Adelaide Festival hosts the annual Adelaide Writers’ Week at the beginning of March.  For one week, bibliophiles and lovers of the written word can gather to talk books, listen to a wide array of writers speak on panels scheduled throughout each day, and wander alongside tables in the Book Shop tent covered in works from up and coming, famous and highly esteemed, and every type of author in between.

For the past few years, I have been attempting to expand my bookshelf, going after authors from as many different countries as possible (especially after listening to this woman speak) as well as moving toward contemporary books.  Since I’ve recently moved to Australia, I told myself I was going to focus on Australian and Indigenous Australian literature (once I finished the #UnreadShelfProject2018).  Since Writers’ Week was last week, I could not resist grabbing as many books as my backpack and bank account would allow!

I am so so excited to start reading every single one of these books.  They appear to be any combination of rich, deep, raw, witty, enlightening, emphatic, unique and so forth, and I cannot wait to read and get back to you with my thoughts.  I truly hope that this list inspires you to pick up one of these books or at least something completely new and different from what you would normally read on a cozy Sunday morning whilst nestling up with a cup of coffee.

Please note that since I have not yet read any of these books, all of the descriptions are taken directly from the book covers and book jackets.

44 Scotland Street

“Alexander McCall Smith’s delightful Scotland Street occupies a busy, bohemian corner of Edinburgh’s New Town, where the old bourgeoisie rubs shoulders with students, poets and eccentrics.

When Pat is accepted as a new tenant at number 44 Scotland Street, she isn’t sure how long she’ll last.  Her flatmate Bruce, a rugby-playing chartered surveyor, is impossibly narcissistic, carelessly philandering and infuriatingly handsome.  Downstairs lives pretentious Irene Pollock, whose five-year-old son is in therapy after setting fire to his father’s copy of the Guardian.  And watching over them all is shrewd, intellectual Domenica Macdonald, anthropologist and sharp-eyed observer of the household’s activities…”

Published: 2005

Author:  Alexander McCall Smith (British born in Zimbabwe)

Read along with me & buy the book here!

Storyland

“Set on the banks of Lake Illawarra and spanning four centuries, Storyland is a remarkable and moving novel about who we are and our connection to this land.

Telling the stories of five very different people, Storyland weaves together a compelling narrative.  In 1796 Will Martin, a young cabin boy, goes on a daring voyage discovery with Matthew Flinders and George Bass.  In 1822 a desperate ex-convict, Hawker, commits an act of terrible brutality, and in 1900 Lola is running a dairy farm with her half brother and sister, when they come under suspicion for a crime they did not commit.  In 1998 Bel goes on a rafting adventure with her friends and is unexpectedly caught up in violent events, and in 2033 Nada sees her world start to terrifyingly collapse.  Intriguingly, all these characters are connected–not only through the land and water they inhabit, but also by tendrils of blood, history, memory and property…

Thrilling and ambitious, Storyland tells no less than the story of Australia–and it is an unforgettable, thought-provoking and powerful account for our history, our present and our future.”

Published: 2017

Author: Catherine McKinnon (Australia)

Read along with me & buy the book here!

No More Boats

“It is 2001.  438 refugees sit in a boat called Tampa off the shoreline of Australia, while the TV and radio scream out that the country is being flooded, inundated, overrun by migrants.

Antonio Martone, once a migrant himself, has been forced to retire, his wife has moved in with the woman next door, his daughter runs off with strange men, his deadbeat son is hiding in the garden smoking marijuana.  Amid his growing paranoia, the ghost of his dead friend shows up and commands him to pant ‘No More Boats’ in giant letters across his front yard.

The Prime Minister of Australia keeps telling Antonio that ‘we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come’.  Antonio’s not sure he wants to think about all the things that led him to get on a boat and come to Australia in the first place.  A man and a nation unravel together.”

Published: 2017

Author:  Felicity Castagna (Australia)

Read along with me & buy the book here!

Sagaland

“Broadcaster Richard Fidler and author Kári Gíslason are good friends.  They share a deep attachment to the sagas of Iceland–the true stories of the first Viking families who settled on that remote island in the Middle Ages.  These are the tales of blood feuds, of dangerous women, and people who are compelled to kill the ones they love the most.  The sagas are among the greatest stories ever written, but the identity of their authors is largely unknown.

Together, Richard and Kári travel across Iceland, to the places where the sagas unfolded a thousand years ago.  They cross fields, streams and fjords to immerse themselves in the folklore of this fiercely beautiful island.  And there is another mission: a gift from Kári’s Icelandic father that might connect Kári to the greatest of the saga authors.”

Published:  2017

Authors:  Richard Fidler (Australia) & Kári Gíslason (Australian-Icelandic)

Read along with me & buy the book here!

Terra Nullius

“Jacky was running.  There was no thought in his head, only an intense drive to run.  There was no sense he was getting anywhere, no plan, no destination, no future.  All he had was a sense of what was behind, what he was running from.  Jacky was running.

The Natives of the Colony are restless.  The Settles are eager to have a nation of peace, and to bring the savages into line.  Families are torn apart, re-education is enforced.  This rich land will provide for all.

This is not Australia as we know it.  This is not the Australia of our history.  This Terria Nullius is something new, but all too familiar.”

Published: 2017

Author:  Claire G. Coleman (Noongar)

Read along with me & buy the book here!