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Australia-themed historical fiction?
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English Passengers, which is partially set in Tasmania, is fantastic and one of the plot threads is about Tasmanian Aborigines. One of my all time favorite books.I also thought The True History of the Kelly Gang was pretty good, but not many of my GR pals agree.
I'm not positive, but isn't Mutant Message Down Under about Aborigines? And there is a book about walkabouts in the store that I think might be relevant too (Karen, it's that print on demand one in the Graham Greene or John Grisham bay).
I second True History of the Kelly Gang, a great story about Australian legend, Ned Kelly. Also, I really enjoyed The Thorn Birds, which follows a few generations of the Cleary family from the early 1900s. Rabbit-Proof Fence: The True Story of One of the Greatest Escapes of All Time is about three Indigenous Australian girls who escape from a Native Settlement mission and walk half a continent back to their families. I am currently involved in an Aussie reading challenge so I have a few more books on my to read list that might fit, as well. One that looks really good to me is The Secret River. Another is Oscar and Lucinda, although it may be a bit of a love story.
I liked this one about the European colonizing of Australia - Morgan's Run - although there isn't anything about aborigines in there, but it is written very much in the style of a Michener book. Another book, That Deadman Dance, is historical fiction with a much heavier aborigine component.For something totally different, I've also heard good things about the memoir style of Bill Bryson - starting with In a Sunburned Country, and I also stumbled on this one: Cold Beer and Crocodiles: A Bicycle Journey into Australia, which looks interesting.
I also found this website, of an Australian bookseller, and they have pages dedicated to Australian fiction (and all types of Australian subjects, actually), where you might find some other suggestions. The fiction page is here: http://www.bookworm.com.au/Books/Aust...
Happy reading!
isn't one of the parts of cloud atlas about aborigines? I might be wrong it might be a different island.
Oscar and LucindaAll day Saturday
June in Her Spring
significant parts of The Twyborn Affair
all are excellent.
and of course, there is the timeless Picnic at Hanging Rock. to me at least, this is an example of the perfect novel. a highly subjective opinion, obviously.
i am going to use my handy book:Bloomsbury Good Reading Guide to World Fiction just to show off a resource that might be fun for you people.it suggests
A Fringe of Leaves
a ship travelling to england in the 1840s is wrecked off the coast of queensland and two survivors are taken to live with a tribe of aboriginal people.
The Playmaker
it is 1789 and the inmates of australia's first-ever penal colony stage a play in celebration of the king's birthday. based on a true incident.
Cloudstreet
follow the fortunes of two very different families as their lives are pitched together in western australia, in the period between the second world war and the mid-1960s
A Town Called Alice
a woman survives her time as a japanese prisoner of war and looks to make good with her inherited fortune. she goes into the outback in search of a soldier punished for helping her during the war.
Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living: A Novel
an award-winning novel, set in the 1930's, that follows a seamstress touring the country teaching better farming methods. she finally settles down in an inhospitable region to put her own methods to the test.
Gould's Book of Fish
an imaginative and audacious novel about a convict in a tasmanian penal colony in the nineteenth century who is ordered to keep a journal and paint pictures of the local fish for scientific study.
Remembering Babylon: A Novel
in the 1840's in northern australia, a white english boy is washed ashore after being thrown overboard by the ship's crew and is taken in by aborigines. sixteen years later, with memories of his original life and language fading, he emerges from the bush with the desire to rediscover his past. he is found by newly arrived white settlers in an unnamed outpost in queensland and is taken in by a scottish family.
This was sorta autobiographical story about growing up a girl in the 1800s in Australia and choosing between living free or living conflict (well, decision) free: My Brilliant Career. I also liked the film starring Judy Davis.
I'm Australian! Why didn't I see this thread earlier?! :O Here's a couple I remember form school...Capricornia
1930s aboriginal community
Picnic at Hanging Rock
More of a thriller, it's set in the 1900s at a boarding school where a girl went missing
The Tree of Man
1900s Australian farmland
Louis Nowra did a few plays set in pre-war II Australia as well, including
The Golden Age. :)
black cat press put this new one out, it's edgy, and GOOD, The World Beneaththis one's about indigenous in Queensland, Carpentaria: A Novel
this one has interaction of penal official with indigenous in 1788, it is fantastic read, The Lieutenant
this one too, but about John Franklin and Tasmania, and great read, Wanting
this one about surfers is super, Breath
and Kocan is more literary and edgy, Treatment & The Cure
but i must say, everyone's suggestions are great and you could read for years on this one simple
topic
oh plus and this mystery series is all about indigenous, as the cop is one her ownself, and pretty good too, Gunshot Road
i forgot this "mystery" which defies that genre, a really good book about discrimination and south coast, won an award in '05 and reissued by FSG in '07, The Broken Shore: A Novel
i just loved that book, about young dudes in a nowhere's town who meet an "old" surfer and start to surf themselves, but it's much more than that, and tim winton, though a very quirky, ratchety style, is a great writer. imho.
Of the historical fiction front I liked Wanting and kinda liked Cloudstreet, but I want to warn people off A Fringe of Leaves. Carpentaria was amazing, though pretty long and I can't remember if it is really hist fic. Another good one is Eucalyptus. That one is fun. Couldn't you do For the Term of His Natural Life?
Although it's 40 years since I read it and it's a bit close to your impending reconnaissance mission, can I second "For the Term of His Natural Life".Also, "The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney" by Henry Handel Richardson (actually probably Australia's greatest female novelist):
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23...
Mon's recommendations are top notch.
I might start an Aussie shelf on My Books.
I could call it "Oy Oy Oy".
Hey! I'll contest to <3 hearting <3 Remembering Babylon: by David Malouf. It was a seriously good book - I really enjoyed the language, and the 'concepts of language' that the book explored. Yup, super-good. Highly recommended.
And I shouldn't forget to mention the 2 Aussie books we've published: Letty Fox: Her Luck by Christina Stead (nothing about Australia in the book though) and Riders in the Chariot by Patrick White.
New York Review Books wrote: "And I shouldn't forget to mention the Aussie books we've published...and Riders in the Chariot by Patrick White."You warned us off another Patrick White. Did you have a chance to look at this one? I tried A Fringe of Leaves several times in the past and then just gave up on him...perhaps another is more accessible?
Trish wrote: "New York Review Books wrote: "And I shouldn't forget to mention the Aussie books we've published...and Riders in the Chariot by Patrick White."You warned us off another Patrick Wh..."
Trish, yes I did not like A Fringe of Leaves either, and haven't read any of his other books. I know Voss is his most celebrated book, and I trust our editors who picked Riders in the Chariot and David Malouf, who wrote the intro, but know, I haven't read it yet. I will say that my roommate is loving Letty Fox: Her Luck, though the content has nothing to do with Australia, it's all about New York, like The People with the Dogs, which I read a couple months ago and is excellent.
Okay, I'm a go on Letty Fox. That looks piquant, to say the least. Have to look at
...Dogs
. I like dogs:)
i just read some great reviews of this new histor/fiction by Australian writer, but setting spans globe from Vanuatu to chicagoBright and Distant Shores: A Novel
during end of 19th cent.
this is new zealand but sounds really good. i have read author's nonfiction and she's a good writerAbigail
For anyone interested in Patrick White's novels and where to start, Fred Schepisi has made a film of "The Eye of the Storm", which will be released on 15 September.It stars Charlotte Rampling, Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis:
http://www.abc.net.au/arts/stories/s3...
This novel was expressly mentioned as the basis of Patrick White's Nobel Prize.
Ian wrote: "For anyone interested in Patrick White's novels and where to start, Fred Schepisi has made a film of "The Eye of the Storm", which will be released on 15 September.It stars Charlotte Rampling, Geo..."
Great clip--thanks for that!
i'm a little late... but if you got around to reading and enjoyed Kate Grenville's The Secret River which has been mentioned a few times here (and which I would highly recommend for this particular theme...I have never forgotten a lot of the imagery in this book) then there is also a sequel which has just been released: Sarah Thornhill A gruelling and gut wrenching and amazing and rewarding story I would second on this list is For the Term of His Natural Life by Marcus Clarke - about transportation and the experience of convicts.
Thomas Keneally (author of Schindler's List) and a great Australian writer also wrote The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith which seems to really answer your query.
Lastly, you may wish to add Richard Flanagan to you TBR list for this topic (Perhaps Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish )
That's all :)
Brian take a wander through my shelves;http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/...
and
http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/...
I've got a few books by Clinton Walker on my to read list but haven't come across Buried Country yet so don't know how Walker writes. That said, looked it up and it lists the more well known acceptable names and I think maybe the CD that comes with would be interesting.Hard to tell without reading it but I notice it doesn't mention any Aboriginal rock musicians ie. Wendy Saddington etc who cut their milk teeth on country/blues. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. The book ends in the 90's so would be interesting to see a followup by anyone as there is a wealth of new Aboriginal music since then.
I loved The White Earth. It's a gothic/epic type story of a parcel of land in Queensland and the people who claim ownership of it.
thank you! i just wanted to have the information easily accessible on this thread so i can refer to it when i am deep in paper-writing.
Just picked this one up supposed to be excellent; This Whispering in Our Hearts by Henry Reynolds http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38...Blew me away; Benang: From the Heart by
Scott, Kim (though still working on the review it stirred up a lot of issues in me) http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17... - Scott is an Aboriginal writer from Western Australia - Benang won Miles Franklin Literary Award (2000).
Brian while this next book isn't solely about Aboriginies (they are mentioned in terms of the land etc) but you will find it fascinating The New Nature
by Tim Low http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63... (lots of Australian animal life)
V, I went on a fishing trip with Tim Low once in the mid-80's, before he had written his book on wild food plants.We would be walking along the beach with sand dunes to the side of us and suddenly he would run up onto the dune and pull a plant out of the sand that you could eat and was also a great source of water.
We wouldn't even have noticed the plant or thought that it would be edible.
Given my luck with the fish that trip, it was good to have another source of nutrition.
Quite a few years ago I read a series of five books by Aaron Fletcher called The Outback Sagas. Reminded me of Colleen McCullogh's The Thorn Birds in so far as it involves members of the same family over two to three generations. The family in the Outback sagas are sheep ranchers in the outback (kinda obvious, I know). I remember being enthralled with this series and have since been disappointed because there were no more books in the series.
Ian wrote: "V, I went on a fishing trip with Tim Low once in the mid-80's, before he had written his book on wild food plants.We would be walking along the beach with sand dunes to the side of us and suddenl..."
I've read that one too. Pretty good to have that knowledge..I know how to find witjuti grubs (witchetty) but can't handle eating them. They are slightly ok cooked with pine nuts (if there is nothing else!) I have to say everyone should read The New Nature by Tim Low really puts a new slant on conservation.
i too read a couple from this thread, and both were very good and good recommnetationsfrom nyrb: "eucalyptus"
and picnic at hanging rock which was a good book but too new agey for me :(
but now i just found another via velvetink BENANG!! gonna read it soon
i'm very curious about what was new agey about Picnic at Hanging Rock! it has some pretty language, sure, but i think its sentiments are pretty cold-blooded and its narrative rather fatalistic.
well, what i meant was that the author (not in the text) claimed that she was enlightened by the natives and got inside info blah blah but really she just made all that up. lots of new agers like to appropriate native cultures for some reason, so i didn't make myself very clear there before. :|
ah, perhaps you mean Through Darkest Pondelayo, her "satire of English tourists abroad" (at least according to wikipedia). i have paper copies - literally copied from the library from back when i was in college - of that one and her autobiographical bits Facts Hard & Soft and Time Without Clocks. but it's been so long that i have completely forgotten all about those three and what they contained. but Picnic has stayed with me, i've re-read it a few times. i think it is sublime. one of my favorite novels!
readers advisory for all
Books mentioned in this topic
A Lesson In Loving (other topics)Mutant Message Down Under (other topics)
The Secret River (other topics)
Rabbit-Proof Fence: The True Story of One of the Greatest Escapes of All Time (other topics)
The Thorn Birds (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
David Malouf (other topics)Patrick White (other topics)
Christina Stead (other topics)
Richard Flanagan (other topics)
A Lesson in Loving