Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zuckoff

November 22, 2019 by Christina

Nonfiction – eBook. HarperCollins, 2011. 432 pgs. Purchased. Subtitled “A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II”, Mitchell’s book recounts the 1945 effort to rescue an Army officer, a Women’s Army Corps officer, and an enlisted soldier after their plane crashed in present-day Papua, the Indonesian part of the island of New Guinea. The two men and one woman were on board the C-47 plane along with 21 others for a sightseeing […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Indigenious Peoples, Nonfiction, Oceania • Tags: Mitchell Zuckoff

Elemental by Amanda Curtin

October 28, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Scribe UK, 2016. Originally published 2013. 444 pgs. Purchased. In the 1970s, towards the end of her life, Meggie Duthie Tulloch sets out to recount her life from a young girl in a fishing village of northeast Scotland to an émigré in Western Australia for her granddaughter. She complies her memoirs into a series of notebooks, separating the story into three parts based on the elements that defined her life in that moment (water, air, and […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Europe, Fiction, Oceania, United Kingdom • Tags: Amanda Curtin

The Natural Way of Things by Charlotte Wood

October 25, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Europa Editions, 2016. Originally published 2015. 208 pgs. Purchased. Yolanda and Verla awaken from a drugged sleep to find themselves in an unfamiliar room wearing “stupid Amish clothes” and under guard by two men in boiler suits. Neither woman knows how or why she ended up here; neither woman feels like they can really trust the other enough to ask. Perhaps, after all, they are on a demented version of ‘Survivor’ or ‘Big Brother’ where they […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Awards and Prizes, Dystopia, Feminism, Fiction, Oceania, Stella Prize • Tags: Charlotte Wood

Black Rock White City by A.S. Patrić

October 2, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Transit Lounge, 2015. 157 pgs. Purchased. Yugoslavian refugees, Jovan and Suzan Brakochevich, resettled in the suburbs of Melbourne after their two young children died in a UN refugee camp during the Balkan War. Both husband and wife blame each other – Suzan didn’t eat the poisoned food so perhaps she knew; Jovan didn’t leave Sarajevo when Suzan wanted them to – and themselves for the death of their children, leaving their marriage on shaky ground as […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Awards and Prizes, Balkans, Europe, Fiction, Genocide, Oceania • Tags: A.S. Patrić

Prime Cut by Alan Carter

July 31, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Michael O’Mara Books, 2014. Originally published 2011. 348 pgs. Purchased.  While the rest of the world teeters on the precipice of what will be known as the Great Recession of 2008, the Western Australian town of Hopetoun is alight with quick money from the 50-year mine next door. Home prices have soared as miners from around the world flock to Hopetown in hopes of working in the mine, and the local police sergeant Tess Maguire is […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Crime, Fiction, Oceania • Tags: Alan Carter

The Lost Man by Jane Harper

May 1, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – Kindle edition. Flatiron Books, 2019. Originally published 2018. 352 pgs. Purchased. In the desolate outback of Queensland, Australia, Nathan meets his youngest brother, Bub, at a solitary, weather-battered grave dating back to the nineteenth century. A spooky air has always surrounded the grave; the locals imagining a number of horrible fates for the man buried there. Nathan, though, has always figured the man died from exposure to this unforgiving landscape – a landscape where heat and a scarcity […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Crime, Fiction, Oceania • Tags: Jane Harper

The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss

March 25, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – audiobook. Translated from the German. Read by Frederick Davidson. Blackstone Audio, 2009. Originally published 1812. 10 hours, 18 minutes. Library copy. Wyss’ novel follows a Swiss family figuring out how to survive on an uninhabited island after a violent storm wrecks their ship among the rocky outcropping of an uninhabited island. The rest of the crew headed to Port Jackson, Australia via the East Indies abandoned the family, taking all the lifeboats but leaving the livestock and provisions […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Audiobook, Classics, Classics Club, Fiction, German, Juvenile, Oceania, Translated • Tags: Johann David Wyss

Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty

February 4, 2019 by Christina

Fiction – print. Flatiron Books, 2018. 453 pgs. Purchased. Nine strangers met at a health resort in Australia; each arrive at Tranquility House with their own goal for the 10-day, screen-free experience. Frances, a formerly bestselling romance writer, is hoping to reorient herself following the rejection of her latest novel by publishers and a stinging rebuke of her work – and of the whole genre – by a critic. Dragged to the resort by his wife, Ben isn’t sure if […]

Categories: 2019 Reads, Chunkster, Fiction, Oceania • Tags: Liane Moriarty

Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty

December 29, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — audiobook. Read by Caroline Lee. Macmillian Audio, 2016. 17 hours, 20 minutes. Library copy.  Clementine and Erika have been best friends since childhood. While their lives have taken different turns over the years — Clementine has two little girls, Erika has always said she doesn’t want kids — the two women always make an effort to get together now and then. When Erika mentions that her neighbors, Vid and Tiffany, want to host Clementine’s family and Erika’s at […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Audiobook, Chunkster, Fiction, Oceania • Tags: Caroline Lee, Liane Moriarty

Talking to My Country by Stan Grant

July 15, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction — print. Scribe, 2016. 230 pgs. Purchased. Grant, an Australian television journalist for CNN and member of the Wiradjuri people, begins his memoir with three intriguing sentences: “These are the things I want to say to you. These things I have held inside or even worse run from. It is not easy, what I have to say, and it should not be easy.” These difficult things are centered around the historical and ongoing treatment of Aboriginal people in Australia. […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, 20BooksofSummer, Indigenious Peoples, Nonfiction, Oceania, ReadDiverse • Tags: Stan Grant

Offshore by Madeline Gleeson

June 28, 2018 by Christina

Nonfiction – Kindle edition. NewSouth, 2016. 352 pgs. Purchased. Subtitled “Behind the Wire on Manus and Nauru”, Gleeson’s book examines Australia’s policy of offshore processing for migrants and asylum seekers. Since 2012, Australia has taken the policy that any person who arrives via boat seeking refugee in Australia will be denied the right to settle. The policy is meant to stop risky travel by boat through the Banda and Timor Seas as well as cut into the profits of smugglers […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Awards and Prizes, Nonfiction, Oceania, Stella Prize • Tags: Madeline Gleeson

Force of Nature by Jane Harper

May 2, 2018 by Christina

Fiction — Kindle edition. Flatiron Books, 2018. 329 pgs. Purchased.  Harper’s debut novel, The Dry, was near the very top of my list of favorite reads from 2017, and I have a feeling this novel — her second starring Australian Federal Police Agent Aaron Falk — will snag a spot on my list for 2018. The drought that plagued the events of Harper’s first novel has lifted, and readers return to find that Falk is pursuing a money laundering case against two […]

Categories: 2018 Reads, Crime, Fiction, Oceania • Tags: Jane Harper