You'll love this one...!! A book club & more discussion

Looks like we will have a choice of two books in August.

This thread is for you to nominate your Australian books. That is a book either written by an Australian author or set in Australia.

If you lead last month then it is up to you whether or not you choose to nominate this month.

Please can you give me all of the following:

The title, the author

Brief description of the book

**If you nominate a book I assume that you are willing to lead the discussion. It's not hard to do I promise!**

IF YOU DON'T GIVE ME A DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK I WON'T ACCEPT YOUR NOMINATION

One nomination per person please. Thank you!

You have 2 days to nominate!

...I'd like to nominate...

* Aboriginal Stories of Australia by A.W. Reed
* "An enthralling collection of traditional tales that date back to the beginning of time. Learn how Yhi the sun goddess introduced life to the world, why the emu cannot fly and how the kangaroo got its tail. Packed with myths and legends about creation, these stories retell how people and animals were made". (...Product description from Amazon).

Thanks

Ally

I'm going to nominate (as it's been sat on my bookshelf for aaaaaaaages!)

True History of the Kelly Gang A Novel, by Peter Carey

In True History of the Kelly Gang Peter Carey returns to the harsh, brutal world of Australian history, so brilliantly evoked in earlier novels such as Illywhacker and Oscar and Lucinda. Set in the desolate settler communities north of Melbourne in the late 19th century, the novel is told in the form of a journal, written by the famous outlaw and "bushranger" Ned Kelly, to a daughter he will never see. As Kelly explains, "I lost my own father at 12 yr. of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silences my dear daughter you are presently too young to understand a word I write but this history is for you and will contain no single lies may I burn in hell if I speak false".
The salty, colloquial, unpunctuated style of Kelly's journal is reproduced with great skill, as Carey recounts the outlaw's early life with a cross-dressing, Irish immigrant sheep worker, and a beautiful but headstrong mother, always on the wrong side of the law. Inadvertently causing the arrest and death of his father, Ned realises that "there were a drought and nothing flourishing there but misery I were the oldest son I thought it time to earn my place", a decision that ultimately leads him into conflict with the law, and to form the notorious Kelly Gang - from Amazon

Having just finished what is supposed to be a great classic of Australian literature (A Fortunate Life) and not been very impressed, I'll be interested to see what's nominated in this category!

But I do have plenty of Australian colleagues if we get stuck on any weird terminology or whatever.

Since Peter Carey is already nominated I will opt for my other fave Aussi writer: Cloudstreet A Novel by Tim Winton (because I am selfish and I haven't read this one yet).

I've just remembered one of my favourite authors Matthew Reillyis Australian so I'll suggest one of his. I'll go for Temple

"Deep in the jungles of Peru the contest of the century is underway. It's a race to locate a legendary Incan idol - one carved out of a strange kind of stone. But a stone which in the present century could be used for a terrifying new purpose. Now rival groups are assembling their teams to hunt the idol down, at any cost. The only clue to the idol's final resting place is to be found in a 400-year-old manuscript. Which introduces Professor William Race, a mild-mannered but brilliant young linguist who is unwillingly recruited to interpret the document that could lead to the idol itself. So begins the mission that will lead Race and his companions to a mysterious temple hidden in the foothills of the Andes. There they find a carefully contrived sanctuary seething with menace and unexpected dangers. But it is not until the silence of the temple is breached that Race and his team discover they have broken a golden rule ...Some doors are meant to remain unopened." amazon description.

It is a fast paced adventure story, a bit far fetched but good fun

Jenny. I erad the True History of the Kelly Gang a few months back. I enjoyed it quite a bit but it took a few dozen pages to get used to the narrator's word flow.