Review: Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko

I love reading about Australia, ever since I traveled there in 2013. I was struck by the similarities in the history of Australia and the United States, though I felt Australia was much more open about its troubling treatment of Aboriginal populations. Too Much Lip tells the story of Kerry Salter, a young woman who…

Review: Amnesty by Aravind Adiga

I found this a really interesting read about what it’s like to be an undocumented immigrant in Australia. Adiga tells the story through the eyes of Danny, who has fled his native Sri Lanka after torture. He comes to Australia through a school program, applies for refugee status but is denied, and then stays on…

A Double Review: The Dry and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

I read these two books nearly back to back, and their plots and characters were amazingly similar, though I had no idea when I chose them.  I love a totally random reading coincidence.  Here’s a comparison of the two novels. The story: both The Dry and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter are mystery/thrillers about an unsolved…

Review: The Things She’s Seen by Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina

I read this book for the Read Harder 2019 Challenge.  I needed an #ownvoices book set in Oceania: the #ownvoices part means by an indigenous author, and Oceania is Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific islands. The Things She’s Seen is by brother and sister Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina, from the Palyku people of…

Reading the Bailey’s Prize: Rush Oh! by Shirley Barrett

I heard great things about this book, and unfortunately I felt mixed about it.  On the positive side, it’s an interesting historical look at the turn of the century whaling industry in New South Wales in Australia.  On the negative side, I felt the story dragged quite a bit and I never warmed to our…

The Secret River by Kate Grenville

This book brought back lots of memories of my trip a few years ago to Australia. We learned a lot about the aboriginal population and how they suffered when the British settled there. We also learned a lot about their way of life, including hunting and agricultural practices. Kate Grenville’s award winning book describes an…

Interview with Mark Lamprell and a Book Giveaway

Author Mark Lamprell and I share one unusual experience: we’ve both been run over by a car. Lamprell has written a novel about that experience, called The Full Ridiculous (my review here). It’s been compared to The Rosie Project and The Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, and I also was reminded of the…

The Full Ridiculous by Mark Lamprell

In The Full Ridiculous, a novel by Australian author Mark Lamprell, Michael O’Dell goes for a jog one morning and is hit by a car. The book is about the aftermath of that incident and how it impacts him and his family. The back of the book displays this quote: The important thing is to…

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

This was such a fun book, I wanted to read it in one sitting.  It brings together a lot of things I like – clever romantic comedy, Australia, and Asperger’s.  If that sounds like a weird combination, it is, but that’s me. The Rosie Project is about Don Tillman, a genetics professor at a university…

It’s Monday, What are You Reading?

It’s Monday! is a weekly meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. It’s Monday, and I’m reading travel books about Australia!  Our big news is a semi-impulse trip to Australia in May.  I say semi because we’ve been thinking about it for a while but kept waiting for the right time to manage three weeks…