The Miles franklin Literary Award Longlist has been announced. The longlisted authors are:

• Peter Carey: The Long Way Home (Penguin Random House)
• Felicity Castagna: No More Boats (Giramondo Publishing)
• Michelle de Kretser: The Life to Come (Allen & Unwin)
• Lia Hills: The Crying Place (Allen & Unwin)
• Eva Hornung: The Last Garden (Text Publishing)
• Wayne Macauley: Some Tests (Text Publishing)
• Catherine McKinnon: Storyland (HarperCollins Publishers)
• Gerald Murnane: Border Districts (Giramondo Publishing)
• Jane Rawson: From the Wreck (Transit Lounge)
• Michael Sala: The Restorer (Text Publishing)
• Kim Scott: Taboo (Picador Australia)

For more on the longlist go to: https://www.perpetual.com.au/insights/three-past-winners-make-miles-franklin-literary-award-longlist

And here is an ABC news item: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-23/miles-franklin-award-longlist-2018/9788492

We will be talking about these books at Pageturners on Wednesday 8th August.

Upcoming discussions are:

13 June: Macbeth by Jo Nesbo

11 July: our classic read is Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

8 August: Miles Franklin Literary Award Longlist (Choose one to read and try to predict the winner)

12 September: Warlight by Michael Ondaatje

Winner of the Man Booker International Prize 2018 is Polish writer Olga Tokarzck for Flights translated by Jennifer Croft.

The Guardian reports Tokarczuk is a bestselling author in Poland, where she has won numerous awards and is a household name. In Flights, she meditates on travel and human anatomy, moving between stories including the Dutch anatomist who discovered the Achilles tendon when dissecting his own amputated leg, and the tale of Chopin’s heart as his sister transported it from Paris to Warsaw.

For more details go to: http://themanbookerprize.com/international

And read The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/22/olga-tokarczuk-flights-wins-man-booker-international-prize-polish

 

We had so much to talk about last night’s meeting with Tim Winton’s best selling book The Shepherd’s Hut. First we tried to describe the book using words such as compelling, evocative, character-centred, complex, thought-provoking, bittersweet, bleak, small-town, austere, stark, thoughtful, uncomfortable and powerful. Then we spoke about the characters – the teenage boy Jaxie Clackton, the priest Fintan McGillis, Shirley (mother), Captain (father) and Lee.

We also talked about the religious connotations, Jaxie’s point of view and small town behaviour. There was also discussion about the meaning of the title and it’s significance to the book. We also discussed the reasons why the priest was banished to the bush and how Tim Winton left it up to the reader to decide if the ending was hopeful or doomed.

Pageturners rated the book mostly 4 out of 5 stars with a 2 and a 3 in the mix. The reasons for the dislikes included the violence and the language which some found disturbing.

For more about the author listen to the Better Reading Tim Winton interview podcast and/or the ABC Radio interview with Tim Winton and Richard Glover.

**The next book for discussion is Macbeth by Jo Nesbo – part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series where writers are asked to reimagine a Shakespeare tale – on Wednesday 13 June at Orange City Library at 5.30pm.

We are meeting on Wednesday 9th May at 5.30pm at Orange City Library to discuss Tim Winton’s latest book The Shepherd’s Hut. Don’t forget to RSVP via eventbrite or call the Library on 6393 8132.

A rifle-shot of a novel – crisp, fast, shocking – The Shepherd’s Hut is an urgent masterpiece about solitude, unlikely friendship, and the raw business of survival.

Jaxie dreads going home. His mum’s dead. The old man bashes him without mercy, and he wishes he was an orphan. But no one’s ever told Jaxie Clackton to be careful what he wishes for. In one terrible moment his life is stripped to little more than what he can carry and how he can keep himself alive. There’s just one person left in the world who understands him and what he still dares to hope for. But to reach her he’ll have to cross the vast saltlands on a trek that only a dreamer or a fugitive would attempt. The Shepherd’s Hut is a searing look at what it takes to keep love and hope alive in a parched and brutal world.

Australian Book Review:

 https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=4643:brenda-niall-reviews-the-shepherd-s-hut-by-tim-winton&Itemid=416

See you there!

2018 Australian Book Industry Award winners:

Gold ABIA for Book of the Year: Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow, Jessica Townsend

Biography Book of the Year: Working Class Man, Jimmy Barnes

General Fiction Book of the Year: The Secrets She Keeps, Michael Robotham

Author Emily O’Grady has won the 2018 Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award with her novel The Yellow House.

The Yellow House is a powerful novel about loyalty and betrayal; about the legacies of violence and the possibilities of redemption.

Emily introduced her book, and its themes:

“The main character of my novel The Yellow House is a ten year old girl called Cub. She is thrown into a series of impossibly difficult experiences, and forced to contend with a level of horror beyond most people’s level of understanding. This book is set in semi-rural Queensland, a beautiful but often quite oppressive part of the world. It’s a story about people who live on the outskirts, geographically and also socially. Characters whose stories are rarely considered, and who are grappling with the aftermath of incomprehensible violence, characters who are rarely empathised with.”

Read more about the award on the Allen and Unwin website: https://www.allenandunwin.com/

 

 

Here is the Top 10 Fiction Bestseller List for the end of March from Better Reading and look who is at the top. The Shepherd’s Hut by Tim Winton is our book to discuss on Wednesday 9th May at Orange City Library at 5.30pm.

1. The Shepherd’s Hut by Tim Winton (Penguin)
2. Accidental Heroes by Danielle Steel (Macmillan)
3. The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart by Holly Ringland (HarperCollins)
4. The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn (HarperCollins)
5. The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris (Echo Publishing)
6. I’ve Got My Eyes on You by Mary Higgins Clark (Simon & Schuster)
7. Still Me by Jojo Moyes (Michael Joseph)
8. Macbeth by Jo Nesbo (Hogarth)
9. The Rising Sea by Clive Cussler & Graham Brown (Michael Joseph)
10. Captive by Tony Park (MacMillan)

© Nielsen BookScan 2018 Week Ending 24/3/18

You can also check out the weekly top 10 bestselling non-fiction list and the top 10 bestselling children’s books list on Better Reading.

The Man Booker International Prize reveals the shortlist of six books in contention for the 2018 prize, which celebrates the finest works of translated fiction from around the world. The £50,000 prize for the winning book will be divided equally between its author and translator.

The 2018 shortlist is as follows:

Author (country/territory), Translator, Title (imprint)

•    Virginie Despentes (France), Frank Wynne, Vernon Subutex 1 (MacLehose Press)

•    Han Kang (South Korea), Deborah Smith, The White Book (Portobello Books)

•    László Krasznahorkai (Hungary), John Batki, Ottilie Mulzet & George Szirtes, The World Goes On (Tuskar Rock Press)

•    Antonio Muñoz Molina (Spain), Camilo A. Ramirez, Like a Fading Shadow (Tuskar Rock Press)

•    Ahmed Saadawi (Iraq), Jonathan Wright, Frankenstein in Baghdad (Oneworld)

•    Olga Tokarczuk (Poland), Jennifer Croft, Flights (Fitzcarraldo Editions)

The list includes Han Kang and Deborah Smith, who won the prize in 2016 for The Vegetarian, and László Krasznahorkai, who won the prize in its former iteration in 2015, when it was awarded for an achievement in fiction evident in a body of work. The list spans four European languages: French, Spanish, Hungarian, Polish; one from South Korea, and one from Iraq, in Arabic.

The settings range from the rock music scene in Paris, to the streets of Baghdad where a monster roams wild, to James Earl Ray’s short stay in Lisbon fleeing law enforcement; two novels span the globe, one charting Chopin’s heart making a covert voyage from Paris to Warsaw, and one featuring men on the edge of despair in Kiev, Varanasi and Shanghai; with one novel being a meditation on the colour white and an investigation of mourning and rebirth.

The translators are all at the forefront of their craft, with John Batki, Ottilie Mulzet and George Szirtes a well-established team for Krasznahorkai and Deborah Smith translating every work by Han Kang. Frank Wynne comes through with his French translation, having also been longlisted for a translation from Spanish.

The winner of the 2018 prize will be announced on 22 May in the UK.

Winner of the Stella Prize is Alexis Wright for her book Tracker.

Of winning the 2018 Stella Prize, Alexis Wright says: “I am totally amazed and shocked, but I deeply acknowledge the great honour that has been bestowed by the Stella Prize on my book Tracker.

“I want to express my gratitude to my friend Tracker Tilmouth, the great Eastern Arrernte man of Central Australia, and visionary leader in the Aboriginal world. I thought very deeply about how to develop this book about him by using our own storytelling principle of consensus, to give everyone the opportunity to tell their part in the story. I was not even sure if it would work as the manuscript of stories grew, but I pushed on for the six years it took to create Tracker.

“I worked on this book because I felt that Australia needed to hear what Tracker had to say. It is important. It involves the future of Aboriginal people and our culture.

“All Australian writers and their readers should be grateful that the Stella Prize has created enormous opportunities for women writers. I thank the judges for ensuring that Tracker’s story will be heard and appreciated by many more people.”

Read more about the Stella Prize and the winning book on their website.