Schedule Ideas for 2022

Given our November meeting - and selecting our schedule for the first half of the year - is around the corner, here is a list of some recommendations for our schedule, in addition to those in the sidebar (which, currently, is misbehaving in terms of my ability to easily edit!)

Includes recommendations from Deb, Anne, Helen, Denise, Celeste, Marie, Sue ...

Some older Aussies available from Text Publishing

• Martin Boyd's A cardboard crown: the first in his trilogy based on him and his family, a genuine classic for us!
• Madeleine St John's The essence of the thing (from the author of The women in black, this is the first Aussie author's novel to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize, I believe. 1997)
• Cory Taylor's Me and Mr Booker: won the now-defunct Commonwealth Book Prize in 2012.
• Amy Witting's Isobel on the way to the corner shop: or any of hers; we did her A change in the lighting many eons ago. Won The Age Book of the Year in 2000. 

Non-Aussie classics

• Wilkie Collins' The women in white (1859): the first crime/mystery novel (but nearly 700p.)
• Chaim Potok's The chosen: American classic, 1967, abut respecting difference.
• Elizabeth von Arnim's Vera: the Australian-born but really British author of The enchanted April. Barbara Pym said her books are "a revelation in their wit and... dry, unsentimental treatment of the relationship between men and women"; the director of The enchanted April film said "Von Arnim didn't have much patience with the male ego, and she didn't have much more for the women who bowed beneath it".

Recent(ish) fiction

• Larissa Behrendt, After story: First Nations writer, a mother-daughter story involving a literary tour of England, but also a past tragedy
• Damon Galgut's The promise: 2021 Booker Prize winner, supported by a few in the group on WhatsApp. (304pp.)
• Irma Gold's The breaking: local author, who has attended a meeting before with her Canberra anthology, The invisible thread.
• Hannah Kent's Devotion: new book by author of Burial rites. 
• Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the sun: about AI
• Ingrid Persaud's Love after love: set in Trinidad; NY Times says "Great books about love, like this one, feel like precious and impossible gifts. We should cherish the writers who provide them."
• Francis Spufford's Light perpetual: longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize, WW2 story.
• Amor Towles' The Lincoln Highway: NY Times bestseller, and author of A gentleman in Moscow. (nearly 600 pp.)
• Ida Vitale's Byobu: translated novella from a Uruguayan poet, first published in 2004 and her first translated into English.
• Sarah Winman's Still life: Set btn Florence and London's East End from WW11 thru to the 80s, about friendship making family, and lots of "yummy Italianness". (over 450pp.)
  
  

Some nonfiction

• Candida Baker's Heart of a horse: life lessons from horses and other animals: new Australian nonfiction by journalist Baker who moved to Byron Bay (320pp.)
• Raynor Winn's The salt path: memoir about a couple, the husband terminally ill, walking the South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall (over 600 miles) (288pp.)

Schedule Ideas for 2019

Here are some books (from our "Schedule suggestions" side-bar with a couple of additions) sorted into categories, with some explanatory background:

Fiction

• DALTON, Trent Boy swallows universe (new Queensland novel, recommended by Marie Z, and others)
• HALL, Rodney Love without hope (dedicated to Julian Burnside)
• LIANKE, Yan The day the sun died (translated Chinese novel, published by Text, under 400pp.)
• MILLER, Alex The passage of love (his latest, 584pp.) or Coal Creek (won Victorian Premier's Literary Award 2014, under 300pp.)
• OLSSON, Kristina Shell (new out in second half of 2018)
• SERONG, Jock On the Java Ridge (won the inaugural UK-based Staunch Prize "for a novel in the thriller genre where no woman is beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped or murdered".)
• SMITH, Zadie On beauty (retelling of Howards End)
• TOWLES, Amor A gentleman in Moscow
• WILSON, Josephine Extinctions (Miles Franklin winner)
• WINTON, Tim The shepherd's hut (his latest)

Classics (or nearly so!)

• GISSING, George The odd women
• McCARTHY, Mary The group
• ROBINSON, Marilynne (one by her: Housekeeping or Gilead or Home or Lila)
• TROLLOPE, Anthony (one by him)
• WILLIAMS, John Stoner

Non-fiction

• EHRENREICH, Barbara Natural causes: An epidemic of wellness, the certainty of dying, and killing ourselves to live longer
• GERGIS, Joelle Sunburnt country (climate change)
• GRIFFITHS, Tom The art of time travel: Historians and their craft (award-winning book surveying Australian historians)
• HEISS, Anita (ed) Growing up Aboriginal in Australia (recently given by the University of Melbourne to 600 members of staff)
• HOOPER, Chloe The arsonist (new out in second half of 2018, author of The tall man)
• KEAN, Sam The disappearing spoon (the periodic table)
• KRASNOSTEIN, Sarah The trauma cleaner (won or was shortlisted for several awards in 2018)
• TUMARKIN, Maria Axiomatic (Russian-Australian cultural historian, 250pp.)

But, please do bring others to the meeting ...

Some suggestions for 2018, Pt.1

Some ideas for our next six months organised by category

(most from the side-bar, but I've dropped some that have been there for a while)

Non-Australian

Alameddine, Rabih An unnecessary woman

Howard, Elizabeth Jane (one by her)

Robinson, Marilynne (One by her: Housekeeping or Gilead or Home or Lila)

Indigenous Australian

Cobby Eckermann, Ali Ruby Moonlightand/or Inside my mother and/or Too afraid to cry

Coleman, Claire Terra nullius

New books from Aussie favourites

de Kretser, Michelle The life to come

Flanagan, Richard First person

Laguna, Sofie The choke

Miller, Alex The passage of love

Non-fiction

Blackman, Barbara All my Januaries

Griffiths, Tom The art of time travel

Award-winners

Nguyen, Viet Thanh The sympathizer (Pulitzer Prize 2016)
Saunders, George Lincoln in the Bardo (Booker 2017)

Stow, Randolph The merry-go-round by the sea (Past Miles Franklin, could also be our Classic)

Recent suggestions from members

Harper, Jane The dry
Harper, Jane Force of nature

Schedule ideas for the first half of 2017

Here are some ideas for 2017. Most of these are in our suggestions list, but I thought it would be interesting to categorise them to help us get an overview of how we might like to plan our reading diversity.

• CLASSIC: George Gissing's The odd women OR something by Trollope
• DEBUT NOVEL by MARIE'S TOM'S PARTNER!: Madelaine Dickie's Troppo
• 2016 PRIME MINISTER'S LITERARY AWARD WINNER: Lisa Gorton's The life of houses
• 2016 MILES FRANKLIN WINNER: AS Patrić's Black rock white city
• NOVEL REFLECTING DIVERSITY: Rabih Alameddine's An unnecessary woman (see Wikipedia, though I believe that the theme is more about older women than Wiki's description) OR an indigenous Australian writer
• MEMOIR: Barbara Blackman's All my Januaries or Magda Szubanski's Reckoning or Kim Mahood's Position doubtful

Just putting ideas together folks to get the thought processes going...

Schedule ideas for 2014

As we will be deciding our books for the first half of 2014 at our November meeting, here are some suggestions to consider (including recommendations added after this was initially published):

New books from some of our BIG authors:

• Richard Flanagan's The narrow road to the deep north
• Roger McDonald's The following
• Alex Miller's Coal creek
• Christos Tsiolkas' Barracuda
• Alexis Wright's The swan book
• Tim Winton's Eyrie

Booker Prize Winner for 2013:

• Eleanor Catton's The luminaries

Debut novels:

• Hannah Kent's Burial rites

Other novels:

• Aminatta Forna's The Hired Man (set in modern Croatia with an English family renovating a house in a village previously affected by the recent war) or The Memory of Love (set in Sierra Leone, the birthplace of the author's father)
• Mohsin Hamad's The reluctant fundamentalist
• Lloyd Jones' A history of silence
• Anthony Marra's A constellation of vital phenomena
• Ann Patchett's Bel Canto (won the 2002 Orange Prize)
• JK Rowling's The Casual Vacancy (dark modern Britain, deeply insightful) 
• Amy Waldman's The submission

Classics: Do we want to do a classic?

• Wallace Stegner's Crossing to safety 

Translated book (or book in English from a non-English background writer): I think it would be good to try to do at least one non-anglo book each year - but that may just be me

• Jonas Jonasson's The One Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window and Disappeared

Non-fiction: 

• Janet Butler's Kitty's war
• Nicholas Carr's The shallows 
• Bee Rowlatt and May Witwit Talking about Jane Austen in Baghdad

And of course there are some books under Suggestions in the sidebar.

Schedule ideas for second half of 2013

Ideas to continue the Canberra-and-environs author-or-subject theme (alphabetical by author):

• Nigel Featherstone's recent novellas Fall on me or I'm ready now: Nigel would come to a meeting if we asked him and he were free; and Blemish Books, his publisher, currently has a "pay-what-you-like" deal for an e-version of Fall on me
• Irma Gold's Two steps forward (collection of short stories): shortlisted for the inaugural Most Underrated Book Award
  
• Alan Gould's The seaglass spiral
• Marion Halligan's Shooting the fox (collection of short stories)
• Roger McDonald's When colts ran (or another?): in 2011/2012 shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and a long story incorporated in it won the O Henry Prize (short stories) in 2008
  
• Alex Miller's Autumn Laing (or another?): in 2012 shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Award, longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award, won the Melbourne Prize for Literature
• Meanjin's special Canberra edition
  
• Canberra poets evening: there's a good selection in The invisible thread and Meanjin Canberra edition, for a start

Other ideas (higgledy piggledy order):

• Carrie Tiffany's Mateship with birds: won the inaugural Stella Prize and the NSW Premier's Prize for Fiction, and has been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award
• Michele DeKretser's Questions of Travel: shortlisted for the Stella Prize and the Miles Franklin Award
  
• Drusilla Modjeska's The Mountain: shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award
• Romy Ash's Floundering: shortlisted for the Stella Prize and the Miles Franklin Award
• Melissa Lucashenko's Mullumbimby : indigenous writer who has won and/or been shortlisted for several awards with previous novels
• Amanda Curtin's Elemental: Western Australian writer
• Classic novel: by Trollope or?
• Non-English author: Hans Fallada or Diego Marani (The last of the Vosyachs and New Finnish Grammar) or ?

If you send me other ideas, I'll add them to the list ... we have five spots to fill.

Jean-Étienne Liotard [Public domain], Ritratto di Maria Adelaide di Francia vestita alla turca, via Wikimedia Commons

Some books to consider for 2013

Potential Stella Prize contenders

The following books have been suggested by novelist Chris Flynn as possibilities for the (inaugural) 2012 Stella Prize:

• Carrie Tiffany, Mateship with Birds
• Deborah Robertson, Sweet Old World
• Paddy O’Reilly, The Fine Colour of Rust
• Susan Johnson, My Hundred Lovers
• Josephine Rowe, Tarcutta Wake
• Toni Jordan, Nine Days
• Chloe Hooper, The Engagement
• Michele DeKretser, Questions of Travel
• Drusilla Modjeska, The Mountain
• Romy Ash, Floundering

I've only read a couple of these so far (the Toni Jordan and Deborah Robertson), but they are probably all worth considering.

Canberra region books

We've talked about having a bit of a focus on Canberra next year given the centenary. Here are some ideas for that too:

• Irma Gold (ed), The Invisible Thread (an anthology of works by writers with a Canberra association)
• Alan Gould, The Seaglass Spiral
• Anita Heiss, Paris Dreaming (indigenous chicklit, deals with Aboriginal art and set in Canberra and Paris)
• Frank Moorhouse, Cold light (the third in his Edith trilogy and set in the Canberra public service)
• Kel Robertson, Smoke and mirrors (a crime book, and the book voted to represent Canberra in this year's National Year of Reading)

And of course

Hilary Mantel, Bring up the bodies (sequel to Wolf Hall and this year's Booker winner)

If you have other ideas, let me know in the comments and I'll add them to this post. We'll be discussing our schedule at our November meeting.

Miles Franklin Award 2012 shortlist

Posting the shortlist for this year's Miles Franklin award just in case it might provide more options for our schedule deliberations:

• Tony Birch's Blood
• Anna Funder's All that I am
• Gillian Mears' Foal's bread
• Frank Moorhouse's Cold light
• Favel Parrett's Past the shallows

Click on this link for a page linking to a description of the books and the judges' comments.

We've read one already - woo too. Go us! And at least one of us has read Anna Funder I believe.

Do any strike your fancy for us?

Text Australian Classics

This month, Text Publishing has published a collection of 30 Australian classics.

You can check them out by clicking this link. The collection is the brainchild of Text's Pubisher, Michael Heyward, who has said, among other things, that

... it takes just a generation or two, sometimes less, for us to lose the plot . We put our books and writers on the high shelf of the past, where we forget about them. Imagine if our art galleries decided to banish the works of Brett Whiteley or Fred Williams to their darkened basements for a decade or two. That’s what we routinely do to so many significant writers whose books are out of print.

Hmmm ... hadn't thought of it this way, but he has a point.

Anyhow, these new editions all have new introductions, lovely bright yellow coloured covers, and are all on sale for, I think, $12.95 each. A steal, really! The National Library Bookshop has them - and hopefully other shops around town too.

You know where this is leading ... I'm thinking we might like to choose one or two for our second half of 2012 schedule, that we will be deciding at our May meeting.

So, have a look at the link above and see if any grab your attention ... and let us know what you think.

Some schedule ideas for second half of 2011

I will add these to the Schedule Suggestions list in the sidebar but am adding them here with a little reasoning.

There are only three books on the Miles Franklin shortlist for this year and all look interesting for one reason or another:

• Kim Scott's That deadman dance. This book has been getting great reviews, and he's an indigenous writer who has won the award before. I'm very keen to read this.
• Roger McDonald's When colts ran. He's from around here, he provided advice to Alan Gould and he's won before. I'd like to read this too!
• Chris Womersley's Bereft. This has been getting great reviews too, and has already garnered some prizes. It's not his first novel but he is up and coming. Kate has read (or is reading) this in eBook version. Maybe if she can tear herself away from her river cruise she might comment here on whether she concurs with this for us to read.

But, what about some women writers? Cate Kennedy's The world beneath made a bit of splash last year. It's set in Tasmania. Or, a book by Gail Jones. I have yet to read her and would love to give her a go.

There are also some great books in those nice cheap Penguins, including books by Aussies Randolph Stow, Helen Garner, Robert Drewe.

Any other ideas?

List of upcoming book-film adaptations

In this post at Ripple Effects blogger Arti lists books that are currently in the process of being made into films. They might provide some ideas for future schedules.

Of course, we don't know from this list how imminent they are but it's a start. There are some interesting ones here including:

• 1984
• On Chesil Beach;
• The book thief; 
• The great Gatsby (again!); and
• several other classics, again

If there are any books in Arti's list that we haven't read and you'd like us to consider, let me know and I'll add it to the schedule suggestions list in the sidebar.

More reading suggestions

Hi, Some ideas for future discussions:

It's probably worth putting down the PM's Prize Winner: Eva Hornung for her novel Dog Boy on our list of suggested reads for next year.

Also Booker Prize winner: Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question 'a novel about love, loss and male friendship, and explores what it means to be Jewish today. Said to have ‘some of the wittiest, most poignant and sharply intelligent comic prose in the English language', The Finkler Question has been described as ‘wonderful' and ‘richly satisfying' and as a novel of ‘full of wit, warmth, intelligence, human feeling and understanding'.'

Schedule Suggestions 2010

Two suggestions for our next schedule:

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoat, by David Mitchell

Some varied reviews - including this one from New Statesman - but sounds a fascinating book for Japan-ophiles, and for those interested in different structures etc.

Another interesting book in the same review that got quite a good rap, and the author was on the Book Show 18 June 2010, is:

The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of his friend Marilyn Monroe, by Andrew O'Hagan

Schedule suggestions 2009

Here are some of the suggestions tossed around at our meeting last night (together with those previous suggestions in the blog's sidebar):

• Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall (this year's Booker Prize winner. It's long so perhaps our summer read
• Steven Conte's The zookeeper's war (last year's Prime Minister's Literary Award winner)
• Rodney Hall (a book by him)
• Alex Miller (a book by him - perhaps the new Lovesong??)
• Patrick White's Voss (had been tentatively set for January but maybe Wolf Hall would be better for the summer read)
• Kazuo Isiguro's Nocturnes (short stories)
• David Malouf's Ransom
• Jayne Anne Phillips' Lark and termite

Have I forgotten any that we discusssed?

What do you all think of these - and do you have other ideas? Marie, Susan and other farflung members - even if you can't come we would be happy to hear about any books you've read that you think we'd like to read.

(Free image from www.clker.com - for fun)

Patrick White's Voss, and other things

Okay, I know we've done a classic for this year but could we squeeze in another? Kate and I were talking yesterday about the Voss events in town next week and Kate said she's never read it. I love Voss but it's been a long long time since I read it. I would dearly love to read it again. Voss, as I guess most of you know, is White's imagining of Ludwig Leichhardt's experience as he explored northern Queensland. What do you all think?

I have listed some of the books that have been suggested for our next schedule in the side bar on this blog. We should decide on our next schedule at the May meeting so have a think about what you'd like us to read. If you'd like to make some advance suggestions, you can do it in three ways: by adding a comment to this post; if you are an author here, by creating a new post describing your recommendation; by emailing me and I will add it to the list here.

Obama - a must read

Hi all
Our coast bookclub, Broulee & Beyond, just discussed Barack Obama's Dreams from my Father. I was so reluctant to even begin thinking that it would be schmaltzy. How wrong I was. One of the best reads ever. And we all agreed - even the toughest and most difficult to please amongst us.
It was written in 1994 (or '95) before he even entered mainstream politics, although I count his years as a grass roots organiser in Chicago as politics of the most basic sort. There's a wonderful preface to the second edition which came out in 2001 or so, but all long before any hint of presidency.
So much to discuss.
I highly recommend this book to you all.
Marie

Perth International Arts Festival

PIAF, what a great acronym, has published its Top Ten Book Club Reads. It looks to me to be a great list, and contains some titles that we have already suggested or might like to consider for our next round, such as Joan London's The good parents, Sebastian Barry's The secret scripture, Arnold Zable's The sea of many returns, and Kate Grenville's The lieutenant.

Have a look at the full list - there are also books set in the Baltic, Afghanistan and Bosnia - and see what you think...