#Robbie Arnott

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2024: THE RAIN HERON by Robbie Arnott.*

The People have Spoken, so I'm reading THE RAIN HERON next! This one's been on my radar for a while, although I'm glad I waited (because I like this cover variant much more than the first variant that I saw).

*Featuring Dye Mad Yarns' Great Lakes Collection moonlighting as a background.

[dougwallen]

Robbie Arnott feature for The Big Issue Australia

[marymcmagic-hair]

"I have met siblings with almost unconscious understandings of each other. Of what the other will say, how they will react, what they will choose: as if they are adhering to a plan that only the two of them are privy to.

It is like meeting aliens. Levi and I have never understood each other.

But I know that between us there is love. Not warm love, not vocal love, but love nonetheless."

- Flames by Robbie Arnott

[ihaveasolutionbutyouwontlikeit]

Dusk by Robbie Arnott.

If you like camping or hiking, this book is for you. There's peace and serenity that gets clawed up in you betwixt the sense of loneliness and violence that comes with freedom and survival.

Potential spoilers in the quotes:

Iris had heard this country described as harsh, desolate. And while in all this sharp rock and wide sky she could see where those words might come from, she found no truth to them. Instead of harshness or bleakness she felt a freeing, lung-emptying openness that bounced off the hard stone, that waved, through, the thick mounds of tufted grass, threaded through the gnarled trees, fell down the chalky textures of the small tors she and Floyd rode below. That lived most of all in the tarns that appeared without warning, rising through the rock, pooling in her peripheries, dark and glossy and mirror-like. The sight of one made her pause, each new body of water a strange delight. She felt she could walk into them, despite the bite in the air, despite the snow gathered at their edges, and be received by the water with an impossible mineral warmth.

She thought of her day, of all she'd seen and touched and moved through, everything that had rattled around within her...

All of these places that frothed with the pace of the world, where life shook and strained, where one's blood ran fast. And it was only then, with those other places jumbling in her mind, that she found that she was able to focus on their journey through the highlands. She let the day play through her. Recalled their ascent up the golden-wattle path, across the cold plateau, beneath the lonely peaks, beside the death-still waters. She blinked at the memories. Shifted in her seat. 'It's not what I expected.' He took a drink. 'It never is.'

'Can't say I believe it, but there are the bones. There's the sky. What do I know, in the scheme of it all? Everything was something else once.'

It was the simplest kind of curse. No magic, nothing otherworldly. The easiest of damnations, a trap stretched open for a lifetime, a barbed gift delivered at birth. Nothing more than a name: Renshaw.

Iris looked up at the wakening stars and used them to scrub her mind clean.

Iris sat high in the saddle, the bloodied sandstone behind her, the promise of the mountain gap before her. She felt like a broom had been pulled through her, stiff bristles raking her straight, clean, her mind filling with a sense of unhurried purpose. It left her content to take the day slowly, to breathe the unclouded valley in.

Though she was tired, Iris felt the temptation in the offer. He'd know she was tempted, too. How easy it would be to agree, to set off, fast and sure. To ride without weight. To spend a night alone in a strange town with no responsibilities, nothing anchoring her to anyone or anything. How easy her whole life might be like that. But she knew what his offer really meant. Knew what Floyd would do in the cold shadows of the forest if she left him there. He'd made offers like this before - carefully designed to appear casual - always after a day of agony, when he could feel nothing but pain and misery, when he knew the burden of him was starting to break her. Iris let it roll around in her, the temptation and the truth, the life she might have and the one they'd always shared, what it all meant to her: who she was and who she might become. Then she stretched her arms, settled her head. 'Sounds like you're trying to use me as puma bait.'

And later, when it was dark and he thought she was asleep, she listened as he climbed awkwardly out of his sleeping bag. She let him think he was getting away with it. Then she wearily got up and followed him outside to the edge of the clearing. She let him hear her boots as they fell. She watched him stop, just as he'd started stumbling into the trees, and stared at his back in the darkness. She stayed there as he breathed and shook and sobbed a little, until he turned and slowly came back to the tent, one of her hands at his elbow holding him up, holding him steady.

Despite what she'd said, she knew he was right. Not because she could tell, but because he understood horses better than she did. He always had, and it had always infuriated her. She loved hers more, cared for hers better, took more time getting to know each one they'd owned - but unfailingly, through innate skill or just instinct, he'd known more about what they needed. Floyd could read their moods, their temperaments. He knew when they wanted hay and when they'd rather have oats. He could hear sickness in their chests where she heard only a loving heartbeat. He could look at a horse and know it would go lame and how it would happen, even if he'd never seen the land they were about to travel over. There was a language to it, a feel, that was hidden from her. It often made her want to scream.

But that wasn't how Iris chose to remember them, because the truth of what they had done wasn't the truth of all that they were. She knew that Lyle Horton was right in saying that they were savage, but remembering it only brought to Iris's mind the sadness that had walked hand in hand with their savagery, all the small miseries of life outside the law. The things nobody was interested in, that, had nevertheless shaped who her parents were and in many ways who she was. Who Floyd was.

After she and her brother freed themselves the world kept recognising them, kept reminding them of how monstrous their parents were.

This was one of their many curious wisdoms: that finding safety often meant seeking out danger.

She thought about the peat, the bones, the mountains, the river she'd followed and the country she'd passed through. She thought about how the most up here lifted late in the morning, like a formless veil. She thought about how she had finally arrived in a place she never wanted to leave, but where she had no real right to remain.

As they rode, Iris tried not to let the land affect her, tried not to let its soft colours seep into her. She reminded herself that she would be leaving it behind her soon, either through the jaws of Dusk or with more money than she'd ever dreamed of. She worked hard to see the ugliness in the tumbled rocks and soggy ground, death in the fossilised bones. It was bad country, she told herself, that couldn't be grazed or ploughed. She tried to see bleakness and stark misery all around her, and when she couldn't she rode with eyes closed, trusting her horse, telling it in a small voice that it was clever and that she loved it.

And just as Iris had nearly convinced herself that this country had no hold over her, the landscape changed again. The scattered rocks and silvery tarns were pushed apart by a tall forest, green and thick, that formed a lush border between plain and mountain. Their path took them straight into the trees, which were broad-trunked, small-leafed, and covered all over by verdant carpets and curtains of lichen. Their branches spread as much horizontally as vertically, creating a thickly intertwined canopy. Their roots snaked through the forest floor, which was made spongy and slippery by a later of fallen leaves. Fungus of all kinds and colours sprang out of the vegetation, from the ground and from the wood - decaying logs and living limbs. Red lips and grey ears of fungus, blue and orange mushrooms, tiny white tentacles worming their way into the world. Climbing among the trees were ferns taller than Patrick Lees, shepherding their passage, drooping fronds over them that curled down to brush their cheeks and scalps with a rasping, dewy touch.

All around was a pure darkness, a black void that sucked and pulled, that dizzied and unsteadied. Then a haze of forest green slowly crept in at the edges of this darkness. In the centre of the void white lights began to flash, harsh and violent - burning minerals, bursting stars. They brought with them shock and noise and sharpness, and the only way to avoid them was to crawl out of their reach, to swim through their explosions, to come back to life.

Lydia shrugged. 'He seems a decent sort. Maybe more than decent.' The same sad smile Iris had seen on her face the last time they spoke had reappeared. 'I trust him about as much as I trust any of you.'

'He's different. Patagonia will be different.' Iris thought of what she'd overheard Jon telling Floyd. Of the great rivers, of the glaciers, of the guanaco - whatever a guanaco was. 'Floyd and I need something different.'

The fire spat. Lydia rubbed her eyes. 'Can't be that different.'

'How would you know?'

Lydia climbed to her feet. Laid a warm hand on Iris's shoulder, then walked away slowly, towards her house, speaking over her shoulder as she went. 'How do you reckon his family got their farms?'

She wanted to say more to Lydia. She wanted her to know that she knew Lydia was right, that perhaps there was no place for Iris anywhere, no untouched country where she could slide into the world's seams without causing harm - but that she was going to keep searching, that she wouldn't stop searching. Yet she couldn't figure out how to get any of it out. Instead she just looked at her, and perhaps that was enough, because Lydia seemed to read some of it in her face.

She reached out. Touched Iris's elbow. 'Might see you again.'

Iris opened her mouth. Closed it. Nodded. 'Might.'

[expendablemudge]

ReadingIsResistance to ignoring the magic of the natural world

FLAMES got a 5* #BookReview of #Tasmania's home-grown magical realism monadnock Robbie Arnott's #scifi-adjacent beautiful book from Australia's eminent Text Publishing.

[rhetoricandlogic]

The Rain Heron: A Novel

By Robbie Arnott

FSG Originals

288 pp.

Reviewed by Paul D. Pearlstein

March 12, 2021

Despite many strong parts, this fragmented, genre-defying tale makes for an unsatisfying whole.

The Rain Heron: A Novel

Reviewed by Paul D. Pearlstein

March 12, 2021

Robbie Arnott is a prize-winning Tasmanian writer who has created in The Rain Heron a phantasmagoric tale in five parts. The chapters are very loosely tied to a mythical bird whose appearance reverses a devastating drought in an unidentified rural land.

The heron is incorporeal, made of water, though it can be netted and caged. Its apparent magic becomes the subject of a deadly hunt by soldiers involved in a local uprising. It’s unclear what the military hopes to do with the bird, but perhaps the heron’s preternatural powers might give them an edge in their struggle. That “struggle” is left to the imagination of the reader, as is much of the storyline, throughout which obfuscation, minimalism, and a creative timeline are mixed with some beautifully honed prose.

Sharing this tale with the bird are three curiously engaging women. Only briefly do we meet the first, a farmer whose land and livelihood are ruined by drought. She is saved when the ethereal bird appears to end the dry spell and become her protector. This woman alone enjoys great prosperity until a jealous neighbor’s boy tries to kill the heron. The boy is found with his eyes plucked out, the drought returns, and the farmer’s prosperity reverts to penury.

We next meet Ren, whose life was ruined and whose son was conscripted by the marauding military resistance. To survive, she flees to a mountain cave, where she stays alive by hunting, trapping, and trading pelts. Ren’s character may remind readers of Ayla in Jean Auel’s The Clan of the Cave Bear, another savvy survivalist.

The third woman, Zoe, lives by the sea, where she and her aunt earn a living milking squid and selling the valuable ink. A stranger intrudes and tries to learn the secret of how to obtain the ink. He ends up unintentionally killing the aunt. Zoe then kills him with the help of a blood-sucking squid, promptly leaves town, and joins the military resistance.

She excels in her new life and is quickly promoted to Lieutenant Harker. While commanding an all-male unit, she is ordered to capture the water heron and bring it to her superiors. Intelligence reports indicate that if Ren can be found, she can lead the soldiers to the mystical bird.

We first meet the soldiers as they’re scouring a mountainous region for Ren, who uses her knowledge of the terrain to avoid detection. Eventually, however, she is found. When she bravely refuses to reveal the bird’s location, she is tortured by the lieutenant until she relents. The bird is caught and caged, but not without a fight. During its capture, one of Harker’s eyes is plucked out.      

The bird is taken to the soldiers’ encampment at Ren’s cave, where Ren makes one last attempt to free it. The now partially blinded Lieutenant Harker (Zoe) instinctively shoots Ren in the throat despite never before having aimed a gun at another human.

After the passing of time, the remorseful lieutenant decides to free the bird. She returns to the cave and to Ren, who is still alive but unable to speak because of her injury. Together, the women go to a spot in the mountains and release the water heron. The lieutenant then leaves. She drives to a military doctor’s office to have him examine her gouged eye, and an abrupt fairytale ending ensues.

The author scatters several acts of gratuitous violence amid the pages: the plucking out of eyeballs; the murder of Zoe’s aunt and subsequent killing of her killer; the shooting of Ren; and more. It seems unnecessary for the book as a whole; perhaps each individual bloodstained episode would fit more comfortably into standalone stories.

Much of Arnott’s best writing describes the natural beauty of the unnamed region, the climate, and concern for the environment, though it’s unclear if that qualifies this book as a work of eco-fiction. It could just as easily be categorized as a fantasy, a feminist myth, a murder mystery, or even some sort of Dickensian coincidence tale. Regardless, The Rain Heron tries to span several genres but never quite succeeds in any. While its distinct narratives are interesting, the novel’s puzzling organization left this reader scratching his head.

[tintededges]

Limberlost

Contemplative novel about independence, masculinity and growing up I received a copy of this eBook courtesy of the author. Image is of “Limberlost” by Robbie Arnott. The eBook cover is an impressionistic painting of a yellow boat and a white tree with yellow leaves. There is greenery throughout the background and yellow stripes give the impression of the boat’s reflection. “Limberlost” by…

[hejihra]

25 books I'd like to read to read in 2025

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence

The vampire Armand by Anne Rice

Flames by Robbie Arnott

Paradise Logic by Sophie Kemp

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Ada or Ardor by Vladimir Nabokov

Foxfire: Confessions of a girl gang by Joyce Carol Oates

Consumed by David Cronenberg

One hundred years of solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

We do not part by Han Kang

The woman in the dunes by Kōbō Abe

The passion according to G.H. by Clarice Lispector

Drawing Blood by Poppy Z. Brite

The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic

First comes summer by Maria Hesselager

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Buying your boats by Angela Carter

I'll be gone in the dark by Michelle McNamara

Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

Cassandra at the wedding by Dorothy Baker

Confusion by Stefan Zweig

The Chronology of Water by Lidia Yuknavitch

Macunaíma by Mário de Andrade

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

[quarkscooljacket]

9 books i plan to read in 2025

tagged by @softest-punk ! as always i have one million books that i'd like to read but here are some I plan on reading soon and my thoughts below:

Praiseworthy (Alexis Wright) has been on my TBR ever since it came out. I was working and unboxed this and was just immediately entranced by it as a physical object. I quit that job and bought this book on my last shift there but have only got 20 or so pages in because it demands a lot of attention. This yr I will do it!

The Sunforge (Sascha Stronach) is the sequel to The Dawnhounds, which is one of my favourite fantasy books. I did get about halfway through this but then was attacked by evil ghosts in my mind (was depressed) and then had to start reading to judge a prize and so this was put aside. Gonna start fresh this year (and perhap use this as an opportunity to re-read the Dawnhounds again).

Dusk (Robbie Arnott) is set in tassie and is about one of the mythical australian panthers. I mean. C'mon. Also apparently he's a brilliant writer but I've read none of his work and I'd like to get to it and this seemed like the perfect entry point.

Brainwyrms (Alison Rumfitt) I got the same time as Tell Me I'm Worthless, which I really enjoyed. It was a gamble to buy them both without knowing if I'd even like her writing, but I'm v glad I did. There is a nice swathe of trans horror out lately and fortunately I'm not too much of a scaredy cat to read it!!!

This is Not a Border: Reportage & Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature (edited by Ahdaf Soueif and Omar Robert Hamilton) I saw on the first shift at my current job and after looking at it for a year I finally bought it for myself for chrissy. I've heard a bit about PalFest and think this will be really insightful.

Only the Animals (Ceridwen Dovey) because I loved Only the Astronauts and I love short stories, aand I love stories about animals.

Finch (Jeff VanderMeer) is the last in the Ambergris trilogy and I liked the other two and how different they all are to each other, and Jeff is one of my favourite authors.

Sunny at the End of the World (Steph Bowe) is the last book we will get by Steph Bowe because she passed away in 2020. Her mum and sister found this manuscript on her computer and it's being published in March. I loved her previous book, and she was a lovely person and I miss her. I never read the end of Girl Saves Boy because I thought well, if I don't finish it then I will always have more of her writing to read.

A Song to Drown Rivers (Ann Liang) is one my book club is reading and looks really fun tho I have heard is a bit devastating! Plus we love when an australian gets a nice big audience for the SFF work and so gotta support.

tagging @tideoftrash @gamling @briarrolfe @tegan-ew @nessie-nosebleed @so-boop-tac-u-lar :> but also everyone. please tell me about books!!!!!!!!

[hollowtones]

I've been reading through a book called The Rain Heron, by Robbie Arnott, and it's been very interesting so far.

I bring it up because there's a middle-aged squid farmer woman who laughs a lot and is covered in scars who I think you would enjoy. But also because it's interestingly written, with no quotation marks for dialogue, and a scant few named characters. It's akin to a less dreamlike and visceral Cormac McCarthy book.

Okay have a nice day

I think I had someone else recommend this book to me at some point. I read a summary and it sounds interesting enough, so maybe I’ll try tracking it down and reading it at some point. Thanks!

[awkwardplant]

2023 Reads

This year I've read 24 books - I had only planned to read one book per month, given that I've barely read since leaving highschool. But my old bookworm self is re-emerging! As I write this, I'm on my 25th lol.

I decided at the start of the year that I wanted to try an read a wide variety of genres, which I did. Didn't love everything I read, but such is life. Below are all the titles and my terrible attempts to summarise the plots. The ones with a heart were my favourites and ones I highly reccommend.

My full list in order:

No Destination by Satish Kumar

Autobiography of the life of a pilgrim who left his family at 9 years old to become a Jain monk, then left that to become an activist and walk across continents.

Not the kind of life story you hear everyday, that's for sure.

How to Invent Everything by Ryan North

(Nonfiction) An in depth guide for the stranded time traveller that needs to recreate modern technology from scratch.

Funny, easy to understand, and bitesized sections that can be read when you've got a spare 5 mins.

Moral Compass by Danielle Steel

A girl who experiences sexual assault while at a private school that newly became co-ed, and the resulting court case/investigation into what happened.

Personally I felt this read like a case-study more than a story, and the message was very heavyhanded.

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero ❤

A horror comedy about a group of adults that used to be sleuths in their teens reunite to solve a case that everyone thinks has been wrapped up.

This was recommended to me by a librarian that said it was like "if the scooby doo gang all had trauma and fought eldritch beings" which perfectly summed it up. Also, if you shipped Velma and Daphne... you'll enjoy this book 👀 The writer randomly switches to a script-like format at times, some people hate that but I personally like when an author does whatever the fuck, just because he can. Delicious dark humour.

The Rain Heron by Robbie Arnott ❤

About a woman who lives alone in the mountains in a country devastated by a coup, and is sought out by a soldier in order to find the mythical Rain Heron.

Nice prose and descriptions, and the other character's pov chapters have some great suspense.

The Mark and The Void by Paul Murray

An office worker meets a novellist who wants to write about his life.

I was really into the first half of the story, but the second half became boring as the plot stagnated

Resistance by Samit Basu

People have superpowers corresponding to their innermost desires, and we follow the life of a billionaire who is the leader of a mecha group and the lives of their enemies.

I accidentally picked this up at the library, not realizing it was a sequal to Turbulence, but it read okay on it's own. You'd like this if you're into My Hero Academia or other shounen anime.

Notes from the Burning Age by Claire North ❤

Set in the distant future after an apocalypse, an archivist is forced to translate documents from the "burning age" for the Brotherhood

I still think about this story daily. The writing has an interesting style and rhythm and the plot is packed with intriguing developments

The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins ❤

There's a library with the secrets to the universe, and several people, called Pelapi, grew up learning a unique catalogue of skills using its books, taught by Father, who might be God? But he's gone missing lately.

If you like The Umbrella Academy you'd like this. Like Meddling Kids, it's also dark and funny.

The People we Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

A journalist and her old friend go on holiday in a last attempt to rekindle their friendship.

I found this book on a train, then left it on another. Hopefully it got a new home! The story was sweet, especially the ending where the journalist spent some time on herself.

It's Kind of a Funny story by Ned Vizzini

A teenage boy suffers a mental breakdown and spends a week in a psychiatric ward.

Given to me by a family member, I am now a bit concerned for her. It has a happy ending, at least. There was a transphobic depiction of a character that was mentioned in the blurb, but she doesn't even stay for the whole story.

The Darkness Knows by Arnaldur Indridason

A body is found on a mountain in Iceland, reopening a cold case from 30 years ago, bringing the detective in charge of it out of retirement.

The prose isn't great in this due to a poor translation. The plot/characters are a bit cliche but not too bad overall. The ending was unexpected yet also expected in the best way?

Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree ❤

Cosy fantasy about an orc who retires from adventuring to open a coffee shop/cafe.

Bought this after seeing it recommended for people that like Stardew Valley. I liked the amount of detail that went into just building the shop. The prose is simple, but I find that fits the main character, Viv, well, and there were some really good lines/messages in the story. I have adopted Thimble.

Leonard and Hungry Paul by Ronan Hession

Two unremarkable irish men consider their lives and place in the universe.

This would've been one of my favourites had it not focused so much on Paul's sister's wedding. The book should've been called Leonard, Hungry Paul, and Grace. I did enjoy the conversations in this book, and the attention to the mundane.

Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo

Southern Gothic queer supernatural story about a college student trying to solve the case of his best friend's death, while being haunted by Revenants.

This took me ages to read because it was so emotionally heavy and the plot moved slowly. Like it had some incredibly good prose and relationship dynamics, but I couldn't force myself to read it again.

Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers

Solar punk story about a (nonbinary!) person who suddenly switches jobs to become a tea monk, then leaves that to visit a hermitage and meets a robot along the way.

This is a short book because the sequel is the second half of the story. £13-17.99 seems too expensive for half a book. It was recommended as a cosy fantasy but the MC is existentially unhappy with their life for most of it, so the story doesn't quite fit in that category.

A Cosmology of Monsters by Shaun Hamill ❤

Noah, the youngest child of his family, narrates the life of his parents: a bookish mother and a Lovecraft-horror lover father, and the monsters they all encounter

Phenomenal prose, characters, themes, and plot. Lots of psychological trauma and inner demons.

Those People Next Door by Kia Abdullah ❤

A family moves into a suburb and a war begins between them and the neighbours after he knocks down their "black lives matter" banner.

Oh boy, it sure escalates to become way out of hand. It has a mystery element to it which I enjoyed trying to figure out. Lots of tension between plot points. The last line! Agh!!

The Fall by Louise Jensen

A girl falls off a bridge and the family/police try to uncover who pushed her, but instead uncover secrets about the family.

There were some parts that didn't make sense to me, and there was a lot of characters to keep track of. Not a bad book but it just didn't have that extra spark.

Bookshops and Bonedust by Travis Baldree

Prequel to Legends and Lattes (but can be read on its own) where Viv has recently started adventuring but has to recover from an injury before she can return to her group. She helps out at a bookshop and gets caught up with a necromancer.

Preferred the first book as it felt cosier, but the action in this book is fun too.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa

A woman leaves her office job after a breakup to live above her uncle's bookshop and helps out, but she hates books.

Too short for my liking, and the main character was difficult to connect to and the relationships/conversations seemed shallow. the second half of the story centres on the uncle's wife and while it had a valuable lesson it just wasn't as good to read.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Childhood friends meet again in college and design a game together, which changes their lives/careers.

This was not a terrible book, but it did have some strange descriptions, and the author doesn't understand how the game industry works.

The Hike by Lucy Clarke

4 women who have been friends since highschool go to Norway to climb Mount Blajfell, but they are not prepared for the trek

I felt this had some cliches, but a pretty decent suspense novel

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

10 people are invited to Soldier Island for various reasons, only to find they all have one thing in common... murder.

I was theorizing like crazy during this, trying to guess whodunnit. I felt like the reveal was a bit disappointing because how on earth was anyone meant to guess that??

Library books: 9

Given to me: 5

Favourites: 7

If you have any recs for me I'd love to know, just message me!

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

hello fellow denizens of our beloved hellsite, please help me select my next book to read based on ZERO propaganda, only titles and cover vibes. here are The Options:

and here they are, all lined up and waiting:

help me, button-pressing site, you're my only hope!!

[madtomedgar]

Books read in May:

Where Reasons End, Yiyun Li: This is a stunning, devastating work. I almost felt like I shouldn’t be reading it though. The author had apparently been working on a novel about a middle aged woman whose child commits suicide when her own teenage son committed suicide, and this “novel” is mostly pulled from her journals in the months immediately after, and then only very lightly it seems, fictionalized. So it felt like I was reading her grief journals and that felt a little voyeuristic or invasive. I also don’t think I personally would qualify this as a novel, because to me it reads more like prose poetry, but she is very insistent that that’s what it is, so. It’s very spare, but almost in a way where it feels stripped. There’s a lot of meditation on language (she finds adjectives judgmental) and memory and of course grief, as well as the way a drive to be perfect strangles relationships and shuts people off to the possibility of love. I think the thing that struck me most, and that felt like a slow and subtle horror was the way in which it became clear that the deceased son in this story became the face and voice of the mother/author in the story’s internal critic. The way the after-image of her son that she was conjuring in her mind to talk to morphed into that voice that’s always noting everything she does wrong, or could do better, or the ways in which she thinks she isn’t measuring up or disappointing. It was almost as if the only way she felt she could keep the conversation going or keep him “around” even in her own mind was if he could sneer at and critique her, which is just so sad. Anyway. She’s a fantastic author and everyone should read something by her, even if this is not it.

The Rain Heron, Robbie Arnott: The author tried to do magic realism, and it was fine, but it didn’t really work. I think because there was just nothing that the world of this story was moored to, and imo magical realism works best when the magical thing is a way of making real some abstract and difficult thing so it can be grappled with. But his setting was just a generic post-coup vaguely euro/western anglophone country, and the characters were mostly archetypes. Even that would have worked if he hadn’t switched from a very limited 3rd person narration that gave the sense that this was a story being told in the last quarter to first person narration. It was jarring and it kind of ruined the almost fairy-tale quality that was working for the rest of it. There was also kind of a hamfisted ending where the character is healed and begins working for good things instead of destructive things because of the magical healing power of heterosexuality and like. yawn. I think maybe in a different genre I’d really like his writing but this book just didn’t come together for me.

Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age, Darrel McCleod: Ok look. I don’t think all books need trigger warnings. But I think if your book involves a lot of sexual violence against children, you should maybe put something in the description to clue readers in to that. Because it’s not a given that a memoir about growing up as a Cree boy in the 60s and 70s and struggling with poverty and eventually realizing he is gay is going to have that in it. So, here is your notification that this book involves a lot of graphic discussion of sexual violence against children, sometimes by other children. I don’t think that’s a reason not to read it, or that that’s some kind of literary sin. It’s just the author describing his own experiences. But I do wish there had been some indication. He makes a choice which I don’t understand to write this from the perspective of his child and then teenage and young adult self. I am used to memoirs involving a perspective that is an adult, now, looking back, and using that backwards looking knowledge and understanding to frame the anecdotes. One of the results of his choice to not do that is that it can read at times as just... a series of events that happened. Sadly, I want more from memoir than that. The other thing is that it makes for occasionally uncomfortable reading when you’re getting just his child-perspective on, for example, the sexual abuse he was suffering. So. I found his story interesting, heartbreaking, harrowing, sometimes funny, but I am finding a certain similarity amongst stories about growing up poor with an alcoholic parent and a marginalized identity. And I think part of it is that that is just the same no matter where you are, and that there’s nothing special, or to be learned, no unique insight, that this gives you, it really just is what it is. And I think I want something more from them than that, for my own personal reasons, and keep getting disappointed that it’s just always what I grew up with in a different flavor. But that’s more on me than on the book. The author seems like a wonderful man, and I’m glad I read the book even though I didn’t vibe with his narration choice.

The Unravelling, Karen Lord: Very fun fantasy whodunit with an intricate and dreamlike supernatural set-up based heavily in Senegalese folklore. The very end was a little neat for my liking, but the writing was great. I enjoyed the way the Undying were both personalities and also manifestations of certain traits or qualities, that was executed very well. I also enjoyed the metaphysical aspects of the worldbuilding, and how big a part of the narrative that was, to the point where the human characters often got lost in the natural domain of the supernatural ones, and I the reader also felt a little deliberately lost. Recommend for a quick enjoyable fantasy book, looks like the author has a few other books too that also look very good.

The Shadow System: Mass Incarceration and the American Family, Sylvia A. Harvey: I think I don’t like books about social issues written by journalists, rather than social scientists. Something about the journalism background tends, in my experience, to lead to sentimentalizing and simplifying, and an over-reliance on anecdote or over focus on a handful of examples. The author says she wants to write about the toll long-term prison sentences take on families, and wanted to focus on people that generally aren’t seen as sympathetic and worthy of release, specifically murderers. However, she shies away from the actual crimes, and then spends a lot of time mitigating what the 3 subjects (yes, only 3) did. She focuses heavily on what life is like for these men in prison, and how hard it is being away from family, which is not the same thing as looking at how mass incarceration effects families with a member in prison. I wish there had been more data and more data analysis. I wish she hadn’t relied on a heartstrings approach with 2 men serving sentences for murder and one woman with a drug charge. The problem with this approach is that if your readers don’t find the people sympathetic, they don’t buy your argument. She also valorizes the traditional family in a way that I think is uncomfortable and ultimately harmful to her argument, because it all falls apart if these guys actually... aren’t great fathers. She seemed embarrassed by, or at any rate hid, the fact that either all or 3 of one subject’s 4 children wound up doing time in jail or prison also, when to me, it seems like this is a point against the current system. If having a parent in prison long term increases the likelihood of the children doing time, regardless of the parent’s personality, that’s huge! But it felt like she thought that was a point against the subjects somehow and would make them less sympathetic. I also wish she hadn’t just profiled subjects in southern states, because that makes it look like a south problem, not an everywhere problem, that’s she’d included a family with an LGBTQ member, and that she had done more research into the particular issue of drug addiction in rural Appalachia. A for effort but C for execution.

The Red Threads of Fortune, The Descent of Monsters, The Ascent to Godhood, Neon Yang: God Forbid Women Do Anything.

[pynkhues]

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/dec/13/the-25-best-australian-books-of-2024-helen-garner-tim-winton-nam-le-christmas-gift-guide

That's quite a good selection, actually. Highly, highy recommend Melanie Cheng's The Burrow and Robbie Arnott's Dusk (more than that, I'd say read his older novel, The Ran Heron because I love it). Siang Liu's book is good too - I think he's one of our funniest literary authors actually, and a really nice guy. I haven't read Cher Tan's essay collection yet, but I've read a lot of her essays, and I think they're great, so I'm keen to check it out!

I haven't read Helen Garner's The Season, but I adore her writing - would recommend Monkey Grip and This House of Grief first and foremost, but her diaries are great too - so she's worth checking out as well.

[teejeepclothes]

Kansas Sports Teams Bobby Witt Jr. And Patrick Mahomes 2024 Signatures Shirt

Kansas Sports Teams Bobby Witt Jr. And Patrick Mahomes 2024 Signatures Shirt

Robbie Ftorek replaced Jacques Lemaire as Head Coach & was very successful during the regular season, but after repeated early exits from the Playoffs Devils GM Lou Lamoriello fired Ftorek on March 23, 2000 with the Devils in 1st place in their division & only a few weeks remaining during the Kansas Sports Teams Bobby Witt Jr. And Patrick Mahomes 2024 Signatures Shirt . Assistant Coach Larry Robinson was promoted to Head Coach & was nearly eliminated by the Philadelphia Flyers in the 1st round of the Playoffs. After the embarrassing road loss, the quiet & usually reserved Robinson went into the visitors locker room & screamed at the team for wasting an opportunity. This team was special, the 1999–00 Devils boasted a “Triple Threat” of (1) the “A-Line” composed of Patrik Elias, Jason Arnott, & Petr Sykora who were by far the best top line in the NHL in terms of offensive production & their defensive ability to shut down the opponent’s top lines. (2) The best top defensive pairing in the NHL in Scott Stevens & Scott Neidermeyer. (3) The best goaltender in the NHL – Martin Brodeur. Legend has it that Coach Larry trashed the Philadelphia locker room & even kicked a garbage can. This will be forever known as “Larry’s Tirade” that enspired the Devils to win the next 3 games & defeat the Flyers in 7 games to move onto the next round.

[teejeep-shirt]

Animal Lovers For Trump 2024 Cat And Dog Debate Shirt

Animal Lovers For Trump 2024 Cat And Dog Debate Shirt

Robbie Ftorek replaced Jacques Lemaire as Head Coach & was very successful during the regular season, but after repeated early exits from the Playoffs Devils GM Lou Lamoriello fired Ftorek on March 23, 2000 with the Devils in 1st place in their division & only a few weeks remaining during the Animal Lovers For Trump 2024 Cat And Dog Debate Shirt . Assistant Coach Larry Robinson was promoted to Head Coach & was nearly eliminated by the Philadelphia Flyers in the 1st round of the Playoffs. After the embarrassing road loss, the quiet & usually reserved Robinson went into the visitors locker room & screamed at the team for wasting an opportunity. This team was special, the 1999–00 Devils boasted a “Triple Threat” of (1) the “A-Line” composed of Patrik Elias, Jason Arnott, & Petr Sykora who were by far the best top line in the NHL in terms of offensive production & their defensive ability to shut down the opponent’s top lines. (2) The best top defensive pairing in the NHL in Scott Stevens & Scott Neidermeyer. (3) The best goaltender in the NHL – Martin Brodeur. Legend has it that Coach Larry trashed the Philadelphia locker room & even kicked a garbage can. This will be forever known as “Larry’s Tirade” that enspired the Devils to win the next 3 games & defeat the Flyers in 7 games to move onto the next round.