Tag Archives: books

Last Thursday Book Group – Salvation Creek

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salvation creekTitle – Salvation Creek

Author – Susan Duncan

Book Summary

Susan Duncan’s bestselling memoir about starting again and risking everything to find the only thing you need.

At 44 Susan Duncan appeared to have it all. Editor of two of Australia’s top selling women’s magazines, a happy marriage, a jetsetting lifestyle covering stories from New York to Greenland, rubbing shoulders with Hollywood royalty, the world was her oyster. But when her beloved husband and brother die within three days of each other, her glittering life shatters. Continue reading →

1st Wednesday Book Group – Caleb’s Crossing

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Calebs crossingTitle – Caleb’s Crossing

Author –  Geraldine Brooks

Book Summary

Once again, Geraldine Brooks takes a remarkable shard of history and brings it to vivid life. In 1665, a young man from Martha’s Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College.

Upon this slender factual scaffold, Brooks has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure. The narrator of Caleb’s Crossing is Bethia Mayfield, growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans. Restless and curious, she yearns after an education that is closed to her by her sex. As often as she can, she slips away to explore the island’s glistening beaches and observe its native Wampanoag inhabitants. Continue reading →

Read Watch Play September 2013 – History Reads

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Historyread

 History Reads movies non fictionHistory Reads FictionJoin the discussion this month about #historyread.  We will be focusing on all things historical in this discussion (and it will be great to see what ideas people sneak in).

 

 

 

 

 

 Do you like you #historyread to be real?  Do you like the stories around your #historyread or is it the people who make your #historyread come to life?

Is it local stories in your community, or even in your family, which make up your favourite #historyread?  Or do you like reading about other places and other times?

Does military history excite you?  Or is is social history with the stories of communities, and people living normal lives which are still exotic by being different to your life.  Is it recent history, or history from other places and other cultures?  Is it Indigenous history?

What is your favourite #historyread?  Does history have to be true, or do you enjoy imagined histories as well? Continue reading →

2nd Tuesday Evening Book Group

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At their August meeting the 2nd Tuesday Evening Group discussed Kate Grenville’s

The Secret River

secret river 

 

 

 

 

Summary

After a childhood of poverty and petty crime in the slums of London, William Thornhill is sentenced in 1806 to be transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. With his wife Sal and children in tow, he arrives in a harsh land that feels at first like a death sentence. Continue reading →

Apollo’s Outcasts – Book Review

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 outcasts

Title – Apollo’s Outcasts

Author – Allen Steele

Fiction – Young Adult (and Adult)

 

 

I’ve been a fan of Allen Steele’s writing for many years now, as I really enjoy his mix of real science and real characters. He writes near-future science fiction about things like building the first moonbase, manned Mars exploration and so on. Instead of the high-tech utopias that some series have, his books have everyday people doing everyday jobs

– except those jobs are a few years in the future, and in space.

The book tells the story of sixteen-year-old Jamey Barlowe’s fight for survival and freedom together with his friends, against a corrupt and authoritarian government. It has politics, intrigue, action and a touch of romance, all together in a can’t-put-down read. Highly recommended for young adults Continue reading →