Time's Long Ruin ~ Stephen Orr

I read this book as a selection from the ‘National Year of Reading’ list – maybe you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but I did, the cover picture is super cute.

In any case, I did not regret my choice: this was the South Australian entry, and it is a beauty. Told in retrospect by the main character Henry Page, still living in his childhood home, (where the floorboards ‘creak in exactly the same spot every time I go to make a cup of tea or take a pee’) it is the story of an outer-suburban community in the 1950’s, tragically to be torn apart by the disappearance of the three Riley children who were Henry’s best friends ‘…my only friends, really’.

It is in fact the story of the real-life Beaumont children who disappeared from Glenelg Beach in the 1960’s, a horrible mystery which remains unsolved; the drawn-out agony of that story, along with the kidnap and murder of 9-year-old Graeme Thorn after his parents won the lottery, are two traumatic events that are burned into my childhood memories.

Stephen Orr writes with deceptive simplicity, but within the easy-read style he builds characters of real depth, imperfect but likable, recognisably Australian. I just wanted to keep turning pages to follow the lives of Henry with his socially-limiting club foot, his loving policeman father and bitter, cruel-tongued mother, and those of their quirky neighbours.

By the time of the children’s disappearance, I found myself totally involved in the life of the Croydon community. The children had been allowed to take the tram to the beach without adult supervision, not at all unusual in Australia’s relatively innocent, crime-free 1950’s and early ‘60’s.

The tension of the mother, her anger at their lateness dissolving into disbelief, fear and guilt, made my neck ache.

The fact that the real-life mystery has never been solved does not detract from the overall quality of the story; the use of a fictional environment adds human context to the bare bones of police and coroner’s reports of one of Australia’s saddest crime mysteries.

Helen

The Iliad ~ Homer, translated by George Chapman

I cannot describe the sense of achievement that I feel at having completed The Iliad today after several studious months.

The title The Iliad actually means ‘What Happened at Ilion’, Ilion being the capital of Troy.  The Greeks and the Trojans have been battling it out for the past ten years, and The Iliad is set in the final year.

 

 

There are plenty of boring references to who is fighting, who is killed and who they are the son of and various family histories, but the story itself is quite amazing.  I loved the references to the gods, and how they interfere. I enjoyed Nestor who is a legend in his own lunch box, and the overall tale of the doomed Achilles and how his pride results in the death of his friend Patroclus. 

I could not have read this and enjoyed it as much as I did if it hadn't been for the Shmoop Study Guide.  It takes you point by point, book by book (there are 24 books to The Iliad) so that you have a full understanding of the meaning being portrayed in the poem, but it does so in a light hearted manner which makes it a great fun read on it’s own.

I read the translation by George Chapman, and whilst it was hard going once I found the rhythm of the poem and got to know the characters and the gods I found it hugely enjoyable.

Next year I’m going to tackle The Odyssey.

Maxine

Steve Jobs Biography ~ Walter Isaacson

When Steve Jobs died earlier this year. I really felt the loss in terms of the amazing products he had been a part of producing at Apple. I was also aware of his time at Pixar which produced movies that I have enjoyed since my Dad took my brother and I to see Toy Story.

iPods, iPhones, iPads and iTunes have changed the way that we do many things. I am constantly thankful to the technology that makes it possible for me to photograph my children and email them to my Mum in Queensland 5 seconds later. I use FaceTime to share moments with family such as Taj’s first bath with his big brother or Jayden reading Green Eggs and Ham in bed.

I’m not saying that these products were Jobs’ innovations alone but he had a clarity of design, amazing marketing skills and an intuitive knowledge of a product that we can’t live without that last week we never knew we needed.

This book was a great insight into what made Jobs’ tick. It wasn’t particularly well written and was in need of some editing but the detailed look at the people in Jobs’ worlds at both Apple and Pixar was just so interesting.

Everyone new that Jobs’ and Wazniak started Apple in a garage in the Silicone Valley but there were so many incredible feats of ingenuity in their rise to the top that it takes your breath away.

I felt the author let a few things slide that would have been very interesting to know about. For example much of the book detailed Apple’s “end to end” concepts – producing the iPod, iTunes store to work together and the fact that most of his late products are “closed” you can’t even change a battery, and no other developers can change your hardware etc. considering how often this was mentioned I was looking forward to hearing Jobs’ opinion on “jailbreaking” and “firmware” where Hackers open the closed software making it possible to put illegally downloaded content onto an iPod or iPhone for free. It is also possible to costomise icons, and access content that iTunes does not allow. Based on Jobs’ desire to control every aspect of the customer experience and also based on Apple’s hacker heritage I thought this was a big topic to leave untouched.

The chapters centre around different themes, mostly chronologically. I think that the editing may have been missing is some cases where a point has been covered earlier and is then echoed later on in the book, perhaps some people like the reminder … To me it makes a book feel clunky.

The best part about this biography is that although much of it is based on interviews with Steve himself, the biographer doesn’t fail to show the flip side of an argument and the way that Steve has a terrible way with people. In fact his wife apparently asked Isaacson to ensure that Steve was shown as true to life as possible. He was not a very nice person by most accounts. Tyrannical and pigheaded. He was a vegan and had strong opinions on his Zen lifestyle. It is amazing to read about his reaction to his cancer diagnosis and his dogmatic desire to pretend it would go away.

If you own an Apple product then this book is well worth a read. It will give you a much better appreciation of the minimalist design and the teasoning behind them that you have taken for granted.

Tanya

Rebecca ~ Daphne Du Maurier

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again”

Well if she did I’m surprised it wasn’t a nightmare. Honestly, the unnamed Narrator who becomes the second Mrs de Winter didn’t have a very good run at Manderley did she?

I started listening to the audiobook of Rebecca with no preconceived ideas which is always lovely. I was expecting a Bronte-esque style of novel similar to Jane Eyre, although to be honest I’m not sure why I thought that much. Perhaps that was how Mum recommended it to me?

Our narrator, travels back in time and retells of her time at Manderley. How she met Mr de Winter abroad as a young woman and marries him, how she returns to Manderley as Mrs de Winter within a year of Rebecca’s death. It seems almost as though Rebecca is a main character though she is dead throughout the story. The second Mrs de Winter can feel that shadow over her shoulder. She is convinced that when her husband is looking at her, he is thinking about how much he misses the first Mrs de Winter, that the staff when attending her are wishing they were attending Rebecca. Mrs de Winter is a shy creature, socially awkward, young, and from a different class than is usually seen at Manderley. She tries to keep things run as they have always been run, she eats of a menu chosen by Rebecca, amongst furniture chosen by Rebecca, with a husband who had chosen Rebecca.

This, up until this point is pretty much the novel I was expecting to read. Enter Mrs Danvers. Mrs Danvers is the nastiest piece of work in any piece of literature I’ve read for quite some time… Keeping in mind I just finished reading DRACULA!

Honestly when she started talking to Mrs de Winter and explaining how devoted she had been to Rebecca and how Mrs de Winter will never live up to Rebecca in anyone’s mind, especially her husbands. I wanted to push Mrs Danvers out the window myself! What a horrid creature.

The main thing I love about this story is the way that Daphne du Maurier talks about things that may have been. For example one night when Mrs de Winter has been upset and is considering not attending her own ball, she looks ahead to what would be said about her. The way the guests would talk, how the staff would sit around drinking coffee and discuss why their mistress hadn’t come downstairs, what Mrs Danvers would think. This technique was brilliant. I think it showed a great awareness from Mrs de Winter, she was no fool and as she grew up, her thoughts more accurately depicted her social standing. Rebecca takes quite a lot of twists and turns and things are not as they seem in the beginning at all. Rebecca does in a sense return, to complicate the newlywed’s marriage, and there is an inquest to get through, and some detective work on the part of our main characters. I won’t go into detail because sometimes it’s quite nice to not know what to expect. Although after reading some reviews it seems like a lot of people are made to read this in school? I wasn’t, but I’m glad to have read it now.

I have since learned that there is a Hitchcock movie adaption so I will try to get my hands on that and see how it measures up. My Mum tells me that Mrs Danvers is miscast so if that is the case, it won’t stand up at all.

If you haven’t read Rebecca already, pop off to the local second hand bookshop and give it a go. Or even better, get a copy of the BBC audiobook. You won’t be disappointed.

Tanya

The Phantom of the Opera ~ Gaston Leroux

Gaston Leroux was well known for his detective novels, and The Phantom of the Opera is written in this vein.

In the prologue Leroux states that he, himself, had come across documents and had investigated the strange occurrences at the Opera, the disappearance of the soprano Christine Daae and Erik the troubled disfigured man who lived in the labyrinthine bowels of the Opera building.

Of course none of this was true, but the story has just about become legend due to the success of the Andrew Lloyd Webber Musical. 

Erik (the Phantom) is an evil soul, with a disfigured face, but he has the voice of an angel.  Calling himself ‘The Angel of Music’ he teaches Christine Daae how to improve her singing voice, and falls desperately in love with her.  Christine, however, has another suitor in the form of a Viscount, and Erik’s extreme jealousy leads to kidnapping and murder.

This is a very sad tale, for despite the terror he puts Christine through she still has a kind of respect and affection for him.

It is written very matter of factly as if these events did indeed really happen. The novel did not sell well on publication and was out of print for a while, but it is definitely worth reading if you enjoy the gothic horror genre.

Maxine

Pygmy ~ Chuck Palahniuk

Pygmy is a diminutive 13 year old terrorist from a country/state that is never named, but which is likened to Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and China.  This ‘country’ has arranged for several of its young ‘operatives’ to stay with host families in America as a kind of student program.  

The operative’s mission is code-named ‘Havoc’ (surprise surprise for a Chuck Palahniuk novel!!), and it is to take place at the National Science Fair where money tainted with a neurotoxin will be released and it is hoped that the money will be spread around until all the capitalists are killed.

 This story is told via Pygmy’s regular dispatches to his superiors, and is written in a drone-like pigeon English which at first is quite hard to read, but you do get into the rhythm of it.  As well as learning about Pygmy’s time in America you also find out about his formative years and his training leading up to the mission. Pygmy rarely mentions actual names, so his host family, the Cedars, become familiar to us as ‘Pig Dog Brother’, ‘Cat Sister’, ‘Cow Father’ and  ‘Chicken Mother’. Things look dire for America with such indoctrinated and well trained operatives, but things do go a little awry when Pygmy realises that deep down he does feel emotion and that strange feeling is actually fondness for his host ‘cat sister’.

Pygmy is a satire on Western, particularly American, consumerism and greed. It is certainly a very original novel, not just for the plotline but also in the way that it is written.  After reading the first chapter I debated whether to make my life a misery over the next few days or just forget it and move onto something else.  Luckily I decided to persevere and I read a very clever, shocking and funny novel.

I don’t recommend Palahniuk novels to people I know as he’s very confronting and not to everyone’s taste, a lot of readers I know would be offended by his work.  But, for the record, I thought this was a great novel though I think he has limited his readership because of the narrative voice.

Maxine

The Leftovers ~ Tom Perrotta

Tom Perrotta delivers a troubling story about how ordinary people react to extraordinary and inexplicable events, the power of family to hurt and to heal, and the ease with which faith can slide into fanaticism.

The Garvey family — Kevin, Laurie and their two children, Tom and Jill — are the Mapleton residents at the centre of Perrotta’s novel, which opens three years after a Rapture-like event has whisked millions of people off the face of the earth. Just how many millions Perrotta doesn’t specify, but the phones still work and Starbucks still dispenses coffee by the grande. Nor do all (or even most) of the missing qualify as Camping-style Christians; those raptured away include Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews and the odd    alcoholic.

The Sudden Departure, which occurred one October 14, is never made remotely real — we’re told that various children and spouses just abruptly vanished into thin air — and laborious and unconvincing analogies to 9/11 are repeatedly hurled at the reader. We’re told that “the economy had gone into a tailspin after October 14th, with the stock market plunging and consumer spending falling off a cliff” and that makeshift memorials and missing-persons notices sprang up everywhere”.

The rapture’s failure to conform to biblical prophecy has driven some people over the edge. The Rev. Matt Jamison becomes chief among the rapture deniers of the remaining Mapleton population: “He wept frequently and kept up a running monologue about . . . how unfair it was that he’d missed the cut.” The minister’s response to this unfairness is to insist this wasn’t the real rapture, and to prove it with a newsletter full of scurrilous tittle-tattle about the disappeared.

 

Other survivors go over the edge in different ways. The Barefoot People (young Tom Garvey eventually becomes one) believe the proper response to the mass disappearances is to party down pretty much 24/7. There’s a Healing Hug movement, led by a guru named Holy Wayne whom Perrotta memorably characterizes as “that age-old scoundrel, the Horny Man of God.” The Huggers are  waiting for one of Holy Wayne’s teenage “brides” to deliver the “miracle child” who will, presumably, usher in a new age of cosmic grooviness.

Far more sinister is a martyrdom-seeking cult called the Guilty Remnant. Members must take a vow of silence, wear white and brandish lighted cigarettes every time they appear in public. “We Smoke to Proclaim Our Faith,” goes their mantra. The main jobs of Guilty Remnant members are to “watch” non-members — that is, stalk them — and to garner new devotees and wait for the end of the world. Laurie Garvey drifts somewhat aimlessly into this cult and then becomes subsumed by it. As “The Leftovers” winds to its almost foregone conclusion, the dismayed reader learns that smoking is the least ominous    sacrament practiced by her new soul mates.

Yet the novel isn’t completely bleak. In fact, we come to care about the characters deeply. Perrotta cuts quickly and cinematically between these story lines, deftly building tension as he immerses us in the characters’ daily lives and the ways that people deal with what they can’t understand.

Di

The Lady of the Rivers ~ Philippa Gregory

Philippa Gregory has, once again, written a keeper. I have never read a book by this author that I haven't enjoyed, but this one has definitely risen to the top as my favorite. It is one of those books that a reader can get lost in: Jacquetta's life becomes a part of the reader's reality. It is such a joy to read a book that recognises the power women have always held, even when it wasn't widely acknowledged. And the love that existed between Jacquetta and Richard is inspiring and delightful.

 

I don't know what lapse in my education left me unaware of Jacquetta, Dowager Duchess of Bedford, Lady of the Rivers, descendant of Melusina the river goddess. Learning about the War of the Roses in school would have been much more interesting had there been a unit on her, for sure! (And yes she was a real person and the book is based on historical fact.)

 

In case you also missed out in history class, Jacquetta of Luxembourg was born in about 1415 and at the age of 17 was married to John of Lancaster, first Duke of Bedford. This alliance to the Lancasters would be one she honoured even in times of trial and disaster for the family. She became the second most powerful woman in England and ancestor to the present British monarchy. From all accounts she was a strong willed woman who followed her heart no matter the cost. She is said to have dabbled in witchcraft, just a bit - or maybe more, who knows for sure.

 What we do kow about her life sparks the imagination and Philippa Gregory used that spark to create a work of literary art.

This is the third book in the series:  The cousins War

Robyn S

The Help ~ Kathryn Stockett

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger.

Skeeter would normally find solace with her   beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

 

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

Robyn S

The Briny Café ~ Susan Duncan

Ettie Brookbank is the heart and soul of Cook's Basin, a sleepy offshore community comprising of a cluster of dazzling blue bays. But for all the idyllic surroundings, Ettie can't help wondering where her dreams have disappeared to. Until fate offers her a lifeline - in the shape of a lopsided little café on the water's edge. When Bertie, its cantankerous septuagenarian owner, offers her 'the Briny' for a knockdown price, it's an opportunity too good to miss. But it's a mammoth task - and she'll need a partner. Enter Kate Jackson, the enigmatic new resident of the haunted house on Oyster Bay.

Kate is also clearly at a crossroads - running from a life in the city that has left her lonely and lost. Could a ramshackle cafe and its endearingly eccentric customers deliver the new start both women so desperately crave?

Robyn S

collection of stories told to the author by Aboriginal stockmen and women who capture the life of the droving days when these people travelled huge distances on drives from North Queensland to Victoria and South Australia.

The collection has a foreword by the author, along with maps and several photographs.

The author's novel Unbranded was highly commended in the David Unaipon Award for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders

For more titles by UQP Black Australian Writers visit:

http://www.uqp.uq.edu.au/CategoryBookList.aspx/62/Black%20Australian%20Writing

Robyn S.

Blindness ~ Jose Saramago

I have been intending to write a review on this book for a few weeks now and I keep getting caught up in life and forgetting. Yesterday when I pulled up at the local supermarket I was transported back to Blindness. “The Doctor’s Wife”, the only sighted person in a sea of blind, hunting for food. It is for me the strongest visual from Blindness and such a sign of a great novel.

The first thing I love about Blindness is how much you care about the characters although you do not know a whole lot about them. They are not given names. “The Doctor” “The Girl with the Dark Glasses” etc, are only ever referred to as such.

Sitting at the traffic lights, a man is waiting for the lights to change. He looks up. He sees a bright white light and cries “I am blind”. He is “The First Blind Man” A passer-by on the street offers to take the man’s car and drive him home. He drops off “The First Blind Man” at his house to await the return of his wife. We stay with him, but later we find out the man who dropped him home stole his car… and soon after turned blind himself.

“The Wife of the First Blind Man” takes her husband to “The Doctor” he is perplexed and recommends more tests, before the night is out he has turned blind and so have the patients waiting in the waiting room along with “The First Blind Man”

This epidemic of white blindness spreads and the powers that be decide to put those who are blind along with anyone who has been in contact with them into a closed mental facility to be controlled by a branch of the army. They are separated into The Blind and The Contaminated.

I am fascinated by this post-apocalyptic style of novel. This situation of mass blindness asks a lot of humanity. When the food stops coming regularly and one ward of the facility decide to control the food in return for sex from the females of each ward, I am sickened but not surprised. This return to primal desires is brought up often in post-apocolytic novels. In King’s The Stand, a motorcycle gang block a road and capture those woman who try to cross. A blind man in The Day of the Triffids, captures a sighted woman and uses her as his sighted slave.

Would I, as a woman, be prepared to offer myself to these men in return for food for my husband? Would men who were not felons or mental patients in their normal life, turn into sexual devients because of the leadership of one inherently bad man? If I were blind, with no indication of sight returning would I even have the will to continue to live in conditions such as these? For some reason these questions fascinate me and Jose Saramago does not disappoint. The characters do not have huge amounts of back story, but you are with them every step of the way on their struggle.

Let it be noted that I read this as an audiobook – Wikipedia says “Like most works by Saramago, the novel contains many long, breathless sentences in which commas take the place of periods. The lack of quotation marks around dialogue means that the speakers’ identities (or the fact that dialogue is occurring) may not be immediately apparent to the reader.” The audiobook however was wonderfully narrated by Jonathan Davis and never felt like a translation. This book was originally publishes in Portuguese and there has also been a movie adaptation which, kids permitting, I will sit down and watch tonight and share my thoughts with you later.

If anyone is out there I’d really love some suggestions of similarly themed books to read. Earth Abides, The Stand, Day of the Triffids, The Road, Children of the Dust… I’d also love to know of any outstanding audiobooks. Jonathan Davis narrated The Earth Abides also and I thought that was fantastic. A good narrator really does make all the difference.

Tanya

Postscript: 

Well I did get to watch the movie adaption of Blindness. I watched it in 2 or 3 sittings which is the only way I ever get to watch movies and it wasn’t bad….

I am not usually a fan of Julianne Moore but she was good as the “Doctor’s wife”. As is usual with most movie adaptations there were important segments missed and it was definitely not as good as the book but considering that all but one of the cast have to play a blind person I think it was terrifically well acted and scripted.

Give it a go if you like the novel but don’t watch it instead of reading the novel!

Tanya

Ancestor - Scott Sigler

You might think I’m a Scott Sigler addict, having read two of his novels recently and now reading Ancestor in tandem with his latest novel Nocturnal (which I got inscribed by the author and I’m very proud of it!).

The Ancestor is a biological embryo,  implanted into cows, and grown to provide human ready organs for transplantation.  However, of course, things don't quite go to plan.  There is lots of blood and lots of violence, and if you love cows then don't read this novel!!

The writing isn’t first class, but it’s addictive and reflective of Sigler’s personality from what I can glean from the u-tube videos he’s posted. The characters are unbelievable but mostly fun, and there is plenty of real   biology and science to make the plot plausible.

However,  I felt quite confused at the beginning of this novel, not really knowing what was going on, and I found the swearing a bit overboard this time.  The last third of the novel did border on silly in my opinion, even though I had suspended my disbelief, I kept thinking back to the movie Starship Troopers and how much the Ancestors reminded me of the bugs even though they were based on cows!

Nice try but this one didn't really work for me.

Maxine

Great Expectation ~ Charles Dickens

I felt the need to do another Dickens, which is how it should be considering it is Dickens’ 200th Birthday. 

Great Expectations is more of a plot driven novel than some of his other work, and not as long as David Copperfield or Bleak House.

I did the audio book narrated by (Simon Vance) and although I enjoyed it very much I found that I kept drawing comparisons to David Copperfield and I found that I didn’t like Pip half as much as David.  Pip is a blacksmith’s boy who is told he is to come into 'Great Expectations'.  He immediately believes it to be from the dotty but wealthy Miss Haversham.

As soon as Pip receives his good news he basically doesn’t take a second glance back at his home, his village or his friends.  I didn't like that in his character at all, expecially when it meant forgetting the lovely Joe Gargery his brother-in-law and father figure.

When Pip finally receives the news of his benefactor, it comes as a bit of a shock, and worse still it looks like he’s not going to come into his money after all.  It is then he realises who his true friends are.

It’s a moral tale, and for a quick Dickens read it’s a good one.  But, for my money give me David Copperfield every time.

Maxine

And Then There Were None ~ Agatha Christie

The original title of this book, published in 1939, was ‘Ten Little Niggers’, later changed (surprisingly!) to ‘Ten Little Indians’ by its US publishers because of ‘the pejorative term’ – presumably the American Indians were less vocal about racism than the African Americans? The mind boggles. In any case, according to Wikipedia, it was republished under the current title in 2001.

The story revolves around a disparate group of people, gathered in an unfamiliar environment, who proceed to get murdered one by one: in this case, each has been lured to a remote island by written invitation promising them employment etc. Their hosts, wonderfully calling themselves Mr. And Mrs. U.N. Owen, are to be absent, and the guests are to be cared for by a resident housekeeper and butler.

Each member of the group, while respectable on the surface, has a skeleton in the closet and his/her own reasons for accepting the opportunity of a fresh start, particularly as the island, Soldier Island (originally Nigger Island, then Indian Island etc) has been in the news with juicy rumours of a celebrity owner.

Helen

For the Love of Julie ~ Ann Ming

Didn't I get a shock when I started to read. 

Ann Ming is an amazing mother and writer. I was drawn into this true story from the very start. I couldn't put it down (read it in 24 hours which is pretty big for me).  After the murder of her daughter she never gave up when the police of the time acted in completly incompetent manner and stuffed up any chance of convicition to the murder.  

It created several emotions anger, sadness, aggression and smiles as well. And I so wanted to write to Ann an let her know what a marvellous job she had done.

Robyn S

Listening to Country ~ Ros Mariarty

Ros Moriarty is a white woman married to an Aboriginal man who was from the stolen generation and became a politician and government employee.

Knowing much of this first nation story reading the facts from a family point of view confirms my own research.  Over the course of many visits to her husband's family, Ros was fascinated to discover that the older tribal women of his family had a deep sense of happiness and purpose that transcended the abject material poverty, illness, and increasing violence of their community—a happiness that she feels is related to an essential "warmth of heart" that these women say has gone missing in today's world. 

In May 2006, she had the chance to spend time in the Tanami Desert in north central Australia with 200 Aboriginal women, performing women's Law Ceremonies. Here is the story of that trip and her friendship with these women, as she tells their stories and passes on their wisdom and understanding. 

Offering a privileged window into the spiritual and emotional world of Aboriginal women, this book is a moving story of common human experience, the getting and passing on of wisdom, and the deep friendship and bonds between women. It carries a moving and profound sense of optimism in the fundamental humanity we all share.

Robyn S