This is a list of all the books I have read (since I started keeping records, anyway lol) that are either about Australia, set in Australia or buy an Australian author.
This is a fascinating presentation of Australia’s history from white settlement to the early 1980s. I tend to prefer photography over film – I feel it has more soul – and black & white is my preferred medium. Thus, I found this pictorial history thoroughly enjoyable. The beautiful photography is not the only thing this book has going for it, however. Each caption contains a little snippet of history, making this book not just enjoyable, but informative as well. Australian history is not covered in nearly enough depth in schools, and I found myself learning quite a lot of interesting facts about my own country. This is a perfect coffee table book and one I highly recommend reading.
This book was not nearly as entertaining as I had expected. There were some funny bits and I really related to Nigel’s struggles with the children, but overall I was quite disappointed. To begin with, the story is non-linear, jumping back and forth from past to present and making it a little confusing to read. There was a lot of the ‘whinging pom’ attempt at humour, which was also off putting. The majority of the time spent reading this, I was a bit bored. This is a take-it-or-leave-it kind of book.
Not in the order they were read.
The Dead of the Night is the second book in John Marsden’s Tomorrow series. As the teenagers continue to fight, they meet up with a group of adult resisters, experience romance and lose one of their number. This is just as good as Tomorrow, When the War Began, if not better. The characters and situations are realistic and the story full of drama. Highly recommended.
What would you do if you came back from a holiday to find yourself at war? Would you hide until the war ended or would you fight for your country’s freedom? This is the situation seven teenagers find themselves in after a camping holiday in Hell. Tomorrow, When the War Began is a thrilling novel for teens and adults alike. The characters are realistic and engaging and their reactions believable. Once begun, this book is impossible to put down. This book is not to be missed.
The style was a little bit perturbing at first, but I soon got used to it. This book actually consists of snippets from the author’s radio program. Listeners call in with a social dilemma, and other callers call in to say what they would do in that situation. I actually found some of the answers quite fascinating because they were dilemmas I had experienced for myself. Then there were other situations I am glad to have avoided. I was appalled, for example, to read about a person who threw a dinner party and, at the end of the night, demanded $50 a head to pay for the meal!
Each chapter is opened with a humorous ‘then and now’ type description by the author, breaking up the potential for monotony. I would say this is an amusing book and well worth reading.
We all come to a moment in our lives where we suddenly discover that our parents are not the all-powerful, all-knowing gods that we thought they were; a moment when we come to a sudden awareness of our parents’ humanity – with all the faults, foibles and weaknesses that that implies. We feel the ground shift beneath our feet as we realise that our parents, our family, our world are fleeting and fragile. For Toby, that moment came in the summer of 1976. The summer his father was called away. The summer his parents marriage disintegrated. The summer of change. This is a powerful coming-of-age story to which we can all relate.
This book was very different from what I expected which isn’t, in itself, a bad thing. It is well-written and has good characters but I just couldn’t seem to get into it.
Abhorsen is the riveting conclusion to the Old Kingdom trilogy. As with the previous books, I really love the contrast between Ancelstierre – the world as we know it – and the Old Kingdom – a world of magic and mystery where the dead come to life and modern technology ceases to operate. In this book, the two worlds come closer together than ever before and both face total annihilation. Both Sameth and Lirael come into their inheritance and we finally discover the true natures of Mogget and the Disreputable Dog. This book, like the others, is a thrilling and engrossing read.
I read, and loved, Space Demons in school but only recently became aware that there are sequels. Since I enjoyed the first book so much, I had great expectations for the others. I found that I enjoyed Space Demons just as much. This is a great example of Australian children’s fantasy. Addressing the themes of growing up, maturing and spending too much time in front of a computer means that kids today will relate. The second book, Skymaze is, in my opinion, the best story in the trilogy. It is similar to Space Demons in that it is about an all-too-real computer game, but the characters are more developed in this one, friendships are stronger, dangers more imminent. The third book, Shinkei, is very different from the first two. While the game is present, and dangerous, Shinkei reads more like an adventure than a fantasy, and we are left with the feeling of anti-climax, and the suspicion that the author really ought to have stopped at two books. Overall, however, this trilogy is worth reading.
Comments