Queer Australian Women Writers month at AWW

I didn't know until this morning's post that the AWW challenge is having a focus month on queer Australian women writers.

As a queer (part-)Australian woman who reads (and writes), this is awesome!  (I just wish I'd known about it sooner.)

I am, as usual, in the middle of multiple books right now.  (Goodreads shows the following:

• Passage to Pontefract
• Sarah's Key
• Joanna: the notorious Queen of Naples
• Three Strong Women
• Four Queens: the Provencal sisters who ruled Europe
• Crown of Slaves
• The Kingmaker's Daughter
• Where the Streets Had a Name
• Little Black Bastard)

But: in the light of AWW's focus, I'm going to put a few of these onto my "On Hiatus" list where they belong (the bottom four listed above), and pick up a few others I've been meaning to read by queer Australian women:

• Ghost Wife, by Michelle Diconowski - I picked it up last year but didn't read it.
• Her Sister's Eye, by Vivienne Cleven
• something by Katherine Howell (whatever I'm up to in her series right now)
• something by Melissa Lucaschenko 
• Act of Faith, by Kelly Gardiner - which I've been meaning to read absolutely for ever.  Like, since before it was published when Kelly Gardiner was telling us about it at a YA librarians event at the State Library.

I certainly can't guarantee to get all of these read this month - hopefully we'll be moving house during March.  But I'd love to get through a few of them.

Australian Women Writers signup 2014

Somehow it's already 2014.

I dropped off on my reviews and challenges last year, which does make one thing easy for this year: rolling over last year's challenges to this year.

Last year I managed to read three of my ten planned books for the Australian Women Writers challenge. Therefore, seven are back on my list this year.

1. The Boundary, by Nicole Watson
2. Paving the New Road, by Sulari Gentill.
3. Exile, by Rebecca Lim,
4. Black Glass, by Meg Mundell.
5. El Dorado, by Dorothy Porter.
6. Chasing the Light, by Jesse Blackadder.
7. Whitening Race, edited by Aileen Moreton-Robinson.
8. Manhattan Dreaming, by Anita Heiss. 
9. Tea with Arwa, by Arwa El Masri
10. This is Shyness, by Leanne Hall.

The three new books are the next Rowland Sinclair (Sulari Gentill), Chasing the Light by Jesse Blackadder,  and Tea with Arwa, a biography by Arwa El Masri, wife of Hasim El Masri, the rugby player who is probably Australia's best known and definitely best-respected Muslim.  I've been wanting to read Tea with Arwa for a long time.

Another note: Meg Mundell's Black Glass went missing in the transition between library systems (damn whoever has it) so I'll have to borrow that one in from another library.

I'm going off to do my official sign up now, then back to my writing project before my editor discovers a way to transport herself through the internet to encourage me in person.  Hopefully I can get chapter three off to her this week and then come back to update my GWC and Rainbow Reads challenges for this year.

Happy Reading!

Another tracking post - Honor Harrington series

You'll remember my "Skating School" tracking post from some time back.

Having returned to reading David Weber's Honor Harrington books (now at 13 (or 14 depending how you count it) main books, six anthologies, and eight (or seven) spin-offs in three series for a total of 27 titles - I think), I realised  at the beginning of At All Costs (book 11 in the regular series) that events were being referenced that I hadn't read about and clearly was expected to know more about.  Making my way to the ever-helpful Honorverse Wiki, I found a table of the current books and short stories in reading order, which I have, in part, reproduced below the fold.  This helped me work out that I should have branched off to the two spin-off series' before attempting At All Costs.  I've been looking forward to reaching those two series, so it's not like it's a hardship.

(Book titles are in italics, short stories are in plain type with the title of the anthology in the next column.)

I'm now thinking there may need to be some more posts on Honor and the odd way in which I love the books but can totally see the problems in them as well.

Wednesday Reads/Where I am up to Wednesday

Recently, during the local "International Film Festival", we went to see - among others - a film called "The Summit", about the death of eight mountaineers on the ascent and descent of K2, the second-highest mountain in the world.  You may see the influence of this movie in the following.

I've just finished reading:
Three books that I am planning to post reviews for...
Life after Death - Beck Weathers - bio of one of the 1996 Everest clients.
High: Stories of Survival from Everest and K2, Clint Willis, ed - an anthology of narratives.
Savage Summit: the life and death of the first women of K2, by Jennifer Jackson - an absolutely fabulous narrative of the lives and climbs of the first five women who summitted K2, all of whom have now died.


I'm currently reading:
Into Thin Air by John Krakauer - the supposedly quintessential narrative of the 1996 Everest season.

K2: Life and Death on the World's Most Dangerous Mountain by Ed Viesturs and David Roberts - a history of a number of the most dramatic climbing seasons on K2.

Unpolished Gem, by Alice Pung - I've been listening to this at the gym, and now thinking I really must conclude it by getting out my paper copy.  So close to done.

After Elizabeth: The Rise of James of Scotland and the Struggle for the Throne of England by Leanda de Lisel - put aside because of my sudden mountaineering obsession.

The Bible.  Seriously, I've got about 50 pages of Revelation to go.

Next I plan to read - It's September, and I've read very few of the books comprising my 30 2013 challenge books.  So that's what I really need to get to.  These books include:

Gaysia, by Benjamin Law
The God Box, by Alex Sanchez
Dead Aid, by Dambisa Moyo
Manhattan Dreaming, by Anita Heiss
The Boundary, by Nicole Watson

I really need to turn my mind to these books.  And yet I really am captivated by all these dratted mountaineering books.

I also have, sitting next to me on the sofa right at this moment, Sheer Will: The Inspiring Life and Climbs of Michael Groom, by Michael Groom.

Review: Mouseton Abbey

Mouseton Abbey by Nick Page

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This is absolutely gorgeous. Between the obvious links to a television show that shall remain nameless, the delightful knitted mice, and the writing, which made me giggle on every page, it's absolutely priceless.

I do rather wish that knitting patterns for the mice were included, but I rather hope that I will be able to work out how to crochet them eventually. :-)

Meanwhile, I strongly hope that there will be more Mouseton Abbey books on the way.



View all my reviews

Skating School - for my reference

It's proving harder than it should to work out the reading order of these.  Fantastic fiction has the books listed, but not entirely in reading order. Goodreads doesn't even list them as a series (I'll fix that at some point).  But my colleague, our YA librarian, thought to check Amazon, and they did have the reading order.  Thank you, YA librarian!!

Skating School - by Linda Chapman

1. White Skate Wishes (2009) - read
2. Scarlet Skate Magic (2009) read
3. Violet Skate Friends (2009) - read
4. Pink Skate Party (2009) - read
5. Blue Skate Dreams (2010) - read
6. Silver Skate Surprise (2010) - read

2nd generation stories

1. Sapphire Skate Fun (2010) - read
2. Amber Skate Star (2010) - arrived
3. Emerald Skate Promise (2010)
4. Ruby Skate Secrets (2010)
5. Diamond Skate Forever (2010)
6. Topaz Skate Sparkle (2010)

Where I am up to Wednesday

It's Wednesday again!  There have been many Wednesdays since the last time I wrote.  But this is where I'm up to:

I've just finished reading:

I finished The Follies of the King by Jean Plaidy in the last couple of days.  It's the Edward II installment of the Plantagenet saga, and I found myself with far more sympathy for Isabella than I expected.  And far less for Edward. Obviously there's some authorial bias at work, and I've got the Alison Weir "She-Wolf of France" (or is that about Eleanor?  Or Margaret of Anjou?)  on eBook.  Once I recharge my Kobo.  I'm definitely looking forward to the next one, although I won't get to that for a little while.

I finally finished Pray for me in Santiago while I was in Adelaide, and I still need to write a proper review of that one.  

I'm currently reading:

The Red Queen, by Philippa Gregory, which jumped up the to-read list when @sawcat pointed out that it was about Margaret Beaufort and not Margaret of Anjou as I'd assumed it was.  Watching the TV adaption of The White Queen I was absolutely captivated by Margaret Beaufort.  And I'm thoroughly enjoying reading the book.  

Still working on Alice Pung's Unpolished Gem, somewhat on hiatus because of a) the changeover of libraries resulting in not actually having access to the audio book version and b) my gym being in the middle of renovations.  I listen to my audiobooks while I'm at the gym.

Also still working very slowly on Mark Bowen's Guests of the Ayatollah, and Noel Tovey's Little Black Bastard.

Next I plan to read:

Rebecca Lim's Exile, which has been sitting there in waiting for a while; a few more Linda Chapman Skating School books (which I have on reserve through Swift, now that my library is a member of Swift); and Manhattan Dreaming, by Anita Heiss, because I really should have read it by now.