own and others' injuries and form. This group often find themselves at a loose end, perhaps aware that trying harder isn't going to work a miracle, frittering away their days and nights in pointless drinking games and elaborate pranks.

Getting a glimpse into their world is definitely interesting, sometimes disturbing, occasionally very dark indeed. Helen Garner puts it well in her blurb: 'Under its foul-mouthed, laughing bravado lie deep wounds, a humble and endearing loneliness that moved me.' This is the Pissants paradox; though the boy/men move in a pack and grope for identity in each others' reflected presence, ultimately they are heart-breakingly separate from one another. Terrified to show vulnerability or make a genuine trusting connection, they swear and fart and text and hunt and drink and snort and kick and run, each in his own desperate bubble.

We are always being told how problematic masculinity can be. Pissants  is like an uncomfortable, entertaining textbook of how it can go so wrong. 

Searching for Charmian

I discovered the story behind this book through watching Suzanne Chick's daughter Gina win Alone Australia. Suzanne only found out at the age of forty eight that the biological mother who had given her up for adoption was the famous writer, Charmian Clift; Clift is therefore Gina Chick's grandmother. Searching for Charmian was published in 1994, not long after the discovery, decades before Gina found her own fame as Alone winner and writer in her own right.

Searching for Charmian is a highly emotional book, buzzing with questions and unresolved feelings. Suzanne had vaguely heard of Clift, but knew little about her eventful life; the book traces her eager research, connecting with Nadia Wheatley, Clift's biographer (they agreed to cease contact when Suzanne decided to writer her own book) and with friends of Clift and her husband, writer George Johnston, who mined their marriage for material. Famously, the Johnstons lived for years on the Greek island of Hydra and became the nucleus of an artistic and literary community there (young Leonard Cohen was a friend). Tragically, Clift took her own life in 1969, so Suzanne was never able to reunite with her in person. Suzanne presents her own history in parallel with her mother's, showing where each of them was in certain years; amazingly, they almost overlapped at times and could have walked past each other in the street.

Suzanne Chick seems to have inherited her biological mother's gift with words, though she spent her life as an art teacher. Searching for Charmian takes us on a poignant, very readable journey, questioning motherhood, adoption, the demands of creativity, love and loyalty, addiction and grief, beauty and confidence, aging and family. It was fascinating to read that young Gina took comfort from learning of her ancestry, having felt that perhaps her own personality was 'too wild' and over the top (though she seems to have learned to lean into that side of herself in later years). This is an engaging chronicle of an extraordinary family story.
 

A House Divided

I enjoyed Clare Hallifax's middle grade novel, A House Divided, immensely. I guess it would be classed as historical fiction, as it's set in 1975, the year of the Whitlam dismissal. My family was in PNG in the mid-70s, so I don't remember anything contemporary from this time; I didn't become aware of (and horrified by) these political events until a few years later. 

In A House Divided, grade 6 student Juliet's dad works in the heart of the Whitlam government, and journalists, public servants and politicians, even Gough himself, are familiar figures in her home. But Juliet's grandmother is much more conservative, and her new friend Robbie's parents are alos public servants, but lean more to the right. It's not all politics, though; this is also a story about tensions in a friendship, and just about growing up in the Australia of the 70's -- watching Countdown and Dr Who, the excitement of colour TV, riding bikes and swimming unsupervised, boring food, European migration, the loosening of divorce laws, no smart phones for easy contact, Norman Gunston.

A House Divided was a really fun and engaging read, and I hope that kids find it and enjoy it for its own sake, and not for the nostalgia that undoubtedly coloured my own experience. (PS What a gorgeous cover!) 

Orbital

There is a long queue at the local library for Booker Prize winner, Samantha Harvey's novel Orbital, but I was able to find it on the shelf at the Athenaeum. Orbital traces a single twenty-four hour period on a space station circling high above the Earth, staffed by six astronauts; the space station loops around the planet sixteen times in the 'day.'

Orbital is an elegant, beautiful little novel with not a word out of place. It flows effortlessly between the very small -- tiny details of the astronauts' life in the cramped tin can -- and the very big -- the beauty of the continents viewed from space, without borders or any hint of human habitation, except for the city lights at night, and the vastness of the galaxy beyond. There is not much in the way of plot, but this is not a novel about story. It's a meditative, gorgeous, thoughtful voyage, compressing big ideas into a few pages.

Orbital has popped up on a few people's Top 10 books lists (the ABC is running a countdown of 21st century books at the moment ), and I can understand why. This is a book to treasure, and a worthy Booker winner.

Exterminate! Regenerate! The Story of Doctor Who

Exterminate! Regenerate!, John Higgs' satisfyingly chunky book about Doctor Who was another birthday present for myself, and I cannot tell you how incredibly enjoyable it was to read. This is not about the character of the Doctor, or even about the history of the production, with behind-the-scenes anecdotes and secrets about filming from the supporting cast (though there is some of that content). Rather, this is a discussion and a history of the phenomenon of Doctor Who -- how it was and is created, what it means in broader culture, the multiple changes that have swung through each switch in actor and producer. Higgs comes to the conclusion that after sixty years, Doctor Who has now achieved a life of its own, irrespective of whether the show is even being made and who it's being made by.

Doctor Who was created as an educational family show in 1963 to fill a BBC scheduling gap. Almost all the staff who were approached to make it declined, not wanting to sully their reputations by working on something as grubby as science fiction, so the first director and producer were a young woman and an Indian man -- thus, as Higgs points out, the viewpoint of the outsider was baked into the very creation of the programme. A TV show like this differs from the creation of a character like Sherlock Holmes, the product of one writer's imagination; the Doctor was woven from many different contributions.

At different times, Doctor Who has been an Earth-bound action series; a scary, Gothic, horror show; a philosophical examination of eternity, identity and morality; a charming romp; a twisted, paradoxical story interweaving multiple timelines. The Doctor themself has appeared young and old, female and male, Black and white -- a curly-haired, long scarfed agent of chaos; a hot 'space boyfriend;' a warm, friendly blonde; a cranky old man (okay, that last one a couple of times) and even a borderline psychopath, stretching and transforming the character over and over without destroying their integrity. The adventures screened on television are just the tip of an iceberg of other stories, novelisations, audio narratives and fan fiction, and the concept of Doctor Who is now self-sustaining, with many involved in the current incarnation themselves life-long fans of the show.

Beautifully, Higgs quotes one companion who said that the Doctor has two hearts because one belongs to the character and one to the actor who plays them. I also loved his drawing a parallel between the all-powerful Time Lords and the bigwigs of the BBC, who themselves would put the Doctor 'on trial,' demand the impossible or confine him to Earth (for budgetary reasons). Exterminate! Regenerate! is an insightful, hilarious, absorbing and fascinating overview of a strange and wonderful phenomenon that has long outgrown the control of any of us paltry humans. Long live the Doctor!
 

The Player's Boy and The Players and the Rebels

Here is a real treat! I read these two books of historical fiction together, as Antonia Forest originally intended them to be just one volume; they were split into two by her publisher, Faber. I managed to get hold of the Girls Gone By edition of second part, The Players and the Rebels, a few years ago, but they've only just reissued part one. So I was able to read The Player's Boy for the first time since I left my high school library behind, decades ago. Woo-hoo!

The eponymous player's boy is Nicholas Marlow, an Elizabethan ancestor of the Marlow family of Forest's other books, who runs away from home and ends up joining Will Shakespere's theatre company. As the expert forewords to both volumes make clear, while Forest did lots of research and used the best resources available at the time (the books were published in 1970 and 1971 respectively), Shakespeare scholarship has moved on since her time and some of her conclusions and characters might not agree exactly with current thinking (for example, there is no way that yeoman's son Nicholas and high-born page Humfrey would ever be friends). Still, Forest excels at evoking everyday Elizabethan life and the fascinating detail of the player's life -- some things don't seem to have changed at all. As ever, she is so skilful at showing us rivalry between players, conflicting loyalties, political subtleties, and the real perils of Elizabethan life, from plague to knife fights to execution for heresy.

There are loads of echoes for Marlow fans, or should that be foreshadowing? Nicholas's personality is very similar to modern Nicola's. They are both beautiful but unself-conscious singers and spend time with falcons, though Nicholas's acting skills are more of a nod to Lawrie than her twin. Nicholas and Nicola are both afraid of ghosts and are drawn to the sea. Nicholas hero-worships Sir Walter Ralegh just as Nicola adores Nelson. And there are other references to Forest's other books, like gentle Humfrey who worries about his own lack of courage, just like Peter Marlow. One thing that did pass completely over my head when I read these books at school was the subtle gay content, though it seemed a little implausible that Nicholas, who is 17 or 18 by the end of the story, seems not to be bothered by any sexual yearnings at all!  

I did vividly remember the poignant character of Will Kemp, the company's clown, who finds his improv skills crowded out by increasingly strict scripts. In fact, Kemp seems more like a modern stand-up, creating his own material and responsive to the mood of the crowd. He ends up leaving the troupe, his job pretty much obsolete.

The Rebel part of the story doesn't really come into properly until the last third of the second book, though it's ably set up by what comes before. I think fans of the Elizabethans and of Shakespeare would find a lot to enjoy here, and Will in particular is a most attractive character, kind, dry, level-headed and intelligent, with a hidden melancholy but also wry humour. I really relished making my reacquaintance with these books, and they will join my other Forest volumes in the frequently re-read stack. 

The Family Next Door

We all watched and enjoyed the ABC adaptation of Sally Hepworth's novel The Family Next Door, and younger daughter bought the book as her next tram read. It was interesting to compare the two versions of the story; perhaps it's format bias, but I think the drama worked slightly better in the TV series. A whole new subplot (and family) was added; two subplots were merged; and the emphasis of the narrative was heavily weighted toward the missing child thread, while in the book, the secret difficulties of each family were given roughly equal weight. On TV, the setting was altered to become a seaside town rather than a city suburb, although confusingly, the beach scenes were actually filmed in the suburbs where they were originally set in the novel (Sandringham, Black Rock -- I only know this because my husband grew up there).

In all senses, The Family Next Door would make a perfect beach read -- absorbing without being too demanding, eminently readable -- and it made a perfect basis for a TV adaptation. Success all round. 

First Knowledges: Ceremony

 The latest volume in the wonderful First Knowledges series is Ceremony: All Our Yesterdays for Today by Wesley Enoch and Georgia Curran. It's fitting to have a male and female co-author, because ceremonies can differ for different genders and purposes. Enoch and Curran distinguish between public-facing ceremonies, shared and open to all, like Welcomes to Country and funeral rituals, and inward-directed ceremony, restricted to certain people and sacred in intent.

Enoch makes the excellent point that it would be preferable to support and celebrate the continuing and evolving practice of actually holding ceremony, rather than giving priority to recording performances and collecting artefacts for a static, frozen archive (though I can see the importance of that, too). Ceremony is a living, ephemeral practice, constantly repeated and renewed through performance, and as such, it's difficult for Western cultures, so centred on knowledge through texts and material objects, to value it appropriately.

As always, this First Knowledges volume contains much food for thought and insight into First Nations history and culture (including a note at the front of the book that points out that some Aboriginal people dislike the term 'First Nations' which has its origin in North America. Oh, dear! I think I'll keep using it, though, even though I appreciate that 'nations' is probably not the best descriptor of Australian Indigenous peoples.) The next title will be Politics -- should be an interesting and maybe confronting read!

The Unsought Farm

The Unsought Farm, Monica Edwards' 1954 memoir about her life on Punch Bowl Farm, was a little birthday treat for myself. I've never read the series of young adult fiction she wrote about Punchbowl Farm, but apparently, like her previous Romney Marsh books (which I love), they have one foot in fact and the other in fiction, drawing on real experiences and her own children to create the adventures of the Thornton family.

Almost without intending to, Edwards successfully bid for the property at auction and then had to face the reality of herself and her husband Bill becoming farmers. After the war (I'm not sure if this is still the case), it was not legal to own arable land without actually farming it, so they gradually built up to owning a Jersey herd and sowing crops, as well as improving the ancient farmhouse. Bill seems to have worked miracles, uncovering inglenook fireplaces, creating bathrooms out of thin air, punching windows into dark rooms, demolishing dangerous chimneys and more. Edwards writes about their trials and tribulations, especially the activities of their many animals (including four Siamese cats), with her trademark warmth and understated humour.

The Unsought Farm is a lovely book. The Edwards stayed at the farm until 1968, when they retired to a nearby cottage, and Punch Bowl Farm was still an active farm well into the 1990s. It's a glimpse into a way of agricultural small-holding life that has become vanishing rare, so its triumphs are tinged with melancholy for a modern reader. In its own way, it's as much of a fantasy story now as any of Edwards' beloved novels.
 

The Ladies Road Guide to Utter Ruin

First, my only niggle -- where is the apostrophe in the title of this book? It seems to have been shaken loose and lost in the tumult of events. But that quibble aside, it was an absolute delight to rejoin the company of adventurous Regency sisters, Augusta and Julia, and their rogue love interests, Lord Evan (sometime highwayman) and Mr Kent (proto-police officer). The sisters are sheltering the noble lady they rescued from a madhouse in the first book, but her brother is hot on her trail, and they are also desperate to get to the bottom of the duel that cost Lord Evan his freedom and his reputation.

The pace of The Ladies['] Guide to Utter Ruin never slackens for an instant as Augusta dons disguises, penetrates a hellish private gentleman's club, tears about on horseback and in racing carriages, tells outrageous lies and begs favours from Beau Brummell, no less. There are sobering reminders of just how much power men hold over women at this time (hint: it's total), but also a cute moment where Gus finds time to read a recent novel starring another pair of sisters (one with sense and one with sensibility).

Thrillingly, Utter Ruin ends with Augusta and companions about to embark on their most challenging quest yet, some kind of Scarlet Pimpernel-ish rescue mission into revolutionary France. I can hardly wait.
 

How to Survive 1985

As you know, I'm a sucker for a time slip story and How to Survive 1985 is right up my alley. Shannon goes into a Sydney cinema in 2025 and emerges into 1985. This is not her first supernatural experience, so she's not as phased as you might expect. She quickly comes up with a plan: she'll track down her mum, who is sixteen years old in this world. This idea works surprisingly well, and her mum becomes an ally in Shannon's quest to find her other friends (who were all part of her previous adventure).

Shannon explains in some detail what happened to her and her friends in the book before this one, Royals, where they were all trapped in a time loop inside a shopping centre. That time, the earth seemed to be trying to teach them something about the perils of consumerism, but this time round the lesson is a little more vague -- something about climate change, something about plastic, something about caring for the planet? There are plenty of reflections about how much the world has changed (or not) in the last forty years, but How To Survive 1985 keeps a light, pacy touch which makes it a hugely enjoyable adventure.

I ended up really loving this novel. It's not long, and it never flags, and it's made me hungry to track down the gang's prior magical adventure, which annoyingly is not available at my local library. I hope Shannon, James, Akira and the others have more strange experiences in store.
 

The Deadly Dispute

We are now up to number three in Amanda Hampson's Tea Ladies mysteries. The Deadly Dispute takes us up to 1967 and modernity is definitely encroaching on the tea ladies' world. Replaced by a coffee machine, Hazel has been unemployed for eighteen months when she's offered a job with a trade union; Irene has given up serving tea altogether and is now a cleaner at a brothel. Naive Betty is exposed to free love, drugs and feminism when she makes friends with a young woman at her clothing factory. Fourth member of the gang, Merl, is somewhat sidelined in this story after she takes offence at the decisions of the Tea Lady association.

But the real action is down at the docks, where Hazel soon finds herself up to her neck in trouble and smuggled Krugerrands. I was reminded that these novels take place in the same locale as Ruth Park's Harp in the South books, albeit somewhat later. Hampson does an excellent job of evoking 1960s Sydney and the social and political currents of the time, as well as an engaging crime story which proves that middle aged ladies can be effective action heroines -- Betty has no need to mourn for her wasted youth.

I'm really enjoying this series and while I'm not sure if there are further adventures in store for the intrepid tea ladies, I certainly hope that they don't hang up their pinnies any time soon.
 

My Year Without Matches

I found Australian Claire Dunn's memoir, My Year Without Matches, on the shelves of the Athenaeum and the subtitle intrigued me: Escaping the city in search of the wild. 'The wild' is something I find powerfully attractive on the page -- in real life, not so much. Dunn herself was a burned-out wilderness and conservation activist when she committed to spend twelve months on a kind of wilderness retreat, a bit like Alone but with more supports in place, and a group of five others taking their own journeys alongside.

As any viewer of Alone will already know, living in the bush invariably becomes as much an inner quest as a physical adventure. At first Dunn struggles with the basics of building a shelter and especially wrestles with trying to make fire without matches (hence the title), to the point where she had blood blisters on both palms from rubbing futilely at the hand drill. She's also driven by mental demons, a constant fear of not 'doing it properly,' self-doubt and existential angst. It's these more spiritual struggles that dominate toward the end of the book, when Dunn has relaxed into the company of insects and snakes, not washing her hair, and sleeping on the ground. More problematic are her fluctuating relationships with the other participants on the course.

My Year Without Matches is a highly readable, relatable account of a spiritual quest that ultimately comes to rest in a realisation that simply being is enough. Fittingly, Dunn now runs nature reconnection retreats of her own. I love the idea of living so close to nature (Dunn vows to only eat meat she's caught and killed herself, and sticks to it) but I know the reality would defeat me, probably on the first night. The next best thing is reading about it.