Tag Archives: books

Book Review: A Theatre for Dreamers by Polly Samson

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This story takes you to the Greek Island of Hydra in 1960 where eighteen-year-old Erica escapes with her brother following the death of her mother. On the island is her mother’s friend Charmian Clift, who is a writer. It’s there that Erica hopes for comfort and details of her mother’s secret life.

What she gets is entirely different as Erica becomes embroiled in a transient expat community of writers, musicians and artists. She finds Charmian living a bohemian life bringing up three children, taking a backseat from her own writing by supporting her writer, husband George Johnston. There are many hardships as George grapples with deteriorating health, alcohol and writers block. The expat group gravitate around this family with Charmian being central as the mother figure, stretched as she is with her own personal problems.

Largely this is a fictionalised story of real people. We are given a peak into the lives of Charmian and her family as well others such as friend Marianne Ihlen, yes the one in Leonard Cohen’s life who happens to be on the island at the time.  Yet there is a gallery of characters all flitting in and out the tale. The author tries to immerse the reader into the setting but never allowing us to ever really get a true grasp of the characters as we never have the opportunity to get to really know them. Erica herself is merely an observer and her lack of maturity shows which makes her less endearing.

It’s almost like a travelogue of stilted scenes swinging from one event to another, name dropping real people in a fictional setting.

Through Erica there are glimpses of themes such as creative theft, sexist attitudes of the day and the contrast between the village inhabitants and the bohemians romanticised privileged lifestyle.

Erica is always on the periphery and we don’t get a full sense of her own feelings or thoughts. While her observations are poignant there is very little character development even at the end where still seems just as lost.

The writing is evocative of place and I felt like I was there which is gratifying to read during a chilly Melbourne winter.

For a fictionalized account of real people and events it made me search google for more information. It could have been a great story if there had been more time given to Charmian and her family or even the fictional character of Erica. But somehow the opportunity was missed. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the read.

Book Review: Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams

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If you’re concerned about the large social media companies whose presence invades our lives every day distracting, preaching, selling and influencing us in more ways than we realise, then read this book. It’s much worse than we thought.

Bad corporate behaviour has been on show for years from tax avoidance, influencing politics and elections, raking in billions without much of a moral compass. We probably shouldn’t be surprised by this because we see it and read it about it enough. Wynn-Williams who worked for Facebook at a senior level saw it all and was part of it and despite legal constraints by Facebook to stop the publication, this memoir is eye-opening.

We know Facebook was started by Zuckerberg in Harvard with a few other mates to connect and talk about the attractiveness of people.  It then evolved into a platform for bringing people together and it has. Wynn-Williams thought this was what she was getting into back in 2011. Facebook then began spreading world-wide like some form of digital colonialist power. Morals and ethics fell by the wayside as the numbers of connections grew across the globe where internet was still unavailable. The only problem was that some countries began using it for dissent and disruption, racist and fake information. Facebook on the surface according to Wynn-Williams began to take down some posts but ignorance of countries cultures and politics such as Myanmar created a platform for political upheaval with dramatic consequences.

This is a book which explains in detail, Wynn-Williams role, the part she played and how she tried to subvert the culture of white Harvard men in the leadership whose rise in power made them untouchable.

“he (Zuckerberg) has politicians from around the world wanting to come see him and kiss the ring… he could buy all the politicians of a country or many countries if he chose to wield this power freely.”

This one truly is enlightening about what global tech power looks like. Facebook is not alone. The only thing that stops them in their tracks is us, the user.

We are privvy to Wynn-Williams day to day struggles, sexual harassment and her own personal life. I did wonder why on earth she didn’t leave the toxic environment sooner and how big a part she really did play.

This book is easy to read and well written. Check this one out and see why everyone is talking about it.

Book Review: Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko

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The latest book by Lucashenko is powerful, humorous but most of all is filled with raw honesty about our past and present.

It opens in present day with elderly Granny Eddie who has a fall along a Brisbane footpath. White people steer clear believing her to be drunk but it is a young Asian person who helps and gets her to hospital. It’s there that we meet her activist granddaughter Winona who rails against the establishment.

We are then taken back in time  to 1855 and introduced to Mulanyin a young man who’s life is deeply affected by white English occupation.

The story takes us well and truly away from the fake history so many of us have been fed and it’s stories like these that educate and explains and puts us right in the seat of injustice to give us a great understanding of the land we occupy.

It’s an insightful and riveting read full of beautiful yet colourful characters who can make us laugh and cry. Lucashenko is truly the master of the written word and it’s no wonder she’s raking in the prizes with her latest.

Book Review: One Hundred Years of Betty by Debra Oswald

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This is a tale of Betty Rankin who on the eve of her hundredth birthday tells us all about her life.

Betty is born into a large poverty-stricken family whose stoic mother dies after giving birth to the tenth child. Her family barely survives with their errant alcoholic father. During WW2 she’s sent away to the country. From here on we are given a snapshot of her life throughout the decades of many highs and even more lows when she navigates to the other side of the world as a ten-pound pom.

This is a very easy read as Oswald quickly establishes the character of Betty in the early pages so that the reader feels a strong enough connection to care about her and her eventful life. I couldn’t put it down as I feared and hoped for her while admiring her courage and tenacity under all obstacles.

This is also a story of friendship and gives the reader pause to reflect on how important our own friendships are along the journey of life. Indeed, the love for her friends is what kept her going.

The writing is witty and smart told in a memoir-like fashion from Betty’s point of view. She’s funny, plucky and the mistakes she makes aren’t judged too harshly except by herself. She stands up for what she feels is right and tries to make a difference for herself and the world she navigates.

Themes of friendship, family, grief, trauma, indigenous rights, feminism, politics and love all feature in Betty’s commentary reflecting the history of the times as we stroll through the decades with her.

I found though the narrative waned a little towards the end by the telling rather than the showing. At times I began to wonder if the narrator was indeed a ninety-nine-year-old because her adventures in her eighties seemed a little far-fetched. But I caught myself as I recalled an aunt of mine who had indeed bucked the ageist stereotype by doing extraordinary things. It made me look at my own biases about what we think of our elderly and what we expect they should be like. Perhaps it’s a message that age is no barrier, only our thinking is.

This one is a very enjoyable read so check it out.

Book Review: Twist by Colum McCann

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I really wish I hadn’t missed seeing this author when he spoke recently at the Melbourne Writers Festival as I’m sure it would have been just as fascinating as his recent book, Twist.

Probably like many, I had no idea that our internet comes to us via a series of cables which run deep under the world’s oceans. When one snaps as they can do, experts rush to find the cable break and fix it. It’s not easy because these cables can be kilometers deep where divers can’t get to.

McCann writes a story about one of these breaks and John Conway, a man charged to crew a vessel to find the break off the coast of Africa and fix it. The story is told from the point of view of writer, Anthony Fennel a borderline alcoholic who has been sent to write an article about a cable break. He meets Conway, his partner Zanele who’s an actress and their twin children. When Zanele leaves to take an acting role in London, Fennel wonders about their relationship while examining his own life as an estranged father.

The cable story, while interesting is a device to delve into broken people like Conway and Fennel, their relationships with others as well as each other and their secrets. Fennel is witness to Conway’s unraveling and in the process, we find out who these men really are.

The writing is truly exquisite, beautifully evocative with meaningful description which elevated this book for me.

“It was as if the Congo was purging itself, all that history, all that rancour under the sun, under the swollen stars, a rage of soil heading out into the channel, an underwater canyon that stretched for hundreds of kilometers… a place where there was no light except that which was throbbing within the cable, carrying in turn, just about everything.”

Give this one a go.

Book Review: Storm Child by Michael Robotham

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I’ve never read anything by this author before and picked this one up not knowing that it was the fourth of a series, until I finished. It didn’t matter as this tale about Cyrus Haven a forensic psychologist and his friend Evie Cormac is gripping and chilling.

It opens on a beach in England where bodies begin floating to shore. They are asylum seekers from a boat which was deliberately slammed and sunk. One boy survives and Cyrus begins investigating what happened, unwittingly unlocking Evie’s traumatic past as a refugee. It soon becomes evident that the tragedy is somehow linked to what happened to Evie when she was a child.

There are themes of human trafficking, sexual abuse and refugees which may be tough for some readers, but Robotham shines a light on human plight and desperation of refugees who need to escape their homeland and those who take advantage of their vulnerability.

It’s not completely unpredictable but what is interesting is the character of Evie and Cyrus, their relationship and the demons they both battle. This is what I found the most compelling and of course the ‘who done it’ component made it a page turner. I’ll  have to give the earlier ones in the series a go.

Book Review: Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout

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This is another novel about the character, Lucy Barton but this time she lives in Maine with her ex-husband, William. The story, though is about her deepening friendship with local lawyer, Bob Burgess who becomes involved in a murder case. Indeed, Strout does warn you that the story is all about Bob. For those of you who are Strout fans, Olive Kitteridge makes an appearance befriending Lucy at her retirement home where they swap yarns.

This is a story about relationships and a town of Maine, which Strout describes vividly throughout the seasons of the novel. The relationships Bob has is many and the reader voyeuristically observes his feelings and thoughts about Lucy, his wife, his brother and the man he is defending.

The reader can’t help but be embroiled in the stories exchanged between Lucy and Olive about the people they know whether they add any real value to the novel or not. We tut and judge alongside them as we might with our own friends and neighbours. Yes, we do it. You know we do.

Sometimes though, these stories failed to hold my interest enough, perhaps I was after more drama which I got as the murder investigation twisted into another not entirely unpredictable direction.

The resolution of Bob and Lucy’s relationship was a little pedestrian and I can’t say I liked either of them too much.

It’s a well written novel shining a light on the everyday and the unusual and was an okay read.